HD 4600 driver and Windows 1803 - when will there be a solution?

[ZSura]

I've search the forums and found numerous posts about blank window issues with the HD 4600 and the latest Windows update (1803 / April 2018 update).

So far there seem to be no solutions. Proposals range from asking to install the vendor-optimized driver - which doesn't make a difference (all drivers, vendor optimized or not, suffer from the exact same symptoms and likely from the exact same root cause - people with Dells, HPs and NUCs report the exact same problem), telling us to update to a more recent CPU (which is useless as it practically means replacing the entire motherboard, or in case of all-in-ones - the entire computer), and all the way to telling us to downgrade to an older version of Windows - which is quite impractical, considering Microsoft pushed these updates pretty relentlessly.

It's very clear that there's a problem with (at least) the HD 4600 and the latest driver (15.40.38.4963), and it's very clear it has nothing to do with vendor-specific optimizations.

Can we get some concrete timeline on when it will be fixed? And if, for some reason, the current decision is not to fix it - figure out what needs to be done in order to change this decision? Forcing who-knows-how-many-people to throw their computers away because of a minor update to Windows is, simply put, unacceptable.

Thanks,

Zeev

[idata]

Hello zsuraski

Thank you for joining this Community.I understand that you are experiencing blank screen issues in your system after the latest Windows*Update.In order for me to assist you better, please provide me with the .txt file that the System Support Utility will generate. To attach a file, you must click the "Attach" option on the bottom right-hand corner of the response box.https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/25293/Intel-System-Support-Utility-for-Windows- https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/25293/Intel-System-Support-Utility-for-Windows-As well, can you please provide us with links from other forums that might be related to the issue that you are reporting?We would like to unify the case in order to perform further research and to provide a more accurate answer.I hope to hear from you soon.Regards,Diego S.

[ZSura]

Hi Diego,

Thanks for the prompt reply. The report from SSU is attached to this message.

Here's a selection of people reporting identical or similar issues since the 1803 update:

https://community.teamviewer.com/t5/TeamViewer-General/Black-screen-after-updating-to-Winver-1803/td-p/34000 Black screen after updating to Winver 1803 - TeamViewer Community - 34000

https://community.logos.com/forums/t/168976.aspx Windows Update 1803 . . . Logos has gone blank! - Logos Bible Software Forums

Some additional observations:

1. The problem occurs in a pretty wide variety of applications. So far, I've had it occur in TeamViewer, Steam (when streaming a game locally) and Yi Home for Windows. It's extremely reproducible.

2. It is, without a doubt, related to the graphics card - as when I connect an external USB-based DisplayLink docking station (that I borrowed and that has its own graphics card), the problem goes away - and all of the above apps work fine.

3. I'm experiencing the very same issues on both the latest Intel driver, as well as the latest custom HP driver (which is several years old).

4. There seems to be some similarities across all these apps - they all stream video in some way or another, and probably use a similar strategy to paint it efficiently on the screen. The symptoms are fairly similar across the different apps. The container frame of the window is drawn properly, but the actual content area is not (re)drawn. In the case of Yi Home - which begins with a static image drawn in the content area - that image simply remains stale, instead of being overdrawn with the video feed.

5. Another app - Microsoft Mouse and Keyboard Center - also suffers with the HD4600 and Windows 10 1803 - but with slightly different symptoms - the whole application window, once it appears - is entirely transparent with no contents. This one doesn't stream any video and is really nothing but a simple control panel for Microsoft's mouse and keyboard, but I think the same root cause might be responsible for all of these problems.

If this helps, I'm available for a remote session.

Thanks,

Zeev

[ZSura]

By the way - another interesting behavior that I've noticed - only in TeamViewer - is that pressing Ctrl-Alt-Del and accessing Windows' lock menu *usually* makes the problem go away - i.e., the contents of the window is drawn - and more interestingly, from that point onward the window behaves properly until it's closed (even if that's hours later). It doesn't seem to make a difference with Steam or with Yi Home, but I think it's worth mentioning as (a) it might suggest that this is a fairly minor initialization issue that wouldn't be that difficult to fix, and (b) might give the Intel developers a clue as to what might be happening here.

