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
    2021-04-07T06:08:46+00:00

    It reduced the performance of my device as well but not significantly. I ran benchmark tests on RDR2 (ultra high graphic settings) with both configuration.

    CPU %100 - average 84 fps and CPU temp is around 95 C

    CPU%99 - average 74 fps and CPU temp is around 75 C

    I can live with that but I know this is ridiculous also. I don't think this has something to do with Microsoft devices, my laptop is MSI and many people report the same issue with other brands. I believe this problem is caused by software, not sure whether because of Intel or Windows.

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  2. Anonymous
    2021-04-07T14:55:47+00:00

    I just got my brand new laptop and it's getting too hot while charging, just arrived like half an hour ago.

    Please help.

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  3. Anonymous
    2021-04-07T20:07:08+00:00

    I just got my brand new laptop and it's getting too hot while charging, just arrived like half an hour ago.

    Please help.

    unfortunately there is nothing you can do to fix it This I believe is a hardware or a quick charging issue. best thing you could do is to keep swapping the laptop until you find a better one. I personally swapped three laptops in the final one is 60% better than the previous laptops the heating issue will not completely go away however if you’re lucky enough you may find a laptop which doesn’t get hot like an oven.

    Good laptop swapping it takes time and if you want to not go through the hassle just return it for a different product because the heating issue will not go away permanently it’s just a design floor hopefully that will fix it in the next model.

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  4. Anonymous
    2021-04-20T07:18:42+00:00

    Working with Surface Dock connected. So noisy comparing to my old Surface Pro 3.

    Update: I have installed 10.0.19042 updates and switched Power Mode to 'better performance' from 'best performance' and this has solved overheating and fan noise issue.

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  5. Anonymous
    2021-05-03T09:58:51+00:00

    Am facing the same overheating problem. I can literally make pancakes and fry fish on this one. Having closed all the high CPU/memory consuming services, CPU util is less than 20% and so is mem util. Do they have a solution yet for this excessive overheating on surface laptop 3 ?

    Moreover I also get an electric shock while the laptop is charging and I use the keyboard. They say that this is caused to improper earthing in house but I wonder how can they justify this when I and my family has used a dozen laptops so far at home without getting ourselves electrouted.

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