Surface Book 3 Overheating During Updates and Routine Downloads?

Anonymous
2020-05-27T20:43:15+00:00

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?

Surface | Surface Book | Power and battery

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  1. Anonymous
    2020-08-26T02:31:42+00:00

    I ended up returning my Surface Book 3 and getting a Razer Blade Stealth 13, so sorry, I can't really tell you if it was a device-specific issue or not.

    How did you proceed to return it? I'm only offered support + replacement, but I'm already on my second machine and don't want to spend more time on it.

    I am almost over it too - I've got the Microsoft Complete for Surface Book for my SB3 too and bought direct through Microsoft for WFH replacing my SB1. Overheating for basic browser based video calls and collaboration is just too much to put up with.

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-08-24T17:36:06+00:00

    I ended up returning my Surface Book 3 and getting a Razer Blade Stealth 13, so sorry, I can't really tell you if it was a device-specific issue or not.

    How did you proceed to return it? I'm only offered support + replacement, but I'm already on my second machine and don't want to spend more time on it.

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  3. Anonymous
    2020-08-24T14:07:14+00:00

    I feel you and I am in front of the same decision. I use Windows for over 20 years and I have over-average knowledge. And I do not want a replacement device from Microsoft; you can read many feedback according exchange devices in this community. Support from Microsoft according Surface Hardware is imho horrible. Please, Microsoft, show me the opposite!

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  4. Anonymous
    2020-08-22T17:57:18+00:00

    I ended up returning my Surface Book 3 and getting a Razer Blade Stealth 13, so sorry, I can't really tell you if it was a device-specific issue or not.

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  5. Anonymous
    2020-08-21T14:01:31+00:00

    If you are using a Surface Dock and the issue only occurs when docked, then you might want to update the dock firmware. I did and the temps dropped and laptop performance improved dramatically. 

    I removed the laptop from the dock and in a short period of time the processor core temps dropped into the 40C range! I began researching updating the dock and found this update https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=46703. I thought it weird that AMD64 was in the file name and that it did not specifially mention that it was for Dock version 1 but I installed it and the processor core temps dropped into the 40C range as they did when the laptop was not plugged into the dock. The laptop is also no longer sluggish plugged in and performs as it should as a laptop with 32gb of ram. I also want to provide a link to a Microsoft technical article regarding updating the dock firmware here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/surface-dock-firmware-update.

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