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

2018-01-29T07:48:06+00:00

Surface Book 2: 13", i7, 512GB SSD, 16GB memory

Experiencing the same issue.
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Anonymous

2018-01-29T02:58:43+00:00
Hi Indrajeet,

Sorry for the delay in responding.

Sorry to hear you are still seeing the flicker issue.

If it is the same issue i described at the beginning of this thread, the fix should have worked.

I cannot explain why it is not for you.

I don't think the order of things matters but all i did was essentially:
1. Update to Windows 10, version 1709
2. Apply any other Microsoft updates available
3. Install G-Force with latest drivers
4. Put in the registry fix i described in this thread
I didn't do anything in terms of the driver for intel, my version is this: 22.20.16.4840

In terms of updates from Microsoft, I am not expecting any. They told me at some point a fix will roll out as part of their standard updates. They would not commit to any date. So, at some point we will just get the update. In the meantime, the fix is what is available.

Hope that helps some.

-DM51
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Anonymous

2018-01-26T19:38:41+00:00

Dear DM51,

I am still facing the issue regarding the flicker. Maybe the order by which we install the drivers and change registry settings matter...?

Can you please tell me your order of operations i.e. First Intel Drivers then G-Force then registry or in another order?

I will uninstall all the drivers and will try it again. Meanwhile, have you any updates from Microsoft regarding this issue?

Also can you please tell me latest driver from intel for our device?
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Anonymous

2018-01-24T14:08:55+00:00

Hey guys,

So im on my third surface book 2 now the 13 in 512 gb. I have the flickering all along the top line of the screen. I tried the registry thing but i couldnt find it in 0000 or 0001 i had to go all the way to 0002 but it was in there and i changed it from 40 to 50. but i still have the flickering. Its the same as before. Please tell me there is a permanent fix on the way .

Hey Peter,

The issue you are concerned about is different from the one in this thread, I realized myself too after talking to this guys a bit, some of us that had the same issue created another thread. Please come here if you want more info.
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