HP Elitebook 845 G9 display issues

[klew26]

Hello,

I'm experiencing issues with a new HP Elitebook 845 G9 laptop with Ryzen 7 PRO 6850u CPU and 32GB RAM. The display option is the basic IDS with privacy filter, the OS is Windows 11. The BIOS and all the drivers are up to date, verified with the HP app, as well as the list on the website.
The issues are:

1. Random horizontal bars appear on the screen for a split second, they look as if it's software related - there is some kind of content inside them, not random colors. There is no set frequency, totally random. It only happens on the built-in display.

2. The screen freezes, when playing a video the sound is still playing. Closing the lid and opening it again unfreezes the display. When there are external displays connected they don't freeze, just the built-in one.

3. Sometimes all the displays go dark - both external and built-in. It lasts 2-3 seconds. It goes back to normal afterwards, happens again a few minutes later.

4. The built-in display blinks black randomly.

 I have contacted HP support - the display, the display ribbon, motherboard all have been replaced. There was no difference. Has anyone faced similair issues or has an idea how to mitigate them?

Thank you 🙂

[louwrensfnagel]

Hello. 

We have seen similar issues with our HP Elitebook 845 G9 models.

What we found was that plugging in an HDMI screen makes the freezing stop. But also just resetting the graphics driver by pressing Win + Ctrl + Shift + B keys.

We found multiple situations, even replacing the motherboard does not help. We have a ticket open with them so will see what happens.

[zyme84]

Finally, I've had my HP EliteBook 845 G9 (1080P 14" with privacy filter, 16GB RAM, Ryzen 5 Pro 6650u) doing the exact same thing since I received it just over a month ago. seemed to have a few other bugs/glitches at first but since then I've upgraded to Windows 11, Chose the reset this PC option, and the only issues I've noticed remaining are exactly as you describe. I don't have an external monitor to test at the moment, and personally I've set it to only turn off the monitor when closing the lid, no hibernation or sleep. For the most part it only seems to freeze or blank the monitor when watching YouTube videos, and though I've run HWiNFO64, while it occasionally seems to be at high tempts (99 or 100c) that's not always the case (and I have the fan on full blast constantly) and I think I've seen the screen flicker from using the plex UWP viewer. 

Unfortunately since I'm low on $ and my cell phone's dead, getting this "new hardware device" access to my online accounts was a long difficult process I'm not sure I can repeat most of, and while I'm recovering from phemonia (and still rehabbing from a stroke a couple years back) I've been wary of calling up tech support as without the laptop I'd be mostly cut off from the world again plus I spent a decade in IT positions and have been hopeing to find a non-hardware related fix. I also have 3 years warrantee according to HP's website so, as long as it's working most of the time, atm I'm a bit more pressed with other concerns..

Oh joy I just saw some sort of split second flicker on my screen again. A couple details that might mean nothing; often these issues, and even the heat spikes happen while both the CPU and GPU are utilized at under 20%. This machine seems to be so new GPU-Z doesn't recognize the video card when you submit the data to the website, It's my first Ryzen, and physical memory load max usually shows up in the red at the same time the CPU's temp does. One thing I seem to have plenty of is free time, should anyone have any suggestions.

[zyme84]

*Crossing fingers,* I haven't seen any sign of the problems for about a week, hopefully it stays that way, and it's not just a hardware problem workaround, What did I change? In the BIOS I disabled "PSPP" (PCIe Speed Power Policy).  - I also reinstalled the older video drivers from HP's website - but I've done that before with no joy.

-- Lastly, and I mention this only because I saw a Google result claiming it to be because of the battery which was easily removable in the prior year's model, I Set it to maximum battery health, which stops charging at 80%. I do think my model has the smaller battery option besides the slightly less power usage [and the tiniest dent in my USB-C charger connector that you can barely see], which is all semi related, power use, battery, and heat which the battery charging causes the most of, random site claims].

