Surface Pro 4 owners are putting their tablets in freezers to fix screen flickering issues

Hundreds of Surface professional four house owners are protesting concerning screen aflicker problems on their tablets. A thread over at Microsoft’s support forums shows that the issues are occurring for quite a year, and most devices affected area unit out of assurance. Dubbed “Flickergate,” an internet site to report the problems claims a minimum of one,600 Surface professional four house owners have full-fledged the screen aflicker issues.

The aflicker seems to be a hardware issue, that happens when the device heats up throughout use. “We area unit aware that some customers have full-fledged a screen flicker on Surface professional four and area unit observation true closely,” says a Microsoft advocate, in an exceedingly statement to The Verge. Customers compact by this could contact Microsoft support.”

Some house owners have even started freeze their tablets to prevent the screen aflicker quickly. “I go 0.5 AN hour’s use out of it when 10 minutes within the fridge,” says one owner. Another user denote a video showing however the aflicker stops as presently because the Surface professional four is placed in an exceedingly fridge. The Verge understands that the screen aflicker downside could be a hardware issue that Microsoft won’t be ready to fix with a computer code update. It’s presently touching but one % of all Surface professional four devices.

While Microsoft recommends that house owners contact their support lines, devices area unit usually out of assurance once the issues begin occurring. Some affected users have reportable paying $800 for AN out-of-warranty exchange with Microsoft to repair the hardware issue. “Surface Pro’s area unit marketed and priced as premium devices,” says the Flickergate cluster. “Microsoft ought to thus respond consequently by acknowledging the problem and providing an answer. If the problem could be a hardware fault, then Microsoft ought to recall affected devices.”

The Surface professional four problems come back months when shopper Reports removed its “recommend” badge from Microsoft’s entire lineup of Surface computers as a result of the hardware was found to be less reliable than alternative PC brands. Microsoft full-fledged problems with Surface Book sleep issues antecedently, and also the company had to issue a code update to repair battery failures with the Surface professional three.

Attorneys at Migliaccio & Rathod LLP antecedently won a category action case against Lenovo involving defective laptops, that resulted in an exceedingly classwide settlement. The firm is investigation Microsoft’s Surface professional three battery failures, and has conjointly received complaints concerning the Surface professional four screen aflicker issues. “We area unit still considering our choices,” says Saint Nicholas Migliaccio, a partner at Migliaccio & Rathod LLP, in AN interview with The Verge. “We’ve received variety of inquiries over time with alternative problems on the far side the battery issue, on the far side aflicker. folks have a spread of issues, however if we’re watching issues we’re watching the common ones.”

It’s not clear if any suit suits are filed against Microsoft over a number of these Surface problems, however it's like affected house owners can have to be compelled to replace units or try to fix them. that may be easier aforementioned than done, though: Microsoft’s Surface professional three, Surface professional four, and even the most recent Surface professional received one or two out of ten on iFixit reparability scale, creating them troublesome or maybe not possible to repair yourself.