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I just purchased the Microsoft Surface Pro 7 and have only been using it for one day. In that time it has frozen and completely restarted itself 4 times. It is brand new and I probably only have an hour or two or screen time. There is no specific thing that causes it, the screen just randomly freezes until the surface restarts on it's own. Any solutions or help would be greatly appreciated.
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.
This issue seems to be tied to the display powersaving tech that Intel has called Panel Self Refresh, which may cause the display panel to not update in certain situations (though it's not good at figuring out what those situations are) to reduce power.
I've fixed it on my SP7 i5/8G/256G by installing the Intel Graphics Command Center from the Microsoft Store, opening it, going to System>Power>Panel Self Refresh and turning it off for both "On Battery" and "Plugged In".
I am having the exact same issue with my SP7 i5 256gb. The interesting thing is that I don't think the computer is actually freezing its the display that is freezing. When I have a second monitor connected through the surface dock the mouse pointer and keyboard keep working on the second monitor but will freeze on the SP7 screen. Its very strange. I can even touch the SP 7 Screen and it will move on the second monitor but not the SP screen. Actually as I am typing this right now, what I typed stopped updating on the SP7 screen up at "its very strange" but I am still typing on the surface keyboard and its updating on my second monitor with no lags. After about 10 -20 seconds the SP7 screen will catch up. I will probably try exchange it at Best Buy tomorrow.
Update. I exchanged mine for a replacement which has been working flawlessly. It definitely was a hardware problem.
I have the same issue and have updated the drivers and ran windows update. This has not fixed the problem. I purchased my Surface Pro 7 2 days ago. Is there any further advice on this issue, or should I just return it?
This issue seems to be tied to the display powersaving tech that Intel has called Panel Self Refresh, which may cause the display panel to not update in certain situations (though it's not good at figuring out what those situations are) to reduce power.
I've fixed it on my SP7 i5/8G/256G by installing the Intel Graphics Command Center from the Microsoft Store, opening it, going to System>Power>Panel Self Refresh and turning it off for both "On Battery" and "Plugged In".
I turned off the Panel Self Refresh for both "on battery" and "plugged". So far so good. 1 day without a single freeze. My SP7 seems to work as it should. I will report back again in a few days just to make sure.
EDIT: 2 days later, the issue is completely gone. Fixed. Millions of thanks to aeturnus to pinpoint the exact problem!
I had this issue with my 1st SP7 i5/128G. The display was freezing for 2-10 sec randomly. I returned it. Got a replacement and I'm still having the same issue. I have reset/updated/reinstalled/made sure I have all the firmware drivers update but with no success. The issue is still present randomly. It is very annoying and cannot use the SP7 for work for this reason. It is unproductive. I will possibly send it to get another replacement but I'm afraid that this won't be fixed. I've tried everything discussed for this problem with no success. Mine is doing this plugged or unplugged. If anybody has a solution that would be greatly appreciated. As I said, it is solely the display that seems to freeze. Microsoft please pull up your sleeve and resolve this issue that seems to affect so many users...
