Surface Pro 9 Screen Flickers/Scramble

Anonymous
2022-11-15T03:50:01+00:00

Hello,

I am facing a very weird issue with my Surface Pro 9 Screen. I have been getting tiny flickering / screen scramble, extremely randomly, maybe once in 5-6 hours. I have tried contacting the support but I do not think I have been given any proper solution and it's annoying. Rather, I have been asked to do the impossible task of getting a video recording of this phenomena. I can't be staying without a device especially considering my workload as a graduate student and I have been consistently dealing with unreliability. And I also can not be dealing with this non sense of wasting my whole day recording the screen for a random lucky chance of observing the flicker.

Anyway, the issue is that I am worried about the long term health of my screen. As of now, there is no inconvenience caused by these flickers because they happen for about < 1s and once in 5-6 hours on average. But I am extremely worried about the long run. I don't want to be wasting my time sending this device for repairs for issues that should not have arise in the first place. Is there any reliable fix for this situation?

I have tried disabling or changing graphic settings and I have tried all the default steps of updating/reinstalling drivers. I have also kept my surface pro to default setting as much as possible without any modification.

I'd also like to know if it's just possible to get this device replaced? I am still under 1 month period from the date of arrival of this product. Although, I am unable to see any return option which is also distressing me.

Overall, I am extremely worried about how it will pan out in the long run. I absolutely do not want to be wasting my time over this. Please help.

Surface | Surface Pro | Display and screen

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  1. Anonymous
    2023-01-25T23:43:13+00:00

    Same issue here, brand new Surface Pro 9.

    Screen just glitches for a very short period of time during web browsing or youtube, it's impossible to replicate or establish a pattern due to the random nature of the problem.

    I am fearful this is a hardware or panel issue.

    If this is true we're in trouble as generally manufacturers facing such fundamental issues will generally try to muzzle/skirt around the real problems (typically costly) for months on end citing different reasons like "sample not representative enough".

    Microsoft - it's time you step up and release an acknowledgement of the situation, don't sit and wait for our product warranties to drain away and return windows to close.

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  2. Anonymous
    2023-02-05T15:15:35+00:00

    I did some more testing and am close to giving up that there will be a fix very soon...

    Short summary, the screen tears, flickering, scrambling, display errors happen randomly and cannot be directly forced. Apparently, when deinstalling the Intel Xe Iris driver all the flickerings etc are gone, but also all screen adjustment features, eg 120Hz, HDR, night time, adaptive lighting etc. They are happening more often whenever there is more going on on the screen, eg youtube/netflix videos, lighting change effects and animations albei still random.

    I did not find any way to reproduce them reliably and the shape and coloring of the screen flickers, tears and scrambles is also not always the same.

    I tried recording the flickers with a screen recording software. I figured out that the flickers are appearing on the physical screen but apparently not on the video recordings! Not a single video I took had flickers in them and I took like ten with personally confirmed flickers. The only other explanation I could come up with, is that the flickers hide on frames that weren't recorded, ie I recorded with less than 120Hz. (I will try to repead the flickers on lower Hz and try to record everything frame perfect but statistics already tells me that it is suspicious that not a single flickering was recorded properly despite having a large sample size...).

    I would really like that MS would acknowledge the issue and would have a look themselves what is going on on the affected devices. It might not be MS fault but Intels considering it apparently only happens when the official Intel driver is installed and not when the MS backup driver is used.

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  3. Anonymous
    2023-02-05T15:36:39+00:00

    I would try recording with smartphone of the physical screen, using software may prevent the appearance.

    Its probably just a driver bug if you can't reproduce without the Intel drivers. New electronic products these days unfortunately are buggy (and complex) and the general public have become QA testers. Companies seem to have offloaded testing to the public in lieu for getting products out the door.

    The weird thing is, is this an issue across all sp9s? I haven't seen much evidence aside from here in these forums and nowhere else on other social media complaining of the issue. Is there a compilation all of the complaints so we can share with MS support how widely an issue this is some can have them address?

    I've got a core i7 graphite 16/256 model.

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  4. Anonymous
    2023-02-06T08:22:22+00:00

    Using the Intel Driver & Support Assistant there has been 2 new updates for Iris Graphics Drivers the past 2 days and also a new update to Intel Display via Windows Update earlier today. Let's see if this results in any difference because the issue is now starting to get a little annoying if I'm being honest.

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  5. Anonymous
    2023-02-06T21:41:36+00:00

    As suggested (by Microsoft MVP) in the thread I created, I have opened up a feedback hub item. Please upvote to indicate you have the same problem and provide more info if needed: https://aka.ms/AAjhig7

    I don't see any display driver updates on my Windows update...

    I'm still on 30.0.101.3118 dated Aug 2022.

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