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
    2020-11-30T23:37:45+00:00

    Same problem here with my i7 13.5 Surface Book 3. Actually having them ship me a new one but rather sure that will not help. Even when out in the sun on a 70 degree day it overheats doing barely anything. 

    I have found if you use the below fan and have it run through the screens vents it helps a ton and keeps the CPU in the 70's. What a horrible design. I wish I could get my money back. 

    Talk to an friend of mine who used to be an engineer on the Surface team. He said the thermal engineer on the Book 3 was the best they had. Well he must have had an off day on the 13". I told this same friend that it has an i7 without a fan, and he looked at me like I was crazy. I said no. MSFT is crazy. 

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-12-01T00:08:58+00:00

    Similar experience.  After much back and forth with Microsoft they offered to replace it.  I could not afford to be without it for work so I had to decline for now.

    Would you post your experience with a new unit here?  I'm very skeptical but also a little desperate given my investment.  My configuration is similar to yours.

    Thanks.

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  3. Anonymous
    2020-12-02T01:58:00+00:00

    Got my new SB 3, 13" / i7/ 16GB unit for few days. It got very hot at the back with minimum usage (web browsing). After reading through this, i will return the unit and get macbook M1 instead.

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  4. Anonymous
    2020-12-02T02:21:08+00:00

    My SB3 won't stop overheating. Always seems like when it's downloading or updating. I wouldn't recommend it, definitely return it if you can. I wish I could return mine.

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  5. Anonymous
    2020-12-02T08:09:47+00:00

    The most annoying thing to me is that when I put my SB3 in Studio Mode and connect a Monitor on USB C, it will start ramping up the fans to the max and not stop ventilating until I shut the device off. 

    Even if the device doesn't load any updates and has no applications open it will ramp up the fans when sitting in idle (mind that the monitor is only 1440p and shouldn't be demanding too much from the SB3). 

    If I actually run some applications, the SB3 quickly get's overwhelmed and starts lagging (for example with OneNote open + Zoom open). How is this possible? 

    I checked if the device is throttling oder overheating but that's not the case either. It never goes above 70° for more than a sec. Still though when I shut him off he shows the overheating-symbol, despite being hot at all ... what the hell. 

    It's so weird how that's only happening in studio mode though. 

    Btw. I usually run ALL applications on the integrated gpu since the SB3 somehow just stop detecting the gtx 1650 in studio mode at some point (which happens every single time) - but that's ok, since it usually happens before the friggin touchscreen stops working as a whole which ALSO happens EVERY DAY since I bought this device. 

    I got this SB3 after my SB2 had some major defects and I wanna replace this pos as quickly as possible as well. **** Microsoft.

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