Surface Pro 7 Freezing and Restarting

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?

I'd absolutely return the device to Microsoft for a new one. I made that mistake with my SP3 until it was to late.

BRILLIANT.  This answer should be posted somewhere in bright lights and/or included in the next update patch.  Thank you.

I have had extensive chats with Microsoft agents. The last one was able to see the problem himself while we were connected via a logmein session. He suggested that the wall sockets in my home might be the source of the problem, perhaps overpowered - but we laid that excuse to rest by drawing the mains power from my battery-powered uninterruptible power supply - which will have been producing a very clean and regulated power. The cursor sticking problem remained. He also had a good look through all my software, drivers and power settings and could find nothing amiss.

So I am returning the SP7 and asking for a third one to be sent. I have read extensively all the forums. It seems that some people report obtaining SPs on which this problem is not evident. But I cannot tell if this is because they do not notice (perhaps because they only use the SP on battery power) or if it is just a manufacturing flaw that occurs only on some batches of the product.

The Microsoft agents I have chatted with (4 so far) have all been very sympathetic and tried hard to figure out what is wrong. But they seem surprised at the fault I report - which surprises me, given the large number of people writing about on reddit.com and answers.microsoft.com and the 230+ here clicking on "I have the same question". I was glad that the last agent was able to observe it for himself through the logmein session. He remarked that he had made his supervisor aware.

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 have an SP7 i5/8G/128G, bought 4 weeks ago. It had this problem out of the box. Eventually I tried Microsoft helpline. They revamped drivers and stuff for an hour or two. But no fix. Then I followed this suggestion. That was 5 days ago: no recurrence of the problem. Seems to me that this solution should be widely publicised...including to Microsoft staff.

Hopefully this is monitored by Microsoft staff...

I have a theory which if correct, would be a design flaw.

Something like this: The display backlight driver circuit creates RF interference, especially when not at full brightness or when changing intensity.  This interference can cause issues and sometimes may cause the display to freeze.  I have the problem less when I turn off the adaptive backlight intensity, but it still happens often enough to be a problem.

I suspect that when powering from AC, the backlight driver circuit behaves differently (different input voltage, power path, or something) which allows it to work without failing.

I've just tried the fix suggested above and will monitor this to see if it still occurs.  But if it's related to the backlight driver creating interference, Microsoft should be able to come up with a hardware fix, or possibly even software if they can change the frequency of the drive signal.

(Sorry for the nerdiness - I'm an electrical engineer and just retired a few weeks ago, and it's hard to completely let go...)

Just to post an update here.  I had the freezing issue with my first SP7.  I exchanged it at BestBuy and the replacement has been working flawlessly for almost a month now.