Surface Pro 4, Screen Flickering, Shaking

They didn't stress the SP4 enough, during their quality control, I guess and it sucks. There shouldn't be a i7 version then and they certainly shouldn't be advertising it as an AutoCAD and Photoshop machine. A medium sized 3D model in AutoCAD makes the PC run hot. I use Bitwig Studio because I love music and using it with about 15 tracks with some plugins stresses the SP4 a lot. That's why I bought a 8GB RAM, 256 GB SD, Core i7. 1600$ wasted in a 1.5years.

Now I can't push the SP the way I need because it flicks even with the seconds in the clock running. If I turn off the taskbar the shaking starts automatically after seconds of not doing anything with the SP cool as ice. In the end, it's getting worse and without an answer, I feel cheated.

I'm Bolivian citizen, 30 years old, civil engineer and I've been using windows since 95. I bought the SP4 because I believed that this tablet could replace my laptop and It did while it was working but now I can't push it and I'm stuck with a 1600 $ Facebook machine. I used my hard earned money and this is my only device. Microsoft should be ashamed!  They must give us a definitive answer, I'll help them, they can say something like this. "The SP4 has hardware issues and If your warranty is expired, you should be looking to buy another PC" That's it!, then I can start saving again to buy something else and stop suggesting this product to people I love.

I tried to spread this issue in mspoweruser and windowscentral because some people are looking to buy second hand SP4s because of the new SP, but no one seemed to care and I even got downvoted a lot in WC. Guess they will have to experience this issue themselves. 

I'm praying for Revit and at least one good structural analysis software to be available on mac and I'll be all in on a MacBook Pro.

I'll be silently reading this forum but my hopes are gone.

Good Luck to everyone!

Yeah, it is a concern that their answers are almost robot like and only big MS stores answer to the  issue with brand new devices. Very bad on MS's part to treat us like that. First and Last surface purchase, I'll sell this device ASAP. Wont be keeping it. As for the Drivers, thanks for the answer. And yeah throttling the CPU diminshed the issue greatly. Sadly my SP4 has already been sent to the US. I will make a thorough examination of the device when i get it back, if  it seems a refurb I will keep you posted. If it is brand new, I will sell it at a loss and be rid of this. I own 2 Ipad pro's, several laptops and 2 desktops and only THIS device has had so many issues. For the record, my FIRST type cover for this device was also exchanged since a whole row of keys didnt work. So it is 2 out of 2 MS hardware products that failed in less than 1 year of use for me. 

I might be willing to overlook this many issues if their warranty was of global coverage. Asus, HP, Lenovo, Dell, Apple, Samsung, Toshiba and even MSI have warranties that can be claimed from Mexico.

Hey Max, yeah my driver version is the same as yours and I noticed that the flickering came back after many hours but it wasn't as bad as usual.

I've tried setting the maximum processor frequency to 78% and now I've my brightness up and I've been on my sp4 for 5 hours and there's no flickering.

I'll leave it running for a day and see how this rolls.

I hope this workaround pays off coz this is getting really frustrating and Microsoft is treating us like a bunch of witless crowd giving us some silly broken records to chew on while leaving us hovering there clueless!

it's really annoying!

I have just sent my device to be replaced by MS. I live in Mexico, and they dont pick up stuff in here. So i am paying the border Tax on this device because i have no way to explain to border people that the device is going for return as a temporal exportation for repair. The sole HASSLE of that is incredible. Microsoft, even APPLE picks up faulty products on Mexico, move up your game. Even with my warranty still in, I am going to shell out 200$ Dollars worth of shipping and border taxes to get the device to the US. if you WONT pay for the shipping to a repair center, you should at least provide a receipt for comercial value and a repair ORDER properly so we can mail this internationally without paying exportation fees. since all i got for my device was a pair of FEDEX labels for shipping within US territory, this is borderline unacceptable. I support the idea of going to mass media and pressure MS to improve both their communication with a clear hardware issue, and their warranty service. 

On the person who "almost" dissapeared the issue by throttling down the CPU to 78%, my problem first appeared after pushing the device a lot: I had a game in the background, and i alt tabbed into Edge and stayed that way for about one hour. Fans were full throttle obviously, but my device never slowed down or felt sluggish. Suddenly it started flickering. i had pushed the device PLENTY (prolonged gaming sessions in Galactic Civilizations 3, Grim Dawn, AOE2, AOM) before that, but it may have been i finally pushed the device too far and forced it to its throttle max. after that it was never the same. i SUSPECT that if you never psuh the device to its limits, this issue is unlikely to appear. I think it is hardware related because it is clearly a wear and tear on SP4´s that are actually doing taxing tasks. People who use intensive apps or game on the device are primarly affecting for pushing the device. ****, it might even be that we burnt the CPU/GPU into an irreparable state and will have to permanently throttle down the CPU's to a point they dont overheat. Fun faCT: A previous laptop of mine had heating issues. That thing´s GPU reached 114°C BEFORE shutting down. and ignorant as i was, that thing heat-shutdown over 10 times. 10 times it reached the ungodly 114°C of the emergency treshold for shutdown. After servicing the equipment myself it never overheated and peaked at 84°C. It went on to work flawlessly for me for anther 6 years. CPU's have a much lower tolerance for heat, fact. But IMO the CPU obviously isnt being able to vent enough heat. So, someone made an engineering mistake: the CPU's are either not properly being monitored for overheating before permanent damage, with a preventive shutdown of the device, or someone deliberately pushed the bounds of the CPU and disabled emergency heat shutdowns that would appear otherwise. Smart option: if damage is evident, downthrottle the device to stop permanent CPU damage. Nothing else makes sense. Electromigrating our CPUs into oblivion. Ha! I dont know if 8 months of 'rough' usage is enough to damage a CPU like that, but heat effectively reduces a devices life cycle. I will contradict myself saying that almost all modern CPU have internal safeguards to avoid ALL heat damage. But given how custom this hardware is, it might simply be a matter of engineering failure, and i wouldnt be surprised the custom cooling solutions on this SP4's can't deliver the needed performance. 

Also, i live in a hot as **** enviroment. Over 40°C during day. Room of use is usually 25-28°C or below.

Edit: M3 versions are also suffering this without fans. Well, could still be the heat...