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
    2020-08-01T16:18:11+00:00

    I already opened a dispute with paypal as well. Im doing everything at this point before taking it to another level. The last rep told me I should wait another 5 buss days for the label to arrive to my email. They have until wednesday, for it to arrive. 

    Still, I do not understand why it's taking so long. Also, the last rep is the one that escalated my case. Even though 2 reps before her, had already told me that the case was escalated. No one before her had asked me about my email. They're doing a horrible job. 

    I consulted the agreement and also the laws that apply to me as a consumer.

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-08-01T13:49:22+00:00

    I asked for a refund on the website on july 17th or 18th I believe it was. Im yet to receive a shipping label to send it back. Ive spoken with 4 agents all telling me different reasons why I haven't received the shipping label yet. I'm considering to take legal meassures at this point. It seems they're trying to silence everyone and not do anything about it. They're basically stealing our money and we shouldn't just "live with it". 

    Did you opt out of arbitration or do you plan to arbitrate? There is a whole process you must follow for arbitration as spelled out in the agreement...

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  3. Anonymous
    2020-08-01T03:57:55+00:00

    I asked for a refund on the website on july 17th or 18th I believe it was. Im yet to receive a shipping label to send it back. Ive spoken with 4 agents all telling me different reasons why I haven't received the shipping label yet. I'm considering to take legal meassures at this point. It seems they're trying to silence everyone and not do anything about it. They're basically stealing our money and we shouldn't just "live with it".

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  4. Anonymous
    2020-07-30T23:24:13+00:00

    It's "fast charge'" that is the problem. The Surface laptop 3 can only fast charge in sleep mode and it by default goes into sleep mode when you close the lid so that it can have "instant on". Two great features but poorly executed. My laptop would heat up and the fan would go insane. I set the power settings to shut down completely when I close the lid so that Fast charge doesn't work and it fixed the problem. Also extends the life of the battery. If you ever want to use fast charge just put the laptop into sleep mode when you charge. I've tested it a few times and shutting it down does fix it. When I try sleep mode it gets crazy hot. Hopefully they fix it soon. Maybe this is the reason most laptops don't use fast charge, just phones do. Smaller chargers and batteries. Microsoft didn't figure out how to do it safely yet before they released this laptop.

    Try it, it will work.

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  5. Anonymous
    2020-07-30T21:27:08+00:00

    Same here, exact same issue, returned the device, same problem, bought a new charger, same problem, went back to the support which said that it was probably a windows update.. Now everything is up to date and still no solution to that date. I also mentioned to the support the fact that this issue seems to happen to a lot of people and they said that microsoft has never heard from this type of issue before

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