[parthadip]

. The screen freezes, when playing a video the sound is still playing. Closing the lid and opening it again unfreezes the display. When there are external displays connected they don't freeze, just the built-in one.----You have described it perfectly. I am facing the exact same issue. Any update?

[parthadip]

My display froze again and I found two errors in event viewer

[zyme84]

If the same thing that seemed to work on my system (*Crosses fingers* Hopefully it's not just a coincidence) doesn't help (Disabling "PSPP" aka PCIe Speed Power Policy), I think an issue I came across trying to research this could very likely, be the same thing. It would affect all the HP EB 845 G9's since they're 6000 series Rembrandt core processors which are all known to be susceptible ( https://www.cpu-world.com/Cores/Rembrandt.html ).

Conveniently I just ran across this video that I suspect is the same issue, it seems to affect almost any system with one of these processors, but seems completely random and doesn't happen to everyone, and effects any manufacturers, though many if not all seem to know quite what the exact cause is yet. They describe it as a studder, with audio and video which I defiantly experienced, Your Error messages are from AMD PMF which fTPM is a part of.

https://youtu.be/0AwwAN0ysLQ

-- I was using AirPod Pro 2's complaining how they were some of the worst Bluetooth devices I'd ever listened through at the time as well.. There's also been HP firmware updates I got through Windows Update on WIndows 11 under optional, I found it odd that HP support assistant didn't mention them, and WU didn't link me to a description...

Hope this helps, and I'll remain very curious as to how this works out for everyone.

[zyme84]

Great.. I used that small AMD Auto Detect and update drivers program ( amd-software-adrenalin-edition-23.8.1-minimalsetup-230819_web.exe ) earlier today and I've had a several screen freezes since. Once more and I think I'll reinstall sp144724.exe and hope reinstalling the old, from last year, latest HP Video drivers marked for this laptop fixes it for me again..

[parthadip]

Installing that driver from hp causes continuous screen freezing and I am sure of that after trying between hp provided and AMD provided drivers. I found the previous version of graphics driver from AMD to be most stable till now. It froze once for me few minutes ago but still it is much better than others. The latest one from AMD that you mentioned has issues too. I don't know what is hp doing. This kind of instability is really not expected from these business class machines. Where is the reliability hp? Your top of the line machines are suffering like this. God knows how those cheaper models are doing. 

[ACA_12341]

I've been having screen freezes, banding and eventual total system freeze.  This happens when I'm watching youtube and load a few tens of minutes of video.  The effect was reproduceable even after system resets -- but took some time to manifest.  I observed the effect running the 31.0.12026.8002 Graphics driver (dated from 12/27/2022).  I tried a bios update, but still had the freezing effect. I tried CNTRL+SHIFT+WIN+B video driver reset, but that only worked for a few minutes followed by total system freeze.  I then tried running the AMD graphics driver (31.0.21029.6002 8/17/2023), which appears to have worked, and is more stable (at least for the last few days).  I'm trying to test it out by running 3 simultaneous 4K youtube videos (note:  you have to search youtube for "4k video" and then go into the configuration menu of youtube and explicitly select 2160p video mode) .   Looking at Task Manager/Performance section, It appears to load up the "Video Codec 0" hardware decompressor while keeping CPU usage relatively low.

I tried reinstalling the HP Driver ( 31.0.12026.8002 Graphics driver (dated from 12/27/2022)) and running the same 3x4k video test.  Interestingly, the VIdeo Code 0 hardware decompressor is not used, and instead CPU usage is really high, along with lower Shared GPU Memroy.  I was *not* able to induce screen freezing with this test after reverting to the old HP drivers.  Perhaps because the AMD driver also installed some I2C and other low level drivers?  I'm not sure.  If someone else who's having screen freezing issues wants to try this 3x4K test, and then update the drivers to the AMD driver and see if it goes away?  This might give clues as to what the underlying problem is.  Anyway, it's a nice laptop, so it would be great if I could figure out some stable solution to this issue.    

Screen capture of Task Manager Performance with HP 31.0.12026.8002 Graphics driver (dated from 12/27/2022: