Surface laptop 3 fans running loud when laptop is plugged in

Anonymous
2019-11-17T19:40:03+00:00

Hello. I have been having this problem with my Surface laptop 3 where when I play a light game (like Minecraft) with the laptop plugged in the fans become extremely loud. However when the laptop is not plugged in the fans don't get even close to being as loud... Can someone help me solve this problem?

Surface | Surface Laptop | Power and battery

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Anonymous
2019-11-18T17:57:09+00:00

Hi 8gigLiam,

Thanks for reaching Microsoft Surface Community. We thank you for taking advantage on our new Surface Laptop 3. Definitely this is not the experience that we want you to have. We do have some few questions to have this isolated and some suggestions could lead us to a resolution.

When your on Battery, you have mentioned that you the fan is not that loud, But if you check on the battery slider are you on "Best Performance" while your in game?

You can adjust how you want your CPU to perform, by selecting the battery icon on the task bar and adjusting the power mode. Setting the power mode to Recommended throttles the CPU and helps keep it running cooler with less need of assisted cooling. While a setting of Better performance or Best performance will allow the device to run more quickly, it will also allow the fan to come on more often to keep the CPU cool and performing it's best.

Is this the 15" or the 13.5" Surface Laptop 3 for the Graphics"

If this is the 13.5" what's the processor?

We have :

Quad-core 10th Gen Intel® Core™ i5-1035G7 Processor

Quad-core 10th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-1065G7 Processor

You can check this by going to Task Bar search box and Type there "dxdiag".

Looking forward on your response. Please keep us posted.

Regards,

Edd

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  1. Anonymous
    2020-08-26T05:58:39+00:00

    Nothing as of yet guys, 

    Because of this COVID lockdown - Im working from home, last they asked was me to handover the laptop to Microsoft store so they can check - for that I need to go to Sydney city (not far for me 25K's away) but preferred to stay home to avoid risk. 

    But yes - still laptop going crazy on charging and on-dock - the battery is only lasting for 3 to 3.5 hours tops after disconnecting from the dock on full charge - my battery looks like it gave up already 

    I'm also having this issue. The laptop feels hot against the palms of my hands when typing on it, and the fan is constantly on when plugged into the charger. WMI Provider Host is eating a lot of CPU which I guess don't help things either.

    The fan issue is annoying, sure, but I've already started to notice a drop in battery capacity.

    Currently trying my best to find some fix for this, be it beta drivers or eventually installing Linux.

    Please help us out here, Microsoft. This is supposed to be one of your premium products, and it's the third iteration of it on top of that!

    Edit: Literally minutes after typing this up I found a quick workaround. If I had to guess, the heat/fan issue is due to Intel Turbo Boost being super-agressive. When plugged in the 1.5Ghz processor is constantly working at 2.5Ghz++ and thusly generating a lot of heat.

    When I changed the Maximum Processor State (when plugged in) to 99% it gets capped at 1.45Ghz-ish and the fan noise/overheating stopped within minutes.

    I'll report back if anything changes. But the times considered I'd rather have a bit slower laptop (I only do web dev work in VSCode anyway) than one that's speeding towards a RMA.

    ![](https://learn-attachment.microsoft.com/api/attachments/c536e294-cd74-4d12-b7cc-d799056e2cf2?platform=QnA

    This is what is displayed on my screen instead of what you see on yours.  Any ideas why there would be such a difference? 

    Follow the reg edit guide available here https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/107967-add-remove-maximum-processor-state-power-options-windows.html

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-07-23T16:20:39+00:00

    Nothing as of yet guys, 

    Because of this COVID lockdown - Im working from home, last they asked was me to handover the laptop to Microsoft store so they can check - for that I need to go to Sydney city (not far for me 25K's away) but preferred to stay home to avoid risk. 

    But yes - still laptop going crazy on charging and on-dock - the battery is only lasting for 3 to 3.5 hours tops after disconnecting from the dock on full charge - my battery looks like it gave up already 

    I'm also having this issue. The laptop feels hot against the palms of my hands when typing on it, and the fan is constantly on when plugged into the charger. WMI Provider Host is eating a lot of CPU which I guess don't help things either.

    The fan issue is annoying, sure, but I've already started to notice a drop in battery capacity.

    Currently trying my best to find some fix for this, be it beta drivers or eventually installing Linux.

    Please help us out here, Microsoft. This is supposed to be one of your premium products, and it's the third iteration of it on top of that!

    Edit: Literally minutes after typing this up I found a quick workaround. If I had to guess, the heat/fan issue is due to Intel Turbo Boost being super-agressive. When plugged in the 1.5Ghz processor is constantly working at 2.5Ghz++ and thusly generating a lot of heat.

    When I changed the Maximum Processor State (when plugged in) to 99% it gets capped at 1.45Ghz-ish and the fan noise/overheating stopped within minutes.

    I'll report back if anything changes. But the times considered I'd rather have a bit slower laptop (I only do web dev work in VSCode anyway) than one that's speeding towards a RMA.

    I have had the same problem with the really loud fan and this seems to have sorted it thank you!

    P.s it look me ages to figure out how to configure windows so I could see the Processor power management setting. In the end I used this guide https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/107967-add-remove-maximum-processor-state-power-options-windows.html and worked through option 2 - downloading a .reg file

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  3. Anonymous
    2020-04-16T15:38:00+00:00

    I can say that having followed all of the advice here, reducing the battery to Recommended, throttling the CPU to 99% (Advanced power settings) and switching to a USB-C charger my fan has not started once this afternoon and the laptop is relatively cool to the touch. I've had video meetings and lots of applications open, doesn't feel like I've lost any performance and it is now working perfectly.

    Thanks everyone!

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  4. Anonymous
    2020-02-05T04:55:29+00:00

    I raised a Support case with Microsoft which is now escalated to level 2 

    Lets see what they can come up with. 

    They apparently released a fix to address Buzzing noise some (there is another form discussing that) 

    What we hve is when connected to Dock - the fans religiously make it a mission to turn at full speed and laptop goes crazy hot within 20 min even with very light use. 

    Before we go crazy 'reg edits' and play with Fan controls and CPU controls = lets see what Microsoft has to say.

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