SURFACE LAPTOP 3 - Overheating when charging and excessive Fan Noise

Anonymous
2020-01-07T23:58:07+00:00

Edit: 16 Jun 2021

Laptop is going OK - not much fan noise or heating as I haven't been using it much. mostly my work laptop

Got a better data USB C to USB C cable to plug into the dock and using a Lenovo Dock Gen 2 for the additional screen, think they are helping in better handling and keeps fans not to rev so much

Being my 3rd laptop (replaced 2 before) battery is performing better than the other two. Haven't run the full tests yet - still in progress to test real word batt life (office work, no games, no memory or cpu intensive apps)

Edit: 17 Feb 2021

Well, this 3rd laptop replacement is not as bad as the other two, however, the rocket engine fan noise is not completely gone. 

this laptop is for light use only, any slightest workload "WHEN hooked up to an additional monitor" + Microsoft teams video call, 3-word documents, 2 webpages, this laptop cannot handle. It runs however fans rev up and won't stop until we close a few applications or disconnect additional monitor. 

I think its the quick charging or charging which using additional display via display USB-C. Not much was done during the testing phase. 

I hear dell XPS's and some other laptops rev fans too, however only when there is significant load, not just basic office work.

Example: I had sticky notes, 1 webpage, and a TEMAS interview video call: Laptop fans did not stop revving at max speed until the end of the interview and I closed all applications. 

For this time there is nothing more I want to do - there is no fix for this, so i will have to s*C* it up and make a better decision next time. 

Edit:28 Oct 2020

Nothing changed its still overheats when plugged to an external display. Fans still rev high when on Microsot teams meeting or charging. Laptop battery looks like it gave up (3 to 5 hour max) on light use. What a shame this issue is not getting enough attention. 

Edit: 28 Aug 2020 

No change - Laptop still goes crazy when plugged to an additional screen

All Microsoft Stores are temporarily closed until further notice. So I have to escalate this again to Microsoft

Edit: 17 Apr 2020

The issue still continues, Couldn't attend MS Store because of COVID lockdowns.

At this stage im hoping they can fix this via software patch. However, after research, this has been a problem for a few MS products (charging, especially fast charging) 

Edit: 21 Jan 2020

Still did not go to Microsoft store. With this COVID 19 going on, working from home most of the time.

I will give away my laptop to the store soon to test. 

Biggest change I noticed.  Battery is being effected. When ever the laptop is hot during couple of hours of work connected to dock.... remove from the dock....u get 3 hours or so max on full battery... guessing due to excessive heat I guess. 

I tried multiple times charging with power adapter. Works fine without issues, no heat, battery lasts longer a little. Daily heating issue is causing battery to deterioate quickly 

Surface Laptop 3 - 13inch, i5, 8GB, 256GB SSD.

Surface laptop overheating on every charge - even with no applications running. Brand new laptop, room temperature is under 21 C. After plugging in the charger, if you listen closely near the exhaust vents - there is a faint static electric noise, not to mention is scary as i don't want to use this anywhere close to me. 

Laptop has already been replaced with a new one, still same issue. With some research a lot of people are experiencing the same issue. Any solution for this ?????

Surface | Surface Laptop | 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

305 answers

Sort by: Most helpful
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2020-09-09T10:51:56+00:00

    Still trying to find the underlying cause of this despite the replacement that I have had for the last month which is not behaving any different.

    I thought I had managed to find a work around by getting the battery when plugged in to only charge to 50%. There is a setting in the BIOS (press the Power and Volume up button together to access) which allows you to enable this, but this has made no difference. :-( My theory being this might be related to fast charging, as the laptop behaves when it's not connected to either the supplied power adaptor or the Surface dock. Something has changed in the last 5-6 months as this was never an issue when I first received the device.

    There have been some posts on setting the Power Management settings but have tried this and even some of the Power Shell commands but this has made no difference. 

    What I have noticed this evening is if I start the MS Edge browser (Chromium) this triggers the fan, but for some reason Chrome itself does not. Any other suggestions welcome, my IT team at work have told me they can replace my device with a Dell but I am reluctant to part with it.

    Hoping for a fix soon!

    OK it would appear my device seems to back to normal once again, even after all the Windows updates yesterday :-)

    Hope this helps but I noticed Edge and a particular extension I was using (LastPass) was the actual offender (great tip from my internal IT team who suggested I start by disabling all extensions). Just to explain my usual flow of work involves having Outlook, Teams, Chrome (for my personal stuff) and Edge/Firefox open (for work related matters) as well as OneDrive and using other Office products (Word/Excel/Project/Visio etc).