[idata]

Hello zsuraski,Thank you for your response, all the information sent by you is extremely helpful for us.Based in all your observations, links provided and the behavior of the apps when running, we will try replicating the issue that you are experiencing in order to create a full, official report of the issue.This may cause a little delay between our answers; however I will contact you back as soon as we have news.On the meantime we would like you to uninstall all Intel® graphic drivers in your machine until the basic Microsoft display driver is exposed (please turn off all internet connections while doing this) and then manually install the drivers following these steps:-Unzip the file to a designated location or folder (driver)-Open Device Manager:For Windows 10: Right-click Windows Start icon-Click Yes when prompted for permission from User Account Control.-Expand the Display adapters section.-Right-click the Intel® graphics entry and select Update Driver Software.-Click Browse my computer for driver software.-Click Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer.-Click Have Disk.-Click Browse and select the directory where the driver files are located.-Click OK, and finally click Next. Drivers are now being installed.-Restart your computer.Here is the link for the latest Drivers for your graphic controller:https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/27780/Intel-Graphics-Driver-for-Windows-15-40-?product=81496 https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/27780/Intel-Graphics-Driver-for-Windows-15-40-?product=81496I hope to hear from you soon, please let us know the results.Regards,Diego S.

[ZSura]

Thanks Diego!

While I realized it was a long shot I did go through with the process of removing my existing Intel driver and reinstalling it from scratch. I went through 4 cycles of uninstalling & deleting the driver while being disconnected from network (started with a 2018 version, which then went back to 2017, then to 2016 and then another 2016) - and finally reached the generic Microsoft driver. Reinstalled the 4963 driver (which is what I had to begin with) - and unfortunately the problem still persists with identical symptoms.

Zeev

[idata]

Hello zsuraski,

Thank you for your response, we really appreciate it.In order to create the report, please fill us the requested information as follows on this link:/thread/77761 https://communities.intel.com/thread/77761We are collecting all the information in order to keep on performing further research.I hope to hear from you soon.Regards,Diego S.

[ZSura]

Description

Provide a detailed description of the issue

Already provided above...

Please place an X to the right of the option showing how often you see this issue using specific steps. (Ex: 'Every few times a game is started it flickers.' <- This would be "Often")<p> 

Always (100%): X

Hardware (HW)

Brand and Model of the system.

HP EliteDesk 800 G1 Desktop Mini PC

Hybrid or switchable graphics system?

ie Does it have AMD or NV graphics too?

No

Make and model of any Displays that are used to see the issue (see note2 below). 

LFP = Local Flat Panel (Laptop panel)EFP = External Flat Panel (Monitor you plug in)

Happens in any display.

Tested on a 24" FHD Samsung and a 27" Dell 2.7K displays.

How much memory [RAM] in the system (see note2 below).

16GB

Provide any other hardware needed to replicate the issue.

ie: Cables&brand, cable type [vga, hdmi, DP, etc], dock, dongles/adapters, etc<p style="margin-bot...

[ZSura]

Added a couple of videos that illustrate the problems:

https://youtu.be/y1erkRmzzdc HD 4600 issue on Windows 1803 - part 1 - YouTube

https://youtu.be/T2mKuxGYIaM HD 4600 issue on Windows 1803 - part 2 - YouTube

One unexpected side effect of trying to record that videos is that I found that Microsoft Expression Studio is actually one of the programs that don't work well on the HD 4600 and Windows 10 1803. Since this is readily available and is very simple to setup, perhaps it can simplify your efforts to reproduce the problem:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=5915 Download Microsoft Expression Studio 4 Ultimate Trial from Official Microsoft Download Center

[idata]

Hello zsuraski

Thank you for your response, we really appreciate it.Now that we have all the necessary information we will go ahead and perform further research in order to continue with the issue replication.This may cause a little delay between our answers, we will contact you back as soon as possible. I hope this helps.Regards,Diego S.

