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

2017-12-01T10:03:16+00:00

I'm not totally convinced about the frame buffer diagnosis. My, fairly recent, problem is still mostly limited to a vertical jitter of 1 - 2 or sometimes 3 mm - enough to be extremely annoying and to render the screen hard to read (for which reason I'm currently using an old display as 2nd screen). It's clear, though, that the display contents don't change, they only move up and down. So the frame buffer contents are NOT being corrupted. It doesn't seem very likely that the frame buffer contents would move up and down an exact number of screen lines. It could still be a frame buffer problem, but then surely one of synchronisation, not of corruption. Also, my jitter does NOT go away when the screen is updated - even with a total screen refresh (a new full screen window) the jitter is still there. It does go away from time to time, but never for very long.

PS. I've tried the vacuum cleaner trick; it doesn't work for me. My machine is more or less permanently on but never overloaded and and I haven't yeard the fan for months, though the machine doesn't seem to get particularly warm...
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Anonymous

2017-12-01T02:45:59+00:00

a great lesson in sp4 framebuffers and

we are so relieved that the new sp2017 has -- maybe and perhaps -- fixed the flaw!

unfortunately, for many of us, it is a bit too late, too vague, too iffy...

time to move on.

I'm fairly sure i've seen nSP users with the same issue...
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Anonymous

2017-12-01T02:03:49+00:00

a great lesson in sp4 framebuffers and

we are so relieved that the new sp2017 has -- maybe and perhaps -- fixed the flaw!

unfortunately, for many of us, it is a bit too late, too vague, too iffy...

time to move on.
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Anonymous

2017-11-30T22:21:14+00:00

The SP4 has two video framebuffers!

The first one is the primary one, which is where the GPU writes the displayed screen image. This first framebuffer is also used when an external monitor is connected.

The SP4's screen module has another, it's own framebuffer. This second one is updated by the first one when something in the first framebuffer has changed.

As the SP4's screen is continuous updated (60Hz) from the second framebuffer, the GPU can safely go into some sleep state to save energy when nothing changes on the screen. This is called 'Panel Self Refresh'. As soon as some program writes onto the screen, the GPU is becoming active, updates the first video framebuffer and sends it to the second screen framebuffer so you can see it.

Any errors present in the second framebuffer, caused by heat damage, are then overwritten by correct values. That is the reason the flicker stops when you move the mouse or the seconds in the taskbar clock advance.

I've looked at photo's of the backs of the screen modules of the SP4 and SP2017 on www.ifixit.com, and seen that both are different! This means that hopefully Microsoft was aware of our flicker problem and changed the design of the screen module of the newer SP2017. We need more info about the SP's screen panel modules and the position of the components on it.
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