Surface Pro 4, Screen Flickering, Shaking

I too do not believe it to be a temperature issue unless the damage has been done during a previous session when the system has become too hot and damaged a component related to the screen. I now get judder whenever i switch the system on, right now I am only running google chrome and nothing more so the system is under very little load. I think we've all established its noting to do with Windows itself and more to do with firmware as the judder will sometimes show when you load into the bios. Strangely though the issue did not occur for a day following the last firmware update only return the next time I switched the system on.

I really wish Microsoft would clearly state what the issue is and what we can do to fix it. £400 to replace the system only to have the issue arise once more is not a viable option, has anyone paid the £29 to speak to the support team? If so did they say anything other than the usual BS that we've now all done a few hundred times?

I second this. I don't think it's a temperature problem either, considering that I first got the issue while I was writing my thesis and reading research papers; no computationally intensive task was being performed. Plus, it's winter here. If it's anything temperature-related, the only thing I could think of is the wear-and-tear of whatever display controller IC the Surface Pro 4 has due to thermal cycling after months/years of ownership. In which case, that points to very poor quality control on Microsoft's part. Regardless, I still think the problem is related to how the firmware is handling Panel Self Refresh, given that jittering only starts when nothing moves on screen. Not to mention, it even happens on the UEFI screen.

As far as I can tell we have 2 workarounds to avoid the issue while Microsoft comes up with a proper fix:

• The little app I wrote (available here: https://github.com/nicodeslandes/FlashingWindow/releases), which simulates some activity on the screen
• Turning on the seconds display on the clock in the taskbar

Both workarounds are working for me to stop the jittering on the Surface screen.

Is that just temporary? Do these workarounds fail to work after a while?

I wish it was that easy, but it's not only about screen idling, that's one of behaviors you will eventually bump into another more annoying instance.

When the flickering is caused when the screen is idle, it can be mitigated having anything update the screen, that's great.

But there is another inverted instance that only happens when the display is active, it's almost the exact opposite of the idle flickering.

When this happens, when the display is idle, everything is fine, but as soon as something changes, the screen starts flickering, and it only stops when the screen stops updating, I normally minimize everything, in about two seconds, the flickering stops.. but then as soon as I even move the mouse... the flickering starts.

This is even worse because even watching videos makes everything flicker.

I am really disappointed, and as others have mentioned, I am reluctant to send my device to get another one, as I am out of the US, and I am afraid I would get another device that would have the same problem, eventually.