Surface Pro 7 flickers with every external monitor

Anonymous
2019-12-19T15:19:53+00:00

When I connect an external display while the Surface is already turned on, the external display is flickering. When I restart the Surface with the external monitor already attached everything works fine. Disconnecting the Surface then and reconnecting

  • same problem. The flickering appears with different monitors, different cables and with different connectors (Surface Dock or USB-C). I have the 16 GB, i7 Version of the Surface 7 with an up to date OS.
Surface | Surface Pro | Display and screen

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  1. Anonymous
    2020-01-17T03:10:12+00:00

    Thanks for sharing this.... I haven't used another monitor but have the screen flickering on my actual surface pro 7 screen... It flickers across the top left part of the screen and I bought this only 6 weeks ago. Does your regular screen do the flickering when it isn't hooked up to a monitor?

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-01-17T09:51:54+00:00

    Does your regular screen do the flickering when it isn't hooked up to a monitor?

    You mean the regular surface screen? No, it doesn't. I did experience "flickergate" (Google it to find the site) however, and Microsoft solved that by providing me with a refurbished Surface Pro 4.

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  3. Anonymous
    2020-01-17T10:14:31+00:00

    My issue is solved!

    When all else had failed, MS Support asked if I was able to test my issue in a store that sells Surface devices, and fortunately I was. The store was kind enough to let me test all my setups and I tested these three scenario's:

    1. attach a new Surface Pro 7 via Docking station, using mini-DP connection to my BenQ 2420 monitor. This immediately caused the flickering issue
    2. attach my current Surface Pro 7 via Docking station, using mini-DP connection to a new in-store HP Pavilion QHD monitor. No flickering! So this meant conclusively that it was my configuration that was at fault.
    3. now I tried to hook up my Surface via Docking station, using an "active" ** HDMI -> mini-DP adapter to connect to my monitor with an HDMI cable. No flickering + high (2560 x 1440) resolution!

    Hopefully this will help some of you achieve a working configuration.

    Thank you, Microsoft Support for sticking with me on this issue!

    ** I had tried to use a normal ("passive") HDMI -> mini-DP connector before, and this gave me a non-flickering display, but the resolution maxed out at 1920 x 1080, so this did not give me my preferred situation.

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  4. Anonymous
    2020-01-17T10:29:09+00:00

    My issue is solved!

    When all else had failed, MS Support asked if I was able to test my issue in a store that sells Surface devices, and fortunately I was. The store was kind enough to let me test all my setups and I tested these three scenario's:

    1. attach a new Surface Pro 7 via Docking station, using mini-DP connection to my BenQ 2420 monitor. This immediately caused the flickering issue
    2. attach my current Surface Pro 7 via Docking station, using mini-DP connection to a new in-store HP Pavilion QHD monitor. No flickering! So this meant conclusively that it was my configuration that was at fault.
    3. now I tried to hook up my Surface via Docking station, using an "active" ** HDMI -> mini-DP adapter to connect to my monitor with an HDMI cable. No flickering + high (2560 x 1440) resolution!

    Hopefully this will help some of you achieve a working configuration.

    Thank you, Microsoft Support for sticking with me on this issue!

    ** I had tried to use a normal ("passive") HDMI -> mini-DP connector before, and this gave me a non-flickering display, but the resolution maxed out at 1920 x 1080, so this did not give me my preferred situation.

    Congrats, mate! But I think your (former) problem is different than mine. I can solve the flickering issue myself with restarting the Surface Pro 7 while the monitor is connected. So I'm assuming it is not a hardware problem in my case.

    Regarding the flickering itself: In my case it is mostly a distortion in a small area on the monitor (eyery time a different area) followed by a complete screen blackout for 2-3 sec at irregular intervals.

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  5. Anonymous
    2020-01-22T22:58:13+00:00

    I am having the same issues! Sometimes one screen goes black, sometimes both go black. then I get random distortion sometimes, little vertical flickering. I had no issues with my Surface pro 5. I thought this update would be seamless. I have double the issues i had previously (My surface also suffers from losing wifi connection periodically. I swear it even affects devices around it that are using wifi -- sounds crazy, i know, but i never had these issues!!) 

    Please we need an updated GPU driver! I think this is software related...

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