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

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  1. Anonymous
    2020-08-13T19:21:21+00:00

    I have had the same issue. I had my Surface Laptop 3 replaced by our IT Team at work (Core i5/256/8GB). It has been extremely hot (35C+) here in London this week and I have noticed the fan potentially kicks in more as well at the top base of the laptop overheat.Before that the prior laptop was overheating as well even if the ambient temperature in the room was acceptable...

    My helpful IT colleagues ran a stress test last night and also monitored the CPU core temperatures using some software - they did not notice any major spikes in temperature and it just happened to cool down when they had been testing. I thought it might be a surface dock issue but the power pack that comes with the laptop has the same issue and our supplier did not provide a replacement for this.

    The laptop works perfectly when not plugged into a power source...

    It's got to be a firmware issue of sorts as I never had this issue when I first got my laptop 6 months ago. Come on MSFT admit their is an issue and sort out the firmware...

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-08-13T10:49:35+00:00

    I have got a  (one week old) laptop 3 - i7/16gb/256gb.

    I've tried a few things based on your suggestion.

    1. I set the closing lid to Shut Down and restarted the laptop. At the next charging, the laptop got very hot again, triggering the coolers, so  this made no difference really. What exactly were you hoping to happen?
    2. Since you mentioned fast charging, I have also changed my charger from the native 65W one to my Surface Go 3 45W charger. 1 hour later, laptop is warmi but not overheated and coolers haven't kicked in yet. It does indicate 4 hours left to charge. That sounds like a lot, but honestly I am using the laptop for working from home so I dont mind leaving it plugged in all day long. 

    I bought this laptop recently because my 9 year old macbook pro collapsed due to not being allowed to install catalina and other updates. Once that happened, I wanted a Windows based laptop. 

    My dilemma here is whether to continue to debug the Surface  or to send it back and buy a new Macbook Pro.

    Pros :

    -Windows keyboard - needed for my work from home, 

    -Native windows system, compatible with my work.

    -Touch screen - not using it too much though.

    • wonderful screen, keyboard, touchpad. 

    Cons:

    • Battery overheating with 65W. With 45W it takes 5 hrs to charge.
    • On battery low, my bluetooth headset gets disconnected even if I'm in a call with my boss's boss. There should be a warning sign  before decoupling.
    • It's generally hot, and I'm not talking CPU. It's just not fun to keep my palms on a hot thing all day.
    • the screen flickers sometimes, I am guessing it has to do with the battery switching states.
    • overall it feels unstable and it seems to be all from the battery issues.

    In conclusion, a few questions for you and others in the thread:

    1. Is 45W the way forward for Surface Laptop 3, and is there a way to "turn lower" my native 65W? 
    2. Is there any Windows laptop that matches MBP quality in terms of fiability rather than features? Or is Windows the actual problem, while the hardware are similar.

    UPDATE: after 2 hours on 45W, laptop got hot and coolers kicked in loudly. There is no solution here yet.

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  3. Anonymous
    2020-08-02T01:38:37+00:00

    I will do that right now. Thanks

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  4. Anonymous
    2020-08-02T01:22:59+00:00

    I've complained everywhere I can instagram, facebook, here. I don't have twitter though. So far i've waited 10 days to receive the shipping label and still nothing. Funny, they gave me the same excuse. The "escalation team". 

    dont forget to hit up panos panay's twitter and instagram :)

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  5. Anonymous
    2020-08-02T01:00:41+00:00

    I've done it already. We need to keep writing them and complaining.

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