Surface Laptop 4 + dock - Mouse & keyboard lag / freeze

Anonymous
2021-12-17T17:47:47+00:00

Hi,

This issue has been plaguing the Surface products - and I'm "glad" to report that the Laptop 4 is also suffering from it.

The problem: When I connect USB peripherals (especially gaming mice and keyboards) to the Surface Dock, they lag and/or hang every X time.

The same issue has been reported for the Surface Book 2 and Laptop 3. I own the latter and I've experienced this issue on that device personally. It has been fixed since, so I'm kind of disappointed to see the same issue on the Laptop 4 now.

To make matters worse, I've also experienced this issue with a Logitech MX Keys keyboard (not a gaming device). Every few minutes, sometimes more often, a key haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaangs <- and causes stuff like that.

As I understand, the high report rate of gaming devices causes the Dock to disconnect-then-reconnect the usb devices every so often. Another cause I've read about was recent Windows versions powering down USB ports or something like that.

I can confirm that the same Dock (v1, in this case) with a Laptop 3 does not suffer from this issue. It's just the Laptop 4.

The only way to work around it is to connect the device via bluetooth (not always an option as many gaming devices do not have BT) or plug the USB in the laptop (not the Dock). This works for one device, but unfortunately I'm one of those guys who insist on using both a keyboard and a mouse :))

I would really appreciate a fix for this issue. Thanks!

Related support topics (barely scratching the Surface (ha!) here:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/forum/all/mouse-scrolling-lag-surface-dock-connection-issues/bdd8362c-e176-4d37-9298-c21dd260be04 https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/forum/all/mouse-scrolling-lag-surface-dock-connection-issues/bdd8362c-e176-4d37-9298-c21dd260be04

Surface | Surface Laptop | Performance and maintenance

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  1. Anonymous
    2022-10-24T22:49:51+00:00

    It looks like my problem has been solved by updating to Windows 11 22H2 :-)

    I keep watching to see if the error appears.

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  2. Anonymous
    2022-10-25T00:35:49+00:00

    Here are the scenarios I've reproduced the exact same symptoms with:

    Keyboard/Mouse -> Surface Dock 2 -> Surface

    Keyboard/Mouse -> Generic USB-C Hub -> Surface

    This *only* happens with keyboards and mice. Example: My webcam plugged into the same hub/dock works 100% of the time.

    I can reproduce this issue with three keyboards. The problem isn't the keyboard. The problem isn't one particular hub or dock.

    When the keyboard/mouse is plugged into the surface directly, I have no issues - unfortunately, there are a *very limited* number of USB ports, so this isn't a viable solution.

    I can only solve this issue by editing the power plan. Pwrcfg is super complex, so I haven't been able to spend *more* time figuring out exactly whats happening here. I only know when I make the change (somewhere in this thread), I can get the keyboard working for long periods of time.

    The issue isn't outdated firmware. I will scream if someone tries to tell me to reinstall windows, or to "check my firmware". All of these devices are up to date (including my Surface device, which is a Surface Laptop Studio).

    This thread clearly shows something systemic (likely with the pwrcfg plans for processors related to power saving, specific for surface devices). I encapsulated the pwrcfg command in a powershell script run each time the system starts.

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  3. Anonymous
    2022-10-25T02:55:10+00:00

    Hi all,

    I am having the same issue with a brand new Surface Laptop 4 13.5" (32GB/1TB). I am also using a Surface Dock 2 connected to a KVM via USB, with an attached keyboard and a high polling rate mouse. The laptop is running Windows 11 installed clean from USB and all available firmware and software updates have been applied.

    I have also experienced the same issue in the past, on a Surface Book 2 connected to the exact same setup. With the SB2, the issue was resolved by following this guidance: https://www.reddit.com/r/Surface/comments/aujg3d/fix_naughty_usbintroducing_a_ridiculous_usb_bug/ 
    Unfortunately, limiting the processor frequency on the SL4 did not work as far as I can tell. I continued to look in processor power settings to possibly resolve the issue.

    I found that when I set the value of the "Processor idle demote threshold" to 100% the issue was resolved. You can change this value by using this command for "Plugged in" state or AC power:

    I make no claims that this is safe to do. You are changing this setting at your own risk.

    powercfg -SETACVALUEINDEX SCHEME_BALANCED SUB_PROCESSOR IDLEDEMOTE 0x00000064

    To set the demote threshold back to default (40%):

    powercfg -SETACVALUEINDEX SCHEME_BALANCED SUB_PROCESSOR IDLEDEMOTE 0x00000028

    This did not require a reboot in my testing and the effect is almost immediate. I have set this back and forth for the past few hours and it seems to resolve the issue completely. Not sure what this change means for the idle states or processor power and may completely disable some idle states or all of them.

    This did not resolve the issue for me.

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  4. Anonymous
    2022-10-26T21:46:18+00:00

    Try this website and go straight to "Fix-2  Disable Intelppm registry in Registry Editor":

    https://thegeekpage.com/fix-cpus-are-not-running-at-its-full-capacity-in-windows-10/I am experiencing this issue on a Surface Laptop 4. Changed the intelppm value to 4. So far no lag/stutter/freezing.

    Intel Processor Power Management (PPM)

    The below is based on hunches on the internet

    1 = Access to full power range as required

    3 = Default (leaning towards always on power savings plan)

    4 = Disabled

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  5. Anonymous
    2022-10-28T20:58:18+00:00

    A similar problem occurs also with the surface dock 2 and surface pro 8 devices when docked. Both the dock and the pro 8 have the latest firmware and windows updates. The issue only seems to happen when an ethernet cable is plugged into the docking station. This seems to be a driver issue on microsoft's end that they have not figured out or bothered to fix yet. We have 6 Surface pro 8 devices and the issue is able to be reproduced on all 6 devices. We also have 38 surface pro 7+ devices that the issue does not happen on. They get the same repeating key/lag where a work like "help" turns into "helllllllllllllllllllllp" its intermittent and seems to happen at random but the workaround we have found was to only use wifi and remove the ethernet cable from the docking station.

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