[idata]

Hello zsuraski

Thank you for your patience.During these past these days we were working on the issue replication based in all the information that you provided to us.We used 2 different devices that shared the same graphic driver and controller (Intel® HD Graphics 4600) that your HP* EliteDesk 800 G1 Desktop Mini PC uses.The devices under the test were:Dell* XPS 15 9530 Intel ® NUC34010WYKHAs well we used previous versions of the drivers:15.40.37.483515.40.36.4703Please note that we also used OEM drivers for OEM equipment (besides the generic Intel® driver)We tested 2 of the mentioned apps:TeamViewer* 13.1.3629Microsoft* Expression Studio*After updating the OS and restoring it to a previous version before the update was performed, the issue could not be replicated.I regret to inform you that after all the tests that we performed, we were no able to replicate the issue as all the apps and updates were working correctly without any blank screen issues or bugs.At this point we recommend you to perform a clean installation of the OS, in order to discard any type of corruption.Hope this helps.Regards,Diego S.

[ZSura]

Diego,

Thanks for the update. This is of course very disappointing.

I think reinstalling the OS would be a remarkably wild goose chase.

Could it be somehow related to the connectors being used? This particular system uses DisplayPort.

Any other types of differences that could be happening here? If this was an OS corruption, I'd expect the same behavior across different video cards. It's only happening on the HD 4600, with others reporting similar issues.

Zeev

[ZSura]

Also, just to be super certain - you to reproduce it using version 1803 of Windows 10, right?

For me it was super consistent - I upgraded to 1803 - it appeared. I downgraded - it went away. I upgraded again - it reappeared.

[ZSura]

OK, you're not going to believe this, I barely do - but I managed to solve this.

Long story short - the culprit was Duet Display - an app that allows you to use an iPad as a secondary screen on Windows. I'm still not sure whether the fault lies with the Intel drivers or Duet's - but one thing's clear, with Duet uninstalled, the problem is gone.

How I got there - I guess your suggestion to reinstall the OS got me 'scared' so much, that I figured I had to at least try everything else beforehand. I tried to look at the various BIOS options - to no avail. Then, I started disabling mostly all startup processes and also some services - still to no avail. One such startup process, though - Duet - caught my attention. I rarely use it - but it was an app that was working in an area that could somehow be related to the problem at hand. I figured I'd try to uninstall it, as perhaps it was loading drivers or other system resources even if the startup process was disabled. Lowe and behold - the problem disappeared. Comprehensively - with all of the side effects I mentioned in the various posts.

I decided to triple check - I reinstalled it - the problem reappeared. I uninstalled it - the problem disappeared. At that point I only decided one more thing - upgrading to the latest version available from the app vendor - but it didn't make a difference.

Which is no big deal for me, as I rarely use this app and much rather see everything else working well.

Still - it would be interesting if you could also download Duet to your testing system and see if you can reproduce the problem. I'll report this issue to Duet as well - but I think it's still plausible that the problem lies within the HD 4600 driver.

Either way - I really appreciate your hard work and attempts to reproduce this. Sorry I haven't thought of this avenue before. But at least most of the mystery is gone now.

Thanks!

[idata]

Hello zsuraski,

Thank you for your response.In this case yes, we used the version 1803 of Windows* 10.I am very glad that you were able to determine that the app called Duet Display is somehow culprit of the issue.In this case it seems that the App may be the actual reason as we discarded the latest Intel ® drivers as the root of the issue during the tests performed with the Dell* XPS 15 9530 and Intel ® NUC34010WYKH systems.We strongly encourage you to start a report with Duet support, so they can provide with a resolution on why the app is causing this type of behavior on your machine.Please let me know if there is anything else that I can do.I hope to hear from you soon.Regards,Diego S.

[idata]

Hello zsuraski,

We just wanted to double check if you still need further assistance.Please do not hesitate on contacting us back.Best Regards,Diego S.

[ZSura]

With Duet uninstalled the problem is thoroughly solved. I reported this to Duet as well - and hopefully they'll be able to fix it in a future version of their software, or work with you guys to sort it out.

But as I don't really need Duet that much - I need no further assistance.

Thanks Diego!

Zeev