Surface Pro 7 Freezing and Restarting

This is really good info and would explain why an attached external display continues to update when the "freezing" happens on the built in surface display.

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.

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.

I have tried this fix on my Surface Pro 7 i5/8GB/128GB. For about 5 minutes I thought it had worked, and I was very excited. But sadly the problem has resumed.

My problem is that my trackpad cursor occasionally freezes and does not respond as I slide my finger on the pad. It seems to happen when I make many fast movements of the cursor in succession. 

But the problem only occurs when the Surface Pro 7 is on mains power. The cursor always starts to behave responsively again when I disconnect the mains power supply and run on battery.

There is a very long thread where  users of Surface Pros complain about this problem at

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/forum/all/surface-pro-2017-touchpad-mouse-freezing/d64353ee-f49e-462d-b521-4ebeaf9215c7?auth=1

No one has a fix. I suspect it must be a manufacturing fault in a minority of machines. If all machines had the fault mine does there would be an outcry. However, I am now on my second Surface Pro 7 with this problem. I do not know whether it will be worth asking Microsoft for another exchange so I can try a third one. 

Alternatively, I give up on trying to use the Surface Pro while it is charging.

It is mysterious that the issue only happens when the Surface is being powered by the mains.

Thanks PKCast.  This has resolved the issue for me.  I have been running the fix for over a month now and no issues (apart from reduced battery operation time).

I bought my surface pro from best buy while the store was still open, it was the last one in the store. I got it home got everything set up and ready to go,  I walked away for a couple minutes came back and it was frozen, it would’nt do anything, I had to shut it down and start all over 🤦‍♀️ So frustrating !! I took it back to best buy which is now closed do to the COVID 9 virus, ordered another one and its freezing up worse then the last one. I have to start online school on Monday, I don’t have time to wait for another one to be shipped 😢 Im stressing big time all my classes are online because campus is shut down due to this stupid virus 🤦‍♀️