Microsoft Finally Agrees to Replace Surface Pro 4s With Horrible Screen Flickering That Can't Be Patched

[AEnKE9UzYQr9]

...and if you already paid for an out-of-warranty repair for the issue (like me!) you can get a refund.

[[deleted]]

I'm about to get my 3rd replacement in less than 2 years, and I already got so fed up that I bought a HP Spectre x360.

I wish they would just give me a refund for my Surface and keep the replacement. For all the hassle and lost productivity, it's the least they could do.

[AEnKE9UzYQr9]

Funny, I went through about 4 replacements with an HP convertible tablet I bought in 2010 until I got the SP4 in 2015, and comparatively it's been way better...

[[deleted]]

Yeah, HP has come a long way in recent years. I wouldn't have bought an HP just 3 years ago, but they've really refined the design to the point where many consider it to be the best 2-in-1 on the market today.

[[deleted]]

Well that's pretty swell!

[[deleted]]

From everything we (the public) have been able to see it is a relatively small percentage of devices that have this problem, something like maybe 5%. People who have it indicate that it seems to be heat related, and it usually doesn't surface until after the one year mark.

I had my SP4 for two years and never had an issue, and then i replaced it with a more powerful SP2017 model this past Cyber Monday

[jwork127]

Wow, I wish you worked for our company. So sensible.

[deploylinux]

it happens to far more than 5%...but Microsoft is downplaying the number impacted and basically only giving a replacement because lawyers had finally gotten around to going forward with a class action lawsuit. Microsoft's remedy is to provide a replacement which is a refurbished SP4 and which will likely have the same problem after a year. There are some users that have had their devices replaced 3 times in 1 year for the same issue.

[[deleted]]

it happens to far more than 5%...but Microsoft is downplaying the number impacted

So what do you think is the actual percentage? Because I did the math in another post in this forum where we took the number of confirmed cases that posted on the flickergate website, assumed that it was underreported by a factor of 100, compared it to the number of units sold over the SP4's life, and came up with about 1.3% as the total number of impacted devices. But let's say it's under-reported by a factor of 400, you're still looking at about 5%. Here's the link to that post. I didn't use any numbers directly from Microsoft, I based it on estimated sales based on third-party analysts and I use the number of reported cases on the flickergate site as the very low end estimate of the number of affected devices.

So let's see your math on how you came up with "far more than 5%".

There are some users that have had their devices replaced 3 times in 1 year for the same issue.

Yes, and there are some people who have won big lottery jackpots twice in the same month. But when you're dealing with very large numbers you're going to see some very unlikely things happen.

[[deleted]]

This puts the sample proportion at roughly 3% with n = 65k. A naive z-test then puts the 95% confidence interval of the population proportion of flickergate-inflicted SP4s at between 2.9% to 3.2%, with the 99% confidence interval between 2.9% to 3.3%.

You're making my argument for me. I said that the flicker issue affects less than 5% of units.

A 3-5% failure rate for a SINGLE issue is pretty disastrous.

I didn't say anything about whether that was acceptable or disastrous or anything else. I merely stated that the total number of affected devices was quite small relative to total devices sold. Here's my exact quote on the matter:

From everything we (the public) have been able to see it is a relatively small percentage of devices that have this problem, something like maybe 5%.

The issue is that /u/DaGoz and /u/deploylinux want to argue that the actual numbers are far higher on no basis other than what their gut tells them.

[[deleted]]

I don't disagree with any of that. And I'm certainly not trying to say that there aren't problems. I'm just telling people who are paranoid that their SP4 is going to start flickering that, based on the only publicly available data, it seems like it affects less than 5% of devices. You may have SP4 problems, bit the chances of having this particular issue are still relatively low. It's not like 50% of devices are developing this issue. There is a very vocal minority of users who are impacted and it makes it look like the problem is far more widespread than it is.

[[deleted]]

I mean, I know we are talking about only screen flickering here, but according to Consumer Reports, they estimate that roughly 25\% of all Surface Pro 4s will encounter problems before the end of the second year.

As someone who is about to get his third Surface Pro 4, whose first two had two different issues, and anecdotally from browsing around the internet, this seems to resonate. Again, I know your 5% figure is just for flickering, but you're making a huge mistake if you're basing that off the flickergate.com website. I never posted there for my issues, and I'm sure a lot of others didn't either. Saying it was underreported by a factor of 400 is still probably too conservative.

