Surface 2 sensor problem-screen flickering at low brightness

[Julian_C]

Hey all,
I recently bought a new Surface 2 Tablet and noticed a Screen flickering on the start Screen, when the brightness is very low. So I searched in the Internet for Solutions and I came to the following article by Microsoft: Microsoft Surface screen display brightness | Surface screen brightness

after running the Troubleshooter (step 2), it had the following result:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ogvyzzh7i40od01/problem 2.PNG
https://www.dropbox.com/s/wiu4wd36cvk8aqv/problem1.PNG

Does anyone know a solution or do I have to return it? (but I don't like waiting 2 months for a new device -.-) Resetting the Surface also didn't help...

thx in advance

 

[Rayban7]

I have auto brightness off and I have the same issue along with many others. The issue is auto contrast and a community ticket was opened a year ago and still no soution:
Surface RT Dynamic Contrast - Microsoft Community

I'm pretty disappointed about this so I'll be adding my two cents in shortly and I suggest anyone else with this issue to do the same. I use my surface on low brightness more often than on a higher level and this stupid "feature" is getting annoying.

 

[Gergolos]

Thanks for posting about this!
I don't have my Surface 2 jet, but as it seems this is a problem both Surface RT AND Surface Pro 1 had. Because of the fact one can use other drivers on the Pro the automatic "feature" can be turned off. On the Surface RT that is of course not the case. As far as I understand it MS knows about this problem since the first Surface and still did not do anything besides saying "we are working on it"...

Just a no go!
Maybe Wpcentral can point it out to MS?

 

[Bo]

The SP1 didn't have this problem, I always keep my brightness down to the lowest setting indoors and I've never had this problem and haven't installed different drivers. All I did was turn off adaptive brightness control because it was trying to use the sensor and kept my changes from saving.

 

[Julian_C]

If this issue esist since the 1st gen Surface I'm pretty disappointed too! I also tried to disable the auto-brightness and the adaptive brightness... But I'm aksing myself, if the adaptive brightness is even working, when the troubleshooter says that he couldn't fix/activate it.

Like the others already mentioned, it's very annoying to lie in the bed with low brightness and those flickering around nor with max brightness (where all seems normal) and beeing glared. Also I don't think the store, where i bought it, will replace it after 10 days (I'm currently abroad).. And to have send it back after such a short time is undesirable. Therefore I'm only hoping this is a driver/software issue and maybe it will be fixed sometime... (I don't like the thought that I have this issue forever...)

 

[Julian_C]

sorry for the double post, but here I uploaded a video of the screen flickering:
screen flickering surface 2 - YouTube
is this the same like it was on the first gen surfaces?

 

[Gergolos]

The SP1 didn't have this problem, I always keep my brightness down to the lowest setting indoors and I've never had this problem and haven't installed different drivers. All I did was turn off adaptive brightness control because it was trying to use the sensor and kept my changes from saving.

The information about the first gen Surface Pro having this same issue was from the troubleshooting site. Here is the comment:

"i can't believe microsoft doesn't fix these issues permanently. its is the reason i don't reccomend the RT to anyone. The surface pro has the same problem, however since you can install other drivers on the surface pro, you can get the intel hd4000 graphics control panel with intel's drivers, and that lets you turn off the cluprit. its an energy saving feature that gets enabled when the battery is in use.
i downloaded drivers directly from intel that include the control panel, MS does not distribute this with their drivers, and the windows 8.1 october 5th update broke it again so we had to go back to intel and get their drivers.

Sadly, i don't think its possible to get 3rd party drivers for the tegra chip and install them. I'm almost certain its the same or similar feature in the tegra chip thats doing it on the RT.

Its subtle, so some might not notice,. but for those of us with an eye for quality displays definately can tell, its really apparent when first changing to a different screen or watching a video where the screen is constantly changing.

If i ever find anything out i'll let you know, but i don't have the know-how to dive/hack into any code where the setting might be."

It is one of the last postings (from prose16343, oktober 27, 2013)

sorry for the double post, but here I uploaded a video of the screen flickering:
screen flickering surface 2 - YouTube
is this the same like it was on the first gen surfaces?

Thanks for the video. As far as I can tell it seems to be the same problem like the one seen in this video:

I took the link from the microsoft troubleshoot-site a few messages above (Surface RT Dynamic Contrast - Microsoft Community). So yeah. seems to be an issue known since the first gen Surfaces...

 

[WillysJeepMan]

The least frustrating solution I have found to fix adaptive brightness, is to turn it off entirely.


To do this on your Windows 8 tablet, navigate to:
Control Panel -> Power Options. Tap the “Choose when to turn off display” link, then the “Change advanced power settings” link. In the Power Options window, scroll down and expand the Display section – buried inside this is the Enable adaptive brightness setting group. For each option in this group, select the off value in each drop-down.

 

[PSVFabian]

Please support our petition: change.org/petitions/microsoft-fix-the-flickering-bug-of-the-surface-tablets