Surface Pen makes screen flash black

Anonymous
2019-08-08T17:39:38+00:00

I recently purchased a Surface Go to use for in-class note taking, along with a surface pen. I have been using it for approximately 2 weeks and have noticed an issue when using the pen. Randomly, about once a day when taking notes in OneNote, when I press the pen to the screen, the screen will flash black. Oddly, this only occurs when using solid colors for the the pen and pencil. The highlighter and rainbow colors do not do this. I can fix it by restarting it, but it is an inconvenience. Any ideas what is causing it and how I can prevent it from happening in the future?

Surface | Accessories | Surface Pen

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  1. Anonymous
    2019-12-05T21:48:33+00:00

    Same issue with flickering screen. However, only happens in "Popup" Writing Window. No problem on OneNote. If I have an Epileptic episode from the Flickering there will be a law suite

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  2. Anonymous
    2019-12-09T05:34:58+00:00

    Zacharee's workaround of killing Desktop Window Manager (which is under Windows Processes in the Task Manager from Cntrl-Alt-Delete) worked for me. There was no flickering in OneNote while using a pencil after Desktop Window Manager automatically restarted.

    I also hope that Microsoft fixes the issue soon. Having to terminate Desktop Window Manager to get the flickering to stop is pretty annoying!

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  3. Anonymous
    2019-12-18T15:11:38+00:00

    I've been having the same issue with the special Windows 10 version of OneNote. OneNote 2016 works without issues.

    Supposedly, if you have this issue in 2016, you can disable hardware graphics acceleration in the advanced options, but that setting doesn't exist on the UWP version.

    For me, simply closing and reopening OneNote wasn't enough to fix it (it also happened in any other Modern app). Rebooting the computer worked, but that's a hassle. I did find a quicker workaround, though.

    Open up Task Manager and kill Desktop Window Manager. Windows will complain and all that, but once it's killed (it restarts itself automatically), my screen stops flashing.

    I really hope Microsoft fixes this...

    This fix didn't work for me.  I see it in OneNote (the store version, not 2016) and Whiteboard.  I am in the Windows Insider Program so it might be on builds such as "Windows 10 Insider Preview 19041.1"

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  4. Anonymous
    2019-12-18T19:29:11+00:00

    I reached out to Msft Support.     They worked with me to replace the driver that was causing the issue.      Unfortunately, after the flickering stopped, discovered a large "dead zone" on the screen where "touch" did not work.   Diagnosis-ed as a hardware issue and waiting for warranty claim "replacement device".

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  5. Anonymous
    2019-12-23T23:30:59+00:00

    We determined that it wasn't just the pen, but also drawing with finger or mouse with the black solid pen and the yellow highlighter.  the problem does not occur with the rainbow pen (from the drop-down list), or he pencil.  The problem is not just limited to Office apps, with the yellow highlighter in Snip & Sketch also causing flashing.

    I have a case open with Microsoft now (119112823000292).  If you have logged a case, can I please get the case number so we can link them up?

    Also, if you are having the issue, can you please report your device model, display adapter model and driver version, as well as Operating System, so we can get a better picture of what it is, and what it isn't?

    For us, we are having the issue on Surface Pro 7 (Iris Plus graphics), version 25.20.100.7101 (and I also tried 26.20.100.7584 from the Intel site), running on windows 10 64-bit, version 1909.

    As a troubleshooting step, the support rep got us to downgrade to the Microsoft Basic Display Adapter (by uninstalling the device and deleting the drivers).  That made it work.

    We also had failures watching videos in YouTube in Edge: "An error occurred. Please try again later", which was resolved by reverting back to the Microsoft Basic Display Adapter.    There is definitely something wrong with this driver.

    It's not an interaction with other non-Microsoft software, as it persists with a clean boot (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/929135/how-to-perform-a-clean-boot-in-windows).

    We are not experiencing the issue on a Surface Pro 5 running Windows 10 1909 with Intel HD Graphics 620 drivers (both versions 25.20.100.6472 or 25.20.100.7101)

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