    I am not sure if the following PowerShell commands have also worked so worth a try and I am using the provided "Balanced" Power Plan with no changes (I did set-up a custom one but will leave the default one for now as it appears to work!):

    powercfg -attributes SUB_PROCESSOR 94D3A615-A899-4AC5-AE2B-E4D8F634367F -ATTRIB_HIDE

    powercfg -attributes SUB_PROCESSOR bc5038f7-23e0-4960-96da-33abaf5935ec -ATTRIB_HIDE

    The only thing to add to the mix is that I downloaded the firmward updates a few days back from the MSFT site but my device was still misbehaving after these updates....

    Good luck folks, just hope the device stays behaving...

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2020-09-08T09:05:00+00:00

    Having followed this thread and seeing there is no solution to it, I have decided to return my Surface and have since bought a Lenovo laptop, that is advertised as a "corporate workhorse". I thought in the end it is for work, not for fun. I can say in comparison that this laptop has the same symptoms with heating and loud fans, although the carbon case doesn't pass as much heat as the metal Surface case.  This is the only advantage, everything else is worse than the Surface and all in all I am missing the Surface with an amazing screen and such a pleasant keyboard and smooth touchpad. Dont take these things for granted. I would recommend to keep your Surface and continue to chase Microsoft for a fix. It seems it is software related, not Surface related.

    It is key that the problem is correctly identified and is not associated with the hardware, as I get the same on Lenovo. One problem with this thread is that it's called Surface 3. I guess the metal case makes it worse, but it's really about Windows. It's when you put the fast charger on. Other specific things on my side: I connect an additional 24" screen and a UBS bluetooth headset, that's all.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2020-09-07T19:39:06+00:00

    Still trying to find the underlying cause of this despite the replacement that I have had for the last month which is not behaving any different.

    I thought I had managed to find a work around by getting the battery when plugged in to only charge to 50%. There is a setting in the BIOS (press the Power and Volume up button together to access) which allows you to enable this, but this has made no difference. :-( My theory being this might be related to fast charging, as the laptop behaves when it's not connected to either the supplied power adaptor or the Surface dock. Something has changed in the last 5-6 months as this was never an issue when I first received the device.

    There have been some posts on setting the Power Management settings but have tried this and even some of the Power Shell commands but this has made no difference. 

    What I have noticed this evening is if I start the MS Edge browser (Chromium) this triggers the fan, but for some reason Chrome itself does not. Any other suggestions welcome, my IT team at work have told me they can replace my device with a Dell but I am reluctant to part with it.

    Hoping for a fix soon!

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2020-09-07T03:15:34+00:00

    Exact same issue. Bought my laptop a couple of weeks ago, and the first time I charged it I noticed it got insanely hot. Like fry an egg, burn my leg, I can't touch it with my hand, hot. And the charger got equally as hot. I was literally worried it was going to start a fire. This is incredibly concerning because it's wearing my battery. 

    I love this laptop so much, and I'm devastated.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  5. Anonymous
    2020-08-28T20:35:03+00:00

    Every single step you mentioned was already tried, Including replacing the device. Look up my account - I already contacted Microsoft support with my first surface. 

    Please check your Microsoft forums - there a few people having these issues 

    Thread "https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/forum/surflaptop3-surfupdate/surface-laptop-3-faint-buzzing-sound/d800b696-ff7c-4cf0-a2db-99c2c2082144?messageId=f216459d-8d78-4659-b653-d578e59405f9"

    Absolutely sure not applications causing this, same when laptop is closed or in shutdown state - its not just warm - its stupidly hot, warm is near palm rests. i would say 8 times out to 10 its HOT. the other two times, I close the laptop lid, sleep mode- and wait for it charge.

    Even when working - i have 4 to 5 Chrome tabs, outlook, skype (mostly idle), basic work stuff..... nothing memory/CPU hogging. think this is not just one device fault. 

    I have been experiencing the exact symptoms..... when computer is being used and charged at the same time with only 1 program open the power supply brick and my computer are BOTH getting extremely HOT --- Almost as hot as touching a light bulb. The power supply brick and computer also get extremely hot when I have FULLY SHUTDOWN the computer and I'm ONLY charging the computer.

    Is this PROBLEM tied into the FAST CHARGING feature ????

    Is Microsoft going to address this potential hazard ????

    Microsoft technical support agreed to send me a "replacement" computer literally today.

    I noticed you had the SAME problem with your original computer and your replacement computer ............ I really HOPE that I do not experience the SAME issue with my replacement computer being shipped to me as we speak.

    I will advise status of my replacement computer after I have received it.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments