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

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

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

2017-11-28T18:41:39+00:00
Just tried it on mine and I can see it. It's very subtle but it there is a flickering. It is specially noticeable when switching between a white and a color. I would think this is a software issue.

Hi AdrianS1031,

Thanks for confirming you are seeing this too (thanks Mas46032 as well).

One thing that would be useful is if you (and anyone who is seeing this) can take a moment if you have time to indicate what SB2 you have:
1. Do you have 13 or 15"
2. What other key options do you have (memory, SSD size, etc.).
I want to give Microsoft all relevant information I can get (since I have their attention and a ticket on this issue - see my recent response to Richard) so they can root cause and fix this everywhere asap.

Thanks,

-DM

P.S. I too suspect this is a software issue though want to be sure asap. It is interesting it is NOT seen when charging SB2, only when on Battery... This has me wondering why it would only happen in one mode vs the other. Might have thought if software it wouldn't care which but perhaps there is a check on whether on Battery or not and if Battery, thinking the display brightness needs to be calibrated or something based on bright window or dark...
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Anonymous

2017-11-28T06:05:26+00:00

Just tried it on mine and I can see it. It's very subtle but it there is a flickering. It is specially noticeable when switching between a white and a color. I would think this is a software issue.
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Anonymous

2017-11-27T23:00:06+00:00

Happy Thanksgiving to you too Dave, thank you for the update. Well about your questions, the reason why we suggest that you visit a Microsoft Store is because our tech personnel will be checking your device to know the root cause of the issue. And they can forward this to our tech engineer. Though it's a bit inconvenient to you, there's a big possibility that your issue will be resolved and they will provide you reasonable options for your device.

Please keep us updated.
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Anonymous

2017-11-25T01:37:06+00:00

Hi Dave,

Since you spoke with our Answer Desk Team. We suggest that you visit the nearest Microsoft Store or where you bought your Surface Book 2. so that our technical personnel will check your device physically and provide you options for your device. Click here to get the nearest store in your area.

Let us know the outcome.
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