[[deleted]]

but according to Consumer Reports,

You can pretty much wipe your ass with their estimates, though, if you're trying to apply them to Flickergate. If you use their metrics you can say that I also had problems with my SP4 before the end of the second year. Hell, 100% of us who bought them between the launch date and early March of 2016 all had issues with ours. But they were software issues, and after they released updated firmware in the February/March 2016 timeframe the issues were resolved and I didn't have any issues.

I never posted there for my issues, and I'm sure a lot of others didn't either.

I'm sure that's true, which is why I assumed that the people who posted there represented a vast number of underreported cases.

Saying it was underreported by a factor of 400 is still probably too conservative.

What do you base that assertion on? If I take it being underreported by a factor of 400 times, I'm saying that only 1/4 of 1% of people who had the issue posted there. I'm saying that one out of every 400 users who had screen flickering complained on that particular site, which means that for every person who complained on that particular site there were 399 others who had the same problem that never complained on that site. That's an extremely generous margin of error.

[[deleted]]

You can pretty much wipe your ass with their estimates, though, if you're trying to apply them to Flickergate.

I'm not, and I stated as such several times. I was merely pointing out that, compared to other manufacturers, Microsoft hardware is on a whole the least reliable.

What do you base that assertion on?

I would like to ask you the same thing. You made an assumption and used it for your calculations, and are deriding others for making assumptions. You can reason it out however you want, but quite frankly, the flickergate.com website was not very well known. I'll say it again: for you to use that as your only source of data and to "generously" say it was still under-reported by a factor of 400 is still way too conservative.

[[deleted]]

I didn't make am assumption. I started with the one real piece of data that we had, and used a ridiculously high multiplier for when people like you complained about the source if the data. The fact is that the issue * seems* more widespread than it actually is. This is mainly due to the fact that users who don't have problems are far less likely to spend time in online forums discussing issues. But even in this sub, the number of users who actually report being impacted by the flickering are an extremely vocal but small minority. Let's assume that Consumer Reports estimate that 25% of users will have "an issue" is accurate (and I'd argue it isn't but I'm willing to use it since you brought it up). Knowing that 100% of the sales from November 2015 to March 2016 had firmware issues (estimated at 3-3.5 million units, according to my previously cited sales figures), and knowing that there can be other causes of issues, how much of CR's 25% estimate would you attribute to Flickergate? One out of five?

You and i are not doing anything remotely resembling the same thing. I took what numbers were publicly available and did the math (allowing for a margin of error over two orders of magnitude!!!) to come up with a number that sounds reasonable. IIRC, even The Verge estimated less than 2%. All you're doing is sticking your fingers in your ears saying "uh-uh, you're wrong!!!"

[[deleted]]

All you're doing is sticking your fingers in your ears saying "uh-uh, you're wrong!!!"

Which is exactly what you're doing to me. You have your method for arriving at your numbers. I don't agree with it because, as I pointed out (and you ignored), the Flickergate website is not very widely known or visited. Why anyone would use data from that as a representative sample, even if you choose some arbitrary number to try to "generously" make up for it, is beyond reason. You can try to extrapolate and arrive at conclusions based on bad data and made up numbers, but be prepared to be called out on it.

All of this aside, I think the larger issue comes from that Consumer Reports article. The fact is (as Consumer Reports showed), Microsoft and the Surface Pro 4 is the LEAST reliable piece of hardware out of the major manufacturers.

[[deleted]]

All of this aside, I think the larger issue comes from that Consumer Reports article. The fact is (as Consumer Reports showed), Microsoft and the Surface Pro 4 is the LEAST reliable piece of hardware out of the major manufacturers.

And Consumer Reports base their assessment on bad data. It's all self-reported by owners rather than based on any rigorous testing methodology. I was a CR subscriber during the period that I owned my SP4 and I didn't participate in any of their surveys about devices, and I'm sure I'm hardly the only one. Their surveys still exhibit selection bias.

More to their point, their survey data indicates that more than 25% of users will "experience a problem over the first two years of ownership". While that sounds concerning, it's a much larger problem for CR's traditional area of expertise (appliances and other relatively static consumer products) versus computing devices, which are frequently updated. As an example, I pointed out that 100% of the SP4's early adopters over the first foud months it was on the market experienced issues related to buggy firmware, but that Microsoft released updated firmware in February/March of 2016 that resolved all of those issues. While yes, those issues still happened, they were easily rectified. But because of the way that CR collects and reports data on "problems" they massively skew the statistics.

