Surface Pro 4, Screen Flickering, Shaking

Well done! that is a big step in the right direction.

Cheers from Bangkok

The Register, a UK based publication has covered the issue in an aggressive story against Microsoft. They have asked MS to comment on it and are waiting for a hear back. 

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/02/01/microsoft_q2_fy2018_surface_pro/

I got my faulty flickering SP4 replaced. Guess what, just barely 3 weeks of functioning normally, the replacement unit started to show sign of flickering issue again. The symptom is slightly different, but I suspect it has the same root cause.

The problem started yesterday evening, with the suspicious 2-3 thin dark lines cluster together running across horizontally  near the top of the screen. My previous SP4 has the same thin lines appearing together with flickering below the lines. But this time, there is no flickering below the lines. However, the entire screen area below the lines appear much darker as if it is covered by a semi-transparent grey color screen protector, even with the brightness adjusted to 100%. And a while later, the middle of the screen start flickering in brightness as if some backlight LEDs are turning on and off rapidly. The image remains stable unlike my previous SP4. However, this brightness flickering can also be stopped by any screen update such as mouse cursor movement. I have since turned on the clock second in the task bar, but I am not confident this temporary fix will last based on previous experience. This usually is the sign of much worse to come, it will soon escalate to the extend that any screen image update becomes useless. 

However, there is also a new symptom on my replacement unit. Together with the brightness flickering, some images on the screen becomes permanently etched to the screen and superimpose on whatever is shown. It is as if the video memory buffer can't be refreshed. 

Very frustrating with Microsoft, they don't even have the honesty to offer any advice or any acknowledgement over this issue in this forum thread, even though it has become one of the largest.  

I am thinking of getting an Acer Switch 7, or Lenovo Carbon X1 tablet, as the 2-in-1 form factor works for me. I will never go back to Microsoft anymore, ever (I have also dropped the plan to purchase X-Box). I guess Microsoft probably does not care even if all customers boycott their Surface products, as they likely are never interested in this hardware business but just to prove there is a market interest in such design, then leave other manufacturers to produce such 2-in-1 for them as they will all be running the new Windows operating system anyway. Software monopoly is where the money is. There is absolutely no justice and fairness at all.

I also had a Sony Vaio.  Out of warranty the screen delaminated, I paid €560 for a replacement screen and 9 months later it started to delaminate again and they wouldn't replace it for free so I went out and bought a Surface Pro 4.  Sure enough, the screen started vibrating outside warranty and I found this site.  Fortunately, the trick of putting the seconds on the task bar works for me, maybe because I am retired and I don't use the computer in a very heavy manner.  Fingers crossed it continues to keep the vibration at bay.