Surface Book 2 screen flicker issue

Anonymous

Hi,

I have the 15" SB2 and am experiencing a screen flicker issue. Here are the details:

You have to be using battery only, will not happen when charging SB2
You have to have brightness below say 35 or 40% - harder to see when brighter though still seems to me to be there
They way to reproduce this is as follows:

a. Choose a solid background - I used the "Cool Blue" solid color.

b. Have a window with a lot of WHITE background available

c. With nothing open, just desktop background with solid color, open window with a lot of WHITE background

d. Look at the white area and do you see flickering?

e. Looking closely at this, if you see it, you can see there is a stepping function of some sort that goes about 10 times getting slightly brighter each time/flicker. After the 10th or so time, it stabilizes and stops.

f. Next, if you close the window and go back to just the solid background, you see it do a similar flicker and you can see it step back down in brightness about 10 times and again stabilizes/stops.

I did call Microsoft yesterday about this and they had two 15" models and saw this on both and said it shouldn't do this and there would be a fix for this coming.

My reason for posting this is I have two questions:

Microsoft, can you tell me when this will be fixed and how I can find out about the fix? I am assuming it will be a software fix? I forgot to ask this...
Is everyone seeing this or just a good number of SB2's?

Obviously, I just got this SB2 and if everyone is seeing it, I am less concerned as I expect a fix will be coming. However, if there are only a few SB2's seeing this, I am wondering if I should return it and get a new one as perhaps it might be just a couple SB2's.

Thanks!

-DM

-Dave

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Anonymous

Hi,

I have a significant update:

Over the past couple of weeks I have been working with Microsoft Tech Support (who was interfacing with MS Engineering). Today, I spent some time with tech support testing out a possible fix for this issue. I am VERY PLEASED to report, it appears they have given me a fix that WORKS!!!!!

The fix is a very simple registry setting. I have been playing with things since making the change and have not seen the issue anymore...

This clearly works with Surface Book 2. I don't know if it will work for other surface devices but if you have this registry entry, you can try making the change. The step to fix is as follows:

Open up Regedit (to edit registry)
Backup your registry before making the change - Once in Regedit, Right-Click on Computer, then Export to backup file, can put on desktop...
In the image below, it shows you where the registry entry is. You need to find this, locate the "FeatureTestControl" entry where the image shows you to find it. The value for FeatureTestControl should show: 0x00009240. Right-Click on this entry and modify binary, change the 40 to 50. Then exit registry.

Note, as indicated on left side, I had to select 0001. If for some reason you don't see FeatureTraceControl there, you could check 0000 just above 0001. Again, I saw it at entry 0000.

Once you have exited registry, Reboot system

Again, this worked for me and hopefully for you.

Let me know if this works for you.

Thanks,

DM51

P.S. Great work by Microsoft getting this resolved!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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116 additional answers

Anonymous

2018-01-06T02:34:26+00:00

Hi Pedro,

Yes, i am not surprised you are seeing on SB1.

As reported earlier in this thread, we think it is likely with all Surface Books, perhaps all Surface Pro's and maybe even the laptops.

However, we do have a fix now that appears to be 100% successful in resolving the issue (see other posts i provided in the thread).

Microsoft is also working on permanent fix too though we don't know when that will be released.

Hope that helps.

-DM51
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Anonymous

2018-01-05T10:55:20+00:00

Glad to see this is getting somewhere.

I would like to point out that this issue is also present on SB1. I tested it in various units and all of them showed the same problem.

I think it is also related to another common issue where you can see a flickering line on the top border of the screen when using applications like chrome or edge and the SB is on battery only.

I hope that Microsoft addresses this soon. It is very frustrating to invest in a high product only to see such problems that should never have made it to the final product and still exists after more than one year.
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Anonymous

2018-01-03T02:51:38+00:00
Hi Indrajeet,

Glad to hear the fix worked very well for you too, you are welcome.

I did just now try Mindhunter on Netflix with different brightness settings. and subtitles on.

I don't see any flickering effects or anything abnormal that i detect.

I would recommend a couple things:
1. Make sure you have all the updates installed
2. In addition, not sure if you loaded GEFORCE Experience but if you have, you might ensure you have latest driver loaded. The latest as i have it is: Version 388.71
Note, the fix i provided fixes the issue 100% for me and sounds like others too. I don't see the issue anymore with any settings or applications.

If my two suggestions don't help, i wonder if you might be seeing something different for an issue? Again, i am wondering this since the problem is 100% fixed for me.

It might make sense to open a separate thread if my suggestions don't work in case this is a different issue. Just a thought.

In terms of the permanent update for the fix, yes, Microsoft said they will provide a permanent fix at some point but could not commit to a date.

Hope that helps.

-DM51
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Anonymous

2018-01-02T04:37:46+00:00

Dear Dave,

I just tried the solution in the thread of altering the registry. It really solves the problem !!! (Not permanently though - it occurs randomly but with lot less frequency (2/10) 2hich was originally (8/10) )Your efforts has helped us a lot. As a Master's student in CS, I will say this - you have perfectly engineered the problem, really appreciate it.

As I have mentioned above - If we enable the subtitles the problem still persists, I guess if this input can help you..

So as you mentioned We will be getting a permanent update from Microsoft ? Also can you please simulate a Netflix video play with subtitles on ? Once again thank you very much for your help. And can I help in any way to solve the problem alongside with you ?

Thanks & Regards,

Indrajeet Vidhate.
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