Surface Book 3 Throttling at 0.19 GHz

Hi,

I think I have a similar issue. I've read through the entirety of the thread and followed the links but I can't believe the solution is to request a refund and order the 15" version...

I have the 13", 32Gb, 1Tb HD.

I'm using the laptop mostly for work via a virtual desktop and for some 3D modelling/ rendering and a bit of drawing at hobbyist level. I was also hoping to use the laptop for some casual gaming but this is where the problems arise for me.

Initially I tried to play the Resident Evil 3 demo via Steam but the laptop got ridiculously hot at the back of the screen and sounded like it was about to take off. (Apologies, I'm not familiar with the terminology or the methods you guys are using to numerically understand the problem - I'm just a consumer).

I thought that the problem may be that the graphics options were set too high for the GPU but even when I reduced these to the bare minimum the problem persisted. (As a side-note, I believe I amended the graphics settings to ensure that Steam, etc. was utilising the GPU - please see screenshot). Alas, this didn't work. I thought perhaps because this is a 2020 game that it might just be too demanding for the graphics card so I downloaded Theme Hospital via GOG.

This game came out in '97 and seems to run through a dos emulator. I played it yesterday for many hours without a problem but today after about an hour the laptop went haywire - the cursor rolled to the left-hand-side of the screen and froze and I had to ctrl-alt-del and close it down. At this point I found the computer to be worryingly warm at the back of the screen.

For a little extra context; I usually have the computer connected to a hdtv via the usb-c/ hdmi adapter and I use a Microsoft bluetooth keyboard and mouse. Sometimes I close the lid, sometimes I leave it open. My flat isn't all that hot - I'm in London where the temperature is 18deg. outside today with no internal heating, radiators, etc. switched on.

Also, I pre-ordered the laptop and it arrived on June 5th. I expect if I did want to go down the refund/ upgrade route I might be pushing it as of today (July 5th) unless this is considered some sort of malfunction that's covered by the warranty? 

Any advice you can offer a layman would be greatly appreciated...

Thanks,

Dan

Dan,

I have the same 13" config. Friday (7/03/20) Microsoft published some Firmware Updates that so far solved the problem. I put some continuous load on my machine at an ambient temp of approx 24C. The back of the tablet went also pretty hot within 2-3 mins, which caused throttling, but only down to about 1GHz, leaving the device fully responsive. I set the performance level to maximum on Windows, which caused the 0,19G throttle (sometimes also prevented the restart due to overtemp) with the previous firmware.

If you need permanent continuous performance you will end up in using some fans on the back of the tablet. In any other case (like 1-2 mins peaks) with some time between it seems to work pretty well now.

So far this is my experience.

HTH,

Chris

The new firmwares (from the 3rd of July) didn't work for me on the 13.5". Hopefully it works on other people though!

Sorry to hear - under what circumstances (what is your load to simulate) does that still happen? I would like to test this with mine.

I've also had really good luck using a small fan pointed at the Windows-logo on the back of the tablet.  When I have it on its lowest setting it seems to eliminate the throttling I experience while using MS Teams.  Not the best solution, but wanted to confirm it does seem to work pretty reliability as a fix.  I have not received the updated firmware yet to try it.