Solved Flashing display on Book 2 15 inch

[Wayne Orwig]

I got a good Black Friday deal on a 15 inch Book 2.

So far, everything has been working pretty well. But I have one annoying issue.
When on battery power, the display will occasionally flicker. With or without an app running. Sometimes it doesn't do it for a few minutes, and sometimes it does it every 10 seconds. Often the display changes color, like the nightlight does, only less dark. Then it flickers and returns to normal for a few seconds, or minutes.

It does not do it on AC power.
I have turned off the nightlight and is still does it.
I have eliminated all of the background processes that I can and there is no improvement.
My Book 1 and Surface Pro 3 run basically the same apps with no problems.

Annoying.

Has anyone else seen or heard of this?

 

[sharpuser]

That doesn’t sound good. I have had three Surface Book 2 units, and still have two, both 1TB 15 inch. Never a flicker.

To help diagnose, when you tap or lightly bump tour SB2 while the screen is flickering, do you see any effect. Checking for something loose, of course.

 

[Wayne Orwig]

It is not a 'physical' thing like a loose connection. I'm 99.99999% sure.
It may be related to when I have Edge open, as I have it open most of the time and I have not seen under other apps. But then it is random so......
I found one article about flashing displays, that recommended deleting the display driver in safe mode. I used to know how to get to safe mode, but was unable to do it with Win 10. (it asked for my drive encryption key, then went straight to normal windows) I tried deleting the driver after a normal boot and it did not help.
It is not doing it today. I think it is related to the automatic screen brightness and only does it at certain light levels.

 

[sharpuser]

For now, Edge drives the display with a special method which allows pixel-by-pixel resolution (smooth) scrolling. So vertical streaks and flashes occur with Edge when a video is playing, even if that video is an advertisement or "tv" sub-window. So this is "normal" but annoying … for now.

See reference here: Strange screen issue

Is this what you experience?

 

[Wayne Orwig]

That may be it. My Pro 3 and Book 1 have had the vertical streak. This Book 2 has the occasional vertical streak.
And the flashing may be related. I'm not sure what triggers it.

Edit: Not Edge. I closed everything (via Task Manager). On battery power, I often get a 'flash', a few seconds later the brightness (and maybe resolution?) changes, and about 10 seconds later the display flashes and it starts over. Sometimes. I have tried various resolutions and brightness settings. The only constant I have found is that it is on battery power when it happens.

 

[Wayne Orwig]

I had sort of forgotten about this being a problem, since I always used the charger. But recent changes had me using battery power more often, and the strobing display was too annoying. I worked with support, and ended up doing a full factory reset. The display still flashing after the reset. So back to the factory it goes.
I hate doing that because you never know what you end up getting in return. Other than the display flashing on battery power mine had been flawless.

 

[sharpuser]

The display still flashing after the reset. So back to the factory it goes.

Well, poo. Sorry to hear that.

 

[Wayne Orwig]

I got my replacement Book 2 yesterday. So far, I haven't found any issues (other than the annoyance of needing to reload everything).
No more flashing display on battery power.

 

[sharpuser]

Note: This issue was only solved by replacing the Surface Book 2.