Surface Pro 4, Screen Flickering, Shaking

Anonymous

Hi All,

Update: Flickergate is now having a forum to bring all affected users at a single platform to plan for resolvement of issue. Please join at

https://forum.flickergate.com

UPDATE: Check FlickerGate.com for videos of the problem and to submit your own.

I purchased SP4 device a few months ago and it was working fine for a month. Then I noticed that when the CPU is at its max, the screen flickers a bit. Investigating further revealed that it flickers even if it is setting idle. It does not flicker if at least one of the following thing is done:

A video being played in browser
If I keep the touch screen busy by either taping it or keeping a finger on it
If I use the touchpad
If keyboard is used for typing

This resulted in making the device completely unusable while reading articles or ebooks. I am a developer, most of the time I have to read the code and to do that, I have to constantly keep a finger on the touch pad or the screen. I contacted surface support in October and November and was told that the developers are working on the patch. Looking at the updates the developers are pushing since then, I don't think anyone is even aware of the problem there.

My previous support ticket numbers are:

***deleted personally identifiable information***

Just wondering if anyone else had the same problem (and the fix) and if not, what's the procedure for the refund? I will rather go for a mac then sacrificing $2000+ for a dancing screen.

Kind Regards,

Abbas

***Personal information deleted by the moderator. Please see the Microsoft Community Frequently Asked Questions for more information on how you can protect your privacy.***

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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Anonymous

Hey Everyone,

Creating the best products and experiences for our customers is our top priority.

We have heard your feedback and after careful examination, have determined that a small percentage of Surface Pro 4 devices are exhibiting a screen flicker that cannot be addressed with a firmware or driver update.

To support customers affected by this issue, we will replace eligible Surface Pro 4 devices for up to three years from the date of purchase, free of charge. If you believe your device is experiencing this issue, please visit our Surface Pro 4 screen flicker article for more details.

Bryan [MSFT]

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2,779 additional answers

Anonymous

2017-08-07T18:42:46+00:00

It is a Microsoft program to introduce some features previous the official update. It is like a public test program.

"Windows 10 Insider Preview and Windows 10 Mobile Insider Preview1

Installing Insider Preview builds is a great way to explore new Windows features, provide feedback and help shape future releases.

Like any pre-release software, you may encounter bugs and other issues along the way. For this reason, Preview builds are made for people who know their way around a PC or device and don’t mind frequent updates with significant changes."

More information, you can access https://insider.windows.com
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Anonymous

2017-08-08T03:03:01+00:00

Interesting.

This has happened to me on two occasions. The first was when I had my phone charging through the USB port on the brick a while back and the second just now. It was cold and had a half charge with both the resolution and text scaling at 200%. What struck me was the other setting - Change brightness automatically when lighting changes. I realized I was sitting in a darkish room with edge lighting and so I unchecked, and voila. Also, devs like to work in sub-optimal lighting, so this may also be a contributory factor.

Hope this helps.
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Anonymous

2017-08-08T11:00:30+00:00

Hello all. I also suffer from this and may have found a "workaround".

Not sure if it applies to everyone.

The shaking starts for me when the surface starts using more system resources.

The shaking stops for me when I move the mouse. Is this similar for anyone else?

It also stops when I have something moving on screen, be it a movie, or something small like the loading spinner animation on a chrome tab.

Since I don't have time to do a reinstall, I've just been playing a movie in the background in a small window but was going to try and find a taskbar widget that constantly moves, like the google drive icon when actively syncing.

Something else I've found is that the shaking started moving at around 1mm vertically. When I run a mouse mover application it seems to get worse. up to about 5mms. Not sure if anyone else is using a mouse mover? (I use mine to maintain sessions which required interface movement)

Would be interested to see if this works for anyone else, or if anyone has a taskbar widget that would work?
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Anonymous

2017-08-08T12:30:46+00:00
I have the same problem, the screen is flickering when its idle (i don't touch anything screen keybord mouse etc) and i noticed that the flickers stopped when
1. i open task manager
2. i open windows store and open downloads and updates
3. i click check for updates in windows updates (it's not flickering while checking but its start flickering again after finished)
I also noticed that the flickers get intense when the device gets warm.

Edit: Turns out its not because i opened those things, its stopped flickering when something is moving on the screen, for example download bar, Task manager with constantly changing numbers on the percentage, and when the time changing (i literally wait for the minute to change) it stops for a while. But it start flickering again when there is absolutely nothing move on the screen.
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