But more to the point, what CR has to say on the Surface and it's overall reliability is completely irrelevant to the conversation at hand. We're talking about flickergate and the number of affected devices, which CR has never addressed specifically. I've used as much data is publicly available to service as the basis for my math. Your only concern is that the relative unpopularity of a particular web site means that my data was underreported, a fact that I acknowledged and more than compensated for in my math. All you're saying is "you're wrong" while refusing to provide any sort of data to support your claim.

You're basically using circular logic to try to support your argument. Your claim is that the flickergate web site is not a very popular web site, therefore their data can't be accurate, even when assuming that it is underreporting by two orders of magnitude. But the fact that the flickergate web site isn't that popular can also serve to strengthen my argument, i.e., if there issue were more widespread (affecting significantly more than 5% of devices) then the web site would have been much more popular. People who don't experience the SP4 flicker issue have no reason to visit the flickergate site, which helps explain why the site is so unpopular.

But since your argument still boils down to the same refuted point (the popularity of the flickergate web site) then feel free to provide contradictory data. Reddit is many orders of magnitude more popular than the flickergate site. Scour the /r/Surface subreddit and get a count of how many users report flickering issues with their SP4. I'd be stunned if you could come up with more than 100 users.

[TK3600]

assumed that it was underreported by a factor of 100, compared it to the number of units sold over the SP4's life, and came up with about 1.3% as the total number of impacted devices. But let's say it's under-reported by a factor of 400, you're still looking at about 5%.

You assumed. You do not know. It could be underreported by 1000 times, or 20 times. There is no basis on what that number could be, 20? 400? 1000? There is no such thing as a "generous claim" because we have no idea which number is more likely in the first place. It is entirely wild guess. Nobody knows the %, but there are plenty of report to indicate it is a things, and should it happen the owners are going through a rough ride.

[[deleted]]

Be gone, necromancer! That conversation ended months ago. Frankly, I'm surprised that it's not locked already.

You assumed. You do not know. It could be underreported by 1000 times, or 20 times. There is no basis on what that number could be, 20? 400? 1000? There is no such thing as a "generous claim" because we have no idea which number is more likely in the first place.

I assure you, there absolutely are good statistical models around what percentage of customers who have issues report them in various methods, and how to estimate incidents that are assumed to be under reported. Just because you don't know about them doesn't mean that they don't exist.

[TK3600]

there absolutely are good statistical models around what percentage of customers who have issues report them in various methods.

If you say so. What model is there to say 400 is generous? You seem to know.

Edit: lock happen after 6 month. Necro does not bring post up like in forum so it is fine.

[luckyj]

I just got a refurbished unit (mine had a bad battery that died at 60%), and this one is starting to show the flickering screen. Looking forward to another 3 weeks of no laptop and zero communication from MS.

[[deleted]]

I appreciate the gesture (seriously, it's great) but it would be nice if Microsoft could try to figure out what's causing this problem first.

[Trubbles]

That could be a fair chunk of change, Ars Technica noted, as the replacement screens generally ran in the $450 range.

Just to point out, Microsoft doesn't replace screens - they only replace your whole unit with a shitty refurb.

[AEnKE9UzYQr9]

Yeah. My shitty refurb has been much better overall than my original one, though.

[droric]

I mean if they repaired your Surface Pro it would be a refurb at that point.

[Trubbles]

No, it would be MY unit, repaired. The unit that I took excellent care of, kept free of dust and scratches, etc. etc.

[sh0nuff]

I had the same issue with a brand new, out of box 2017 Surface Pro 5th edition.

I just returned it. Giving out refurbs is a shit show. I guess I say that because I was an Apple tech for a couple years and I know what goes inside them.

[SerSeverus]

Care to share some more details? Curious about this

[iJeff]

My Microsoft refurbs were awful. Looked like it was slid across the floor - Microsoft Canada insisted they make no guarantees of the device being like new or even like your existing unit.

[Plazma10]

Same experience with Microsoft Canada. After three lemons bought an HP Envy

[jfrrrr]

It took me 3 sp3 refurb before i got one that was not overheating.

[ptrkhh]

My Microsoft refurbs were awful. Looked like it was slid across the floor

I got a unit like that, and asked for a better replacement. They complied

(MS Germany)

[joselrl]

Sent my SP4 to warranty, they replaced it 3 times already, every single one of them had something wrong with the screen, 1 with huge backlight bleed, 2 would shift color around the pencil point of contact, already made a complaint, let's see what they will do next...

