Surface Book 3 Throttling at 0.19 GHz

Hi,

Got my SB3 1.5 week ago and during the weekend I got the 0.19GHz CPU throttle issue... I've looked online for this issue and I have found different solutions and different outcomes.

What ended up working for me was to install the latest SB3 firmware and also in the System Configuration (type msconfig in the start menu), in the Boot tab, under Advanced Options, I have set the Number of Processros to 8 (before I had 1 processor). This has solved the CPU throttling issue.

But, what I have been noticing is that what is causing my system to be extremely slow sometimes is not the CPU throttling due to high temperatures, but are the occasions where I have to write something to my SSD in a more intensive way, e.g., extracting very big files or downloading something at a very high speed while playing a game or 3D editing. Has anyone experienced this behaviour too?

Actually, I never pinned this to SSD issues, even in the 512GB version it's quite speedy.

Heating and the usage of webcams seem the biggest culprits so far.

I'm disappointed at Microsoft because they're encouraging me to send in my unit for replacement but they won't pay for expedited shipping, so I'd have to stay a couple of weeks without a laptop (that I actually need to work).

I think I'll try to organise a return to the store instead of Microsoft...

Actually I have never used the webcam intensively up to now for videoconferencing. But, I hope that with the Windows 10 version 2004 update we can get rid of these issues. And I also hope that these are mainly firmware issues... 

Anyway, for the moment, I can confirm that doing what I have described before has helped to not have the CPU overheating/throttling while gaming (I (re)played Alien Isolation and Dragon Ball Kakarot without problems). Before, just by playing Alien Isolation for around ~30min the CPU was almost in flames and at a ludricous speed of 0.19GHz.

Version 2004 didn't cut it for me. Actually, it even prompted a Microsoft agent that took control over my laptop to say "you have this? this hasn't been released yet"!

Anyway, I will go for my second replacement (third unit) and because I'm using my SB3 for work, I arranged for Microsoft to send me the new unit while I still have the old one. Yes, I had to block the whole RRP amount on my credit card but that beats me having no work laptop for a week.

Fingers crossed that third time's the charm. And what a lousy QA (if the third unit works as intended) or design (if nothing even works).

Did the MS agent pointed out what was the problem? What sort of checks did he do and what were the results?

I've had my SB3 for around two weeks and I haven't had any more throttling issues, but I definetly have strange things happening. For example, several times, while watching a 1080p youtube video, the video itself started to roll horizontally without stopping! Also, while watching a youtube video someimtes there are orange/pink shadows around the edges of the person speaking.

I've had no performance issues while using SolidWorks 2018 (with big and complex assemblies), Mathematica 12 and MATLAB 2016.

During the weekend I'll play a game that will push the SB3 and I'll try to use Zoom to see how it behaves..