Surface Pro 3 Throttling Solution?

The processor in these tablets are flatter and wider than the desktop/laptop version used in the Pro 1/Pro 2 for which 'should' have improved cooling.  Looks like something else screwed up.

These are 3rd generation machines.  There is no excuse for any problems to exist on them.

I jumped the gun and went ahead and ordered the i3 model.  I chose it for testing/comparison since not many people will be buying that model.  Even though it is "low end", it is built with the exact same parts except for the CPU.  I am getting to think that the i5/i7 CPUs maybe too much for the chassis.  That is a guess.

Lets keep this thread going and will give feedback on the i3 and we will also see what the August Update will do for the i5 and i7 models as well.  Others will probably chime in and post what they find as well.

Yeah, I'm not even thinking about returning it until after I thoroughly test August's patch Tuesday, and even then its doubtful because this feels like early adopter problems. I've gotten the WiFi issue less and less under normal use and the thing performs like a dream for everything I've done that's not a video game (although battery life seems to be the same or a little less than my surface pro 2, not surprised because of the i7 and not really an issue because I plug it in a lot at work). The Yosemite update finished successfully and it looks alright, but my VMware graphics drive for mavericks doesn't work with it, so it unfortunately runs poorly as a vm. Also don't forget that the i7 SP3 has an Intel graphics 5000, supposedly making it better for games than the i5's 4400 if this throttling thing ever gets worked out. Hopefully it can be, because my SP2 seemed to sit at 85C while gaming and never had a problem, don't see any reason why my SP3 can't either.

Well, the Pro 3 was advertised for game play.  To everybody, that means high end games and not games like Solitaire or Chess.  Looks to me like you already gave it a real good test because the Guild Wars series was very well written.

You may be able to do a 'trade off' by trimming some of the enhanced graphics features in the game setup.  Not preferred but more functional and may reduce the load.

Now then, Update 2 is coming around on August 12th and will be posted on Windows Update as "August Update".  There maybe some serious fixes included in that upgrade for all models.

Intel has had a serious problem with the 4000HD graphics series for sometime.  Most people had an update for Windows 7 and Windows 8 with both i5 and i7 processors where the update would download but fail to install.  No matter what you did, it would fail.  Intel just released a stack of fixes about a week ago which was sent out to developers and that update stack for the Intel video should be in that August upgrade to Update 2.

Don't get rid of the machine; there may be some hope for it coming very soon.  No details where given regarding Update 2 except a bunch of major fixes for issues but nothing listed.  Microsoft is keeping completely quiet on it.

Personally, I think that the throttling of the i5 (and now i7) models is a temporary firmware installed to keep them from overheating.  No proof of that but if it is fixed, that restriction may be removed.

Looking forward for "Yosemite" myself.  After it is released, a month later, iOS8 comes out as well.  Get ready for the new "flat" look!

I'm going to have to do more testing on my i7 unit. Yesterday when I was experiencing the throttling was while trying to load Guild wars 2, it would go from 40fps to pegged around 24 after just a few minutes. However, today I did a real world stress test where I had mac os x mavericks open in a vmware virtual machine updating to yosemite, two torrents downloading, a few files downloading in Chrome, mp3s playing in the background, and web browsing, using between 50 to 80% cpu usage and using 7.8gb of ram (and probably most of my page file). While doing all this for about 20-30 minutes, the fan is spun up but the processor is still sitting in the low 60s high 50s degrees Celsius, and its still happily jumping between 800MHz and 3.3GHz without any noticeable slowdowns, which my surface pro 2 had trouble with when multitasking this much. It looks to me that only when the GPU is getting fully taxed as well that the device starts overheating and throttling. I am going to install a few more games and graphics intensive apps and test a bit more, but for how much smaller the SP3 feels compared to my SP2 with still a real improvement in real world speed, I am still impressed by it. Given that gaming on my SP2 was mostly a novelty, I don't feel that trading that feature for the vastly superior build of my i7 SP3 is an unfair trade.

Well, there we have it.  That machine is not worth keeping if it is 'clocked' down permanently.  It is a waste of a CPU.

I put my purchase of the i3 model on hold right now.  Might still get it later but decided to wait a week.