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First off, the specs are: 13.5"/i7/32GB/512GB/1650 Max-Q
Not sure if this will be the case for all users, but I am currently troubleshooting a issue with the Surface Book 3 going into a thermal throttle state from just restarting or trying to update even basic things.
The first few days were fine - though attempting to run Minecraft didn't actually engage the dGPU for some reason. Eventually got the dGPU to work by installing NVIDIA's GeForce Experience, or whatever it's called.
Then I noticed that the fan would spin up even when the SB3 should have been in sleep mode; I fixed this by just having it hibernate instead. Since then, I haven't heard any fan noise at all, even when the thermals were hitting well into the upper 90s C and even a few cores hitting 100 C.
Now, I can't seem to cool the thing off. I was trying to install Adobe Acrobat Pro and the latest Intel drivers (apparently one was released on 5/20?) the screen shut off and a little thermometer popped up (which I assumed, and later confirmed, meant that it had overheated and shut down to prevent damage).
Like I mentioned just above, now I can't seem to get the darn thing to run cool enough to even install it's routine updates. I have a box fan pointed on it to try and help, but even that doesn't seem to be effective.
When last I checked (which admittedly was a few hours ago now since I'm trying a factory reset to see if one of the updates caused this) the CPU was capped out at 400 MHz, but it hasn't overheated since. It sure does take a heck of a long time to do a reset when your CPU is capped to 400 MHz.
I'm hoping that this factory reset will fix the issue (hey, ya never know 'til ya try, amirite?), but otherwise I assume that I will likely have to warranty this particular SB3.
Not really sure where I was going with all of this, I guess I was wondering if this is something that could be caused by updates and drivers or if there is a more serious hardware issue.
I spent far too long trying to see if I could force the fans to spin regardless before just giving up on that.
I'll add a link here that has a picture (would've done a screen cap, but it's in the middle of resetting) and some video showing what I'm talking about.
Thoughts or suggestions?
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
I just got my Surface Book 3 yesterday, and I had the same issue with overheating described here when charging. I don't know if that's bc it was charging or not, but given my awful experience with overheating with the Surface Pro 3, I'm tempted to return my Book 3 because of these overheating issues.
Hello,
We have just bought about 6no brand new surface book 3 for our busy design office. Because we use Autodesk products we opted for the GeForce Quadro option (with the 15 inch screen, 1TB and 32GB memory.
Within the first couple of days one of the machines started bluescreening from overheating and now a further 2 machines have started to demonstrate the same trait. We have been trying to contact our business sales rep but they are not responding and completely ignoring us.
I had an old surface book 2 with the GEFORCE with the GTX card previously and never had any issues (although it did run warm when working hard).
I am very worried there is a serious defect with the new surface book 3 and my recommendation would be not to buy one until Microsoft offer some kind of assurance that these problems are fixed.
I cannot express my disappointment enough, I was a big fan of Microsoft and feel completely let down both in the serious hardware issues and the lack of customer service.
James
I have been using my Surface Book 3 for teaching over the zoom. It hits the 100 degree-Celsius levels so easily.
It is frustrating how this laptop thermal throttles so frequently for everyday tasks. Coming from Surface Pro 4, and considering how much the specs of this device is much higher as compared to my surface pro 4, The SB3 performs so poorly. I think it is because of the Intel i7 1065g7 processor, as this processor is designed to thermal throttle at 100 degrees Celsius. It works at high temperatures and it has been a must for me to use an external fan pointed to the back of the screen for cooling.
SB3 has been frozen during the zoom meetings 2 times, that I had to hard reset it to make it work again. I paid almost $3000, and I am very unhappy with the thermals and performance. :(
My Surface Pro 4 even wouldn't freeze in a meeting, but it would get really hot as well, that was my reason to upgrade to SB3.
I really love the form factor and design, but this processor choice is so poor and I am really disappointed. I would rather have a thicker version, if that is what it takes, that has good thermal. Also, I would prefer a more powerful CPU with 8 cores. If you need to make the screen thicker for 2 fans, just do it. :) I want the performance and less versatile is ok as long as I have the great pen input display. Also upgrade that to 4k :).
We all would like a reply from Microsoft!
Surface Book 3 13" is badly designed, MS did exactly the same mistake than the surface book 2 13".
The CPU/iGPU in the screen is passively cooled "fanless"
The result is if you doing long of CPU intensive application the computer overheat and throttle down.
I don't understand why they did that, the Surface Pro 7 and the Surface Book 3 15" with the same CPU got an active cooling...
