Welcome to the Surface Pro 4 Community!
Hello and welcome to the Devices Community! We are so glad you are here and excited to have this forum to collaborate and discuss all things Surface. You will find spaces for each one of our products in the Devices Community, so go ahead and take a look at them all. This one is dedicated to Surface Pro 4. I am a Devices Program Manager at Microsoft and along with my team we want to ensure that anyone with an interest in our Devices has a place to share experiences, questions, and feedback. Even more exciting is the opportunity to network and find others with your same interests. In this community you will find customers, partners, MVPs, and our own Devices product and engineering teams in a single location, all with the objective to create healthy discussions that will help us all improve. The comments here are moderated to ensure we maintain a learning environment were arguments and content matter. It's time to start your own conversations and speak up. Be an active participant in this community, it works best when we are all talking. In doing so, you will earn badges within the community. Check them out by going to your profile and clicking ‘Achievements’. I also invite you to browse existing conversations within the Devices and other communites and share your opinion. To get you started, check out this amazing tour of the Surface Pro 4 with Dave Mitchell in our Microsoft Mechanics YouTube channel! One last time: welcome, it is great to have you join us! Nydia
Annoying Screen Issue: Phantom Touches?
Hey Guys! Got a replacement Surface (I'm running a Surface Pro 4) about 4 months ago for a screen flicker issue. Over the last week or so, I've started to get this odd problem which is not only annoying but interrupting work flow. It's not constant, but once it starts it won't go away for a while. It acts like someone is touching the screen in the lower-right portion. The mouse won't really work, the rest of the touchscreen goes haywire (like someone is holding onto multiple spots on that lower area). I get these weird bubbles popping up (managed a screenshot): It will go away for a while once I hit the power button (sleep mode and then back on); sometimes 10-20 minutes, other times longer. The only change I've made recently was installing Esri ArcGIS 10.6, but I ran 10.5 on my last Surface with no issues so I don't think there would be issues with the new version. Anyone else having this issue?Surface Pro Screen flicker issue.
A little over two years ago I bought my first Surface Pro, and after about a year of usage, I started noticing this screen flicker problem. It's widely reported with thousands of threads and reports of screens flickering on surface pro products. Most reports mention heat as a factor and cooling it down can sometimes reduce the flicker. Here is a link to a 2000 post long thread just about this issue. https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/forum/surfpro4-surfdrivers/surface-pro-4-screen-flickering-shacking/570165cb-50a0-4d71-bcb1-310ddd869d1d?rtAction=1517820905738 I just got my 2nd replacement device last month. And noticed flicker again only 1 month after I got the new one. This time there is no idle flicker.... for now at least. And it only flickers when the device get hot. When gaming or doing some other heavy task. Luckily I've always been under warranty when this problem occurred so I've been getting my device replaced a few times now, but it's getting a bit tedious. My first one (my original purchase) got flickering after about a year. Idle flicker when nothing was moving. My second (replacement device) got flickering about 8 months after I got it. Idle flicker and constant flicker under heavy load. My third (the latest one) got flickering while gaming after just 1 month. So far only under heavy load. I'm starting to think that ALL Surface devices are defective. Some people just don't get the problem because their device never really get hot enough to cause any damage. It seems that Surface Pro's can't handle heat very well at all, and is not suitable for any heavy tasks, gaming, or anything else that might cause it to get hot. Since some people are reporting it even on new models like Surface Pro 2017 it seems they have not fixed the issue. And probably won't be fixed any time soon, as this is probably an engineering or design flaw, that causes some chip to be unstable and damaged due to heat. It seems the only fix is to downclock your surface device to keep it from not getting hot enough to cause the damage in the first place, and don't use it for any heavy tasks. Some people that don't use the device for any heavy tasks still report this issue so it's not the CPU/GPU getting too hot, but rather this little part here. Even on an idle machine with low CPU temps touching the lower part of the screen with the back of your hand this area is the hottest part. And is probably housing the chips that get unstable due to heat. Replacing the LCD will fix the flicker issue, so It seems like chips related to the LCD will get damaged over time. Weather it be from the heat produced by the device itself or external heat, as there is no active or passive cooling for any of the chips related to the LCD screen. If there's any engineers on this forum, place fix this issue in future devices. It's a great device and the CPU/GPU will get cool enough even under heavy load, but the LCD must chips have been overlooked.