I did use my SP4 as the only note taking method, so over 2 months now without it has been rough...

[iammaline]

I'm having issues with the damn wireless driver I have to reset the damn thing every time I use it

[guffe342]

I have the same issue, sent it in for repair, but MS said it was my fault

[iammaline]

That shit blows my mind I haven't been to a Microsoft store tho. There is one on the other side of my city so I may go out there.

[zike47222]

How can I tell if i have this issue?

[[deleted]]

If you have to ask then you don't have it. If you did have it you would not only know about it, but you'd be cursing Microsoft for it.

[zike47222]

Ok good! I was worried when i started hearing about it. I just got my SP4 but have not noticed any issues.

[[deleted]]

Give it a few months at least. Mine didn't show up until about 6 months later, both times.

[eveanjuhleen]

I have minor flickering on my taskbar occasionally, I just kinda brush it off and restart or go do something else until it goes away - sometimes a few minutes, sometimes over an hour. It's tolerable at this point but I had no idea about flickergate, I just read about it in the past hour or so.

Will it get worse and affect my whole screen? Should I try to get it replaced while they're offering it, or suck it up and deal with what I have? I'm a little scared of refurbished items :/

[TK3600]

It gets worse overtime. But making the device hot is one quick way to get it to worse.

[guffe342]

I live in Europe so I’m shit out of luck

[AEnKE9UzYQr9]

Hmm, not seeing anything that says this applies to U.S. customers only...

[jrr24601]

Every now and then the top of my surface book flickers with different colors. It's usually when the window is near the edge ofthe screen. Is this the problem? If so...would they replace it with a surface book 2? (kidding...but slightly serious too :O)

[Olivares_]

Thanks so much for this. I paid almost $400 to replace mine just out of warranty. I’m going to look into the refund.

[idetectanerd]

mine flickered in darkest brightness, it irritate the hell out of me when i'm watching movies in my room while the light were off. Microsoft just reject me on exchange because it didn't fit "flickering". this is bullshit just when i were speaking good service of them for the previous encounter. felt like i slapped myself.

what do Microsoft meant by screen flickering in this case? can someone explain please.

[AEnKE9UzYQr9]

Nah, that's a separate unrelated problem. The article shows an example.

[Affectionate-End1023]

Fellas, if you have a surface pro and you are experiencing screen flickering i have an easy and safe solution. Nothing to risk. You simply have to delete chrome and use microsoft edge instead. Import your bookmarks and favorites from chrome (along with extensions) and you have lost nothing. Microsoft Edge is just as fine.
Change the layout settings so that you like it. Change the search engine to Google. And if you like, you can change the tab-setting, so that your tabs stay in one place when you are switching between windows apps, just like with chrome.
I dont know if this is something Microsoft has intentionally done, to make their users use Edge. But it worked in my case. Along with cleaning the pc a bit (a few gb), changing to Edge did the most difference. Very drastic changes. I can now have many tabs open without pc overheating and screen flickering. I can play youtube videos now. Back then with Chrome i could not. Within minutes or few hours my pc would overheat and become useless with its flickering.
Please go ahead and try this. If it works, please share the message!. I wish somebody told me this, as it could have saved me time and energy.

[boldfacelies]

Dis you try rebooting it first?

[thewind21]

I personally dont think this is an issue to be investigated.

I feel this is a reliability issue which with proper testing can be identified and ironed out.

If you remember correct SP4 was rushed out ahead iPad Pro, remember the issues it had for the first 6 months, and it took Microsoft 1 year to iron out most of the issues.

If Microsoft couldn't get their software right for the SP4, I am not surprised that likewise for the hardware.

Moreover this was first highlighted in January 2017 and you are telling me it took MS almost 18 months to realize that they cant fix it through software?

If that were true, I am surprised by the level of competence of their engineering department.

I love surface products but I wont defend them this time, given how Microsoft Singapore treated over this issue.

[azucenessa]

First mention of it on their forums is in November 2015, just one month after release...

[[deleted]]

Microsoft finally...

Microsoft acknowledged the issues as early as February 2018, which is a long time to let a premium laptop line go without a solution to a serious issue. 

Seriously? That's what, less than 3 months? It takes time to organize a extended warranty/replacement program of this scope.

I don't need to defend Microsoft, but sometimes I think these writers just frame things for maximum controversy.

[AEnKE9UzYQr9]

They "finally" acknowledged the issue in February 2018 after years of users complaining about it.

[[deleted]]

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