When on battery, severe CPU throttling kicks in at 35% charge: how to change ?

Anonymous
2019-12-19T16:39:57+00:00

Brand new Spro7, Firmware up-to-date.

I noticed drastic CPU throttling when battery charge level reaches 35%: CPU tops at about 0.5 GHz and setting the power slide to "Best Performance" doesn't change that.

I found no setting that would allow to change this excessively conservative threshold to something more reasonable like 12 or 15% (my Battery Saver level is set at 15%, but it has obviously no impact on this).

Is this hard-coded in the firmware ?

Any ideas ?

Surface | Surface Pro | Power and battery

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments

46 answers

Sort by: Most helpful
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2020-06-17T07:48:47+00:00

    Im in the same situation, even seeing CPU speed only slowing down when using USB-C to HDMI io. I think its a problem with their USB-C io process. I've been having problems where, only when using USB-C to HDMI, my display will glitch so bad, the computer is unusable, and has to be restarted (need to hold power button down until it powers off, any other input doesnt work at all). I've also noticed that when plugging in and unplugging the USB-C cord, the CPU utilization goes from 20% to 95-100%! Coupled with the fact that the clock speed drops to 0.5GHz - ish when the battery falls below 35%,  only while using USB-C io, I think its a soft/firm ware issue with their USB-C io handling.

    But its just a guess.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2020-06-10T15:52:28+00:00

    No change after the update, still same state :(

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2020-06-10T14:16:26+00:00

    My SP7 just started downloading new versions of firmware.

    Surface - Firmware - 8.123.140.0 (Surface UEFI)

    Surface - Firmware - 13.0.1319.2 (Surface ME)

    Nothing on the update pages though to show what's changed....

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2020-05-30T15:35:48+00:00

    In this case the only "real solution" (at least for now) would be to return the device and to buy something else, but in my case, it is unfortunately too late...

    funny, I just replaced my previous SP4 with this SP7 because of....unsolved battery issues (battery drain when unit turned off) !!!

    Looks like batteries are Achilles' heels for the Surface !

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  5. Anonymous
    2020-05-30T09:49:17+00:00

    I am running version 2004 for some time and unfortunately, it is the same... 

    I wouldn't be surprised if all the devices would be impacted (as even i7 version with active cooling seem to be affected as well). 

    In this case the only "real solution" (at least for now) would be to return the device and to buy something else, but in my case, it is unfortunately too late...

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments