Surface Book 2 screen flicker issue

Anonymous
2017-11-20T22:26:35+00:00

Hi,

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

  1. You have to be using battery only, will not happen when charging SB2
  2. You have to have brightness below say 35 or 40% - harder to see when brighter though still seems to me to be there
  3. 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:

  1. 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...
  2. 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

Surface | Surface Book | Display and screen

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Anonymous
2017-12-20T04:47:02+00:00

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:

  1. Open up Regedit (to edit registry)
  2. Backup your registry before making the change - Once in Regedit, Right-Click on Computer, then Export to backup file, can put on desktop...
  3. 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.

  1. 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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  1. Anonymous
    2018-10-06T04:16:47+00:00

    Hi LinWang3,

    No bother at all and believe me, I understand your frustration... I do have good news but cannot be 100% sure it will help you, read on:

    Interestingly, I was planning to post this weekend due to an issue I ran into yesterday and the fix I obtained last night (which might help you and others who have NOT been able to eliminate the issue). My only concern with you is that you see the flickering while charging, that sounds like it might be different? But to determine this for sure, have a look at what I did here...

    So, I do have a significant update for anyone having the flicker issue i described in this thread that has not been able to get rid of it. It is as follows:

    Yesterday, I updated to Windows version 1809 which was just released a couple of days ago. At the same time a number of other updates happened (which I think I could have done before but hadn't - including some Intel updates, etc.). I don't know if it was the 1809 update or the other updates in conjunction with this but after I finished, the flickering came back. So, I thought, no problem, I will go into registry and do the edit I had in this thread that would fix it. However, when I went into registry entry 0001 (if you refer to my fix), the FeatureTestControl entry was not there. Started to get nervous things changed and I might not be able to fix again. Then I went to the entry 0000 (as mentioned in my same fix in this thread) and FeatureTestControl entry was there and was set to 0x9240, so I changed it to 0x9250. Bad news, it did NOT work and the flickering remained. Needless to say I was very disappointed. Now I was thinking that some update other than 1809 did it since others have said that my registry fix wasn't working for them (and perhaps they had done one of the updates that wasn't 1809 which I only did when I did 1809)… Now very concerned and thinking I might have to live with it... A horrible thought...

    So, I tried to reach the Microsoft engineer that helped me before and couldn't get to him. Ok, I figured, I would have to start all over with someone and what a pain that might be. Anyway, last night I contacted support and worked with them for a couple hours (sharing the history, etc.) and I must say their support was nothing short of outstanding! We worked it reasonably quickly in my mind. I was hoping we could just find the right entry where I would find and change the setting of FeatureTestControland disable the Display Power Saving Technology (as before). Good news is this was NOT needed... 

    So, the even better news is I got a PERMANENT fix for this issue. 

    Again, my concern in your case, is that this fix might not work for you because you say you see it when charging too - I never saw this... But let's have you try this and see (if you want to).

    Nevertheless, here is what I had to do:

    1. No more registry edits... Good news.
    2. After updating to 1809 and any other updates that were listed was complete (you will need to decide if you want to do these updates if you haven't) I had only TWO MORE STEPs to get this permanently fixed. First, it turns out that my Intel Graphics driver (even after all updates were complete) was out of date. You can get the latest driver here:

    https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/28180/Intel-Graphics-Driver-for-Windows-10?product=126789

    On the left side of the above links page, I installed the driver for 64bit (win64_25.20.100.6323.zip).

    This driver had the Intel Control Panel which is what is needed to disable the Display Power Saving Technology which is what is causing this flicker. The registry setting I provided in the past was also disabling this. Now, we can do it through the control panel easily. After you install the above driver (not sure if you have to have 1809 and all the updates but just telling you what I did), when you right->click on your screen background, you should see a new entry in menu pick called: Intel Graphics Settings. Click on that and this brings up the control panel for the Intel Graphics. Once there, you want to selectPower at the bottom right of control panel. On this next screen, you will see "Display Power Saving Technology." This is enabled by default. You want to disable this.

    Once I did this, no need to reboot or anything, NO MORE FLICKERING...  :)    DONE!!!!

    Needless to say I was ecstatic and planned to share this as mentioned, so your timing is impeccable. 

    So, I would try this first and if it works for your problem GREAT. Do let me know.

    If it doesn't, there are other settings you can play with that might have an effect on your issue in this Intel Graphics control panel, you could try others too but try the above first. 

    My sense is that if you cannot get this to work after this, you might want to take it into the local Microsoft store and show them as your issue would be different if the above doesnt fix it. Though I am really hoping this does it for you like it did for me.

    If there are any questions, don't hesitate to ask.

    Let me know how it goes.

    Thanks,

    -DM51

    P.S.  Excellent support I received from Microsoft with this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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  2. Anonymous
    2017-11-23T06:28:31+00:00

    I am seeing this as well. In my case it only flickers about 5 or 6 times.

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  3. Anonymous
    2017-11-21T21:30:44+00:00

    Yep same club (incoming flickergate) :O, sorry couldn't resist.  I am concerned a little bit since its a new design.

    It is really defined when using Visual Studio in dark theme... I was going to give a few days from when I received it to see if MS comings up with a solution, I am pretty sure its a driver (related to Intel 620 graphics chipset) related issue.

    :) 

    Thanks MV for confirmation on you seeing it as well.

    Yes, I am hoping/expecting it is driver related too.

    It is pretty subtle overall but a bit of an annoyance.

    Otherwise, this SB2 is quite the machine! Enjoying it!

    Thanks again,

    -DM

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  4. Anonymous
    2017-11-20T23:30:09+00:00

    Yep same club (incoming flickergate) :O, sorry couldn't resist.  I am concerned a little bit since its a new design.

    It is really defined when using Visual Studio in dark theme... I was going to give a few days from when I received it to see if MS comings up with a solution, I am pretty sure its a driver (related to Intel 620 graphics chipset) related issue.

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