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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 noticed this too before returning.
The power settings had no impact on min/max core speeds or temperatures.
SB2 with i5-7300u idles at about 40°c and peaks at 77°c under Best Performance on slider, but the SB3 with i7-1065G was idling at around 55°c and hitting 100°c regardless of power setting.
These devices feel crippled on battery power...
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
same issue here, same exact hardware configuration. i am running quite a bit of software while screen-sharing over Zoom, and updating software before demoing it occasionally, but this hardware should be handling what i'm doing without any issue - much lesser hardware can...
are the thermals that poor in these Surface Book 3s??? this was not a cheap device, i'm starting to regret not going with the 2020 HP Spectre x360 15" and getting the better 6-core i7 for almost $1k less!
Microsoft has confirmed that the 13" model is FANLESS. My older Book had one in the tablet section. My Book 3 does NOT and it runs very, very warm and occasionally just shuts down until it cools off. This is while laptop is 'closed' and hooked to the Dock 2 running dual monitors. When running purely on battery power this does not happen. VERY ANNOYING.
Hello,
Since I wrote this ours have seen a marked improvement, none have blue screened this week. We found ours only tended to overheat when running multiple screens. and doing other things like Zoom.
I am not sure what has improved, one thought is that the heatsincs may not have been bonded to the chips 100% and the heat has since solved them. Before the fan hardly operated on mine (dont think the 15" are fanless") and now it appears to be running a lot more often and properly discharging the heat when it should.
One of my colleagues has changed the graphics setting of the high demanding programmes to High Performance, it would appear their is a power saving option which appears to be an Intel Iris Card which we think my give up if you ask it to do too much.
Hope this helps, I hope it gets better. Yes the Spectre is a good option.
