Over the past few weeks an issue with the GPD WIN 4 has been identified. In some instances a GPD WIN 4 refresh rate bug can cause ‘stutters’ in some games. This results in an extra duplicate frame being displayed every so often
What is the GPD WIN 4 refresh rate bug?
We won’t bore you with the full technical explanation. If you would like to know more about this bug and the reason it happens, we recommend watching The Phawx’s video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ovp7jrJdLAc for an excellent overview of it all.
To be clear, this bug affects a small number of games, mostly older 2D based games but you may experience it on some newer games as well. There are very good chances that you may not have even noticed the stutter in games until reading about it.
What fixes are there to resolve this?
There is a fix that does involve buying an IC programmer which is used to reprogram a chip on the GPD WIN 4 motherboard. This does involve opening up your GPD WIN 4 and performing the update yourself. Obviously not everyone wishes to or is capable of doing this upgrade, and we do not recommend doing it if you are not comfortable doing so. If you are happy to do the GPD Win 4 IC stutter fix yourself, check out The Phawx’s video above for all the details or follow our GPD WIN 4 60Hz fix guide here.
GPD have informed us that they are working on some kind of ‘firmware update’ which will fix the GPD WIN 4 refresh rate bug. We do not have any further details at the moment, but we would expect it to not require opening up the GPD WIN 4. Our guess would be a BIOS or software update for example. The ETA on this update is around one month and it should be a far easier fix than the current method.
What are DroiX doing to fix this?
We are happy to announce that we have been working overtime to update every GPD WIN 4 we have in stock with the above GPD Win 4 IC stutter fix to resolve the GPD WIN 4 refresh rate bug. Any new purchases starting today (10th May 2023) will be up to date and ready to play all your favourite games!
What if I have already purchased a GPD WIN 4 from DroiX?
We aim to provide an excellent ongoing customer service experience when you buy from us at DroiX. We will be accepting returns from customers that have purchased from us as you are covered under our two year warranty! We are happy to update the IC at no cost to you whatsoever, this includes no costs for postage sending to DroiX or returning it back to you!
Please note that this is a huge logistics operation for us. We are a relatively small company and we may not be able to provide the usual very fast turnaround in this instance. You would need to wait for delivery to us at DroiX, our engineers updating your GPD WIN 4 (depending how many we have received), and then returning it in the post to you. We can’t give time frames just yet, but you could be looking at potentially a two week turnaround.
While we are happy to provide this service to our customers, we do recommend waiting a few weeks for GPD to release a new update which will fix this issue. If however there are any delays in this release, you are still covered with the two year warranty at DroiX and you can return it any time for the IC update.
If you would like to arrange a return for updating the IC, please contact our customer service at [email protected] with your Order ID. We will get back to you as soon as possible with further details.
What if I purchased the GPD WIN 4 from another company?
You would need to contact the company you purchased it from for them to fix the issue. Unfortunately this may mean you could be charged for the postage costs and repair time. We all know that many sellers are in this for a quick buck and provide no support for their customers once they have your money.
Again, we would recommend waiting for GPD to release a new firmware update to fix this issue. At the moment we are not accepting repairs from non-DroiX customers, though we will update if this is possible in the future.
