Surface Book 2 Low clock speed

[diogossmartins]

Hi guys, 

 

So i have a surface book 2 15' with an i7 8th 16GB of RAM and 500GB ssd, and lately it's clock speed sometimes lock on the 0.4GHz and the only way to wake the cpu is to change the power settings. I was running the windows 1803 build and i thought that was the problem so i downgraded to the 1709 and so far so good, besides that the cpu lock down 2 times each time i restarted the surface. So i was wondering if i'm the only one or if there more people here with the same problem. 

 

Temps when stress testing: goes to 80ºC and then goes down to 73ºC and stays there.

Clocl speeds when stress testing: goes to 3.2GHz and slowly goes down to 2.1GHz and stays there.

 

The cpu only locks on the 0.4GHz every time i try to play games, sometimes even watching a youtube video in fullscreen or if i leave a stress test running longer than 5 mins the clock starts to go down.

 

What could be the problem? Should i send to MS support or is it just a software issue? 

 

Ps: i reinstalled windows like 4 times

 

Thanks in advance

 

[GoodBytes]

That sounds like pretty high idle temperatures.

Your device has 1 year warranty by default, or 2 years (w/ accidental damage project) if you got Microsoft Complete with it, and 30 days return period if you got it from Microsoft store (online or physical store).

 

If your system is new, and within the return window, I would return it, and buy it again.

If your system is outside of the return window, I would contact Microsoft to have the device service. Please note that you'll get a refurbished unit as the system is not easily repairable. So, backup all your stuff before, as it won't be transferred on the replacement unit.

 

[diogossmartins]

That's not the temps when on idle, that's the temps when stress testing! On idle it's usual around 47-50ºC

Yes i'm going to send it for service, i'm probably going to receive a refurbished one but i can't do nothing about that since i bought it more than 30 days ago and i can't return it at this point.

 

I watched the Linus video about the surface book 2 and my temps match the video. the only thing that it's not right is that the system goes down to 0.4GHz randomly and stays there

[GoodBytes]

 Oh ok then, yea at 50C the temps are fine.

 

So hang on, when you say that the system goes down to 0.4GHz, does it ever go up when you add load to the system?

[diogossmartins]

It never goes when i add load to the system, it only goes up if i wait like 2 minutes or if i change the power slide otherwise i could stress test it when it's locked and it would be locked until i changed the power slider

[GoodBytes]

5 minutes ago, diogossmartins said:

It never goes when i add load to the system, it only goes up if i wait like 2 minutes or if i change the power slide otherwise i could stress test it when it's locked and it would be locked until i changed the power slider

So you are saying that if you stress the system the CPU remains at 0.4GHz despite the CPU temperature being at <60C

[diogossmartins]

Yes that's right! And i already installed 3 different versions of windows to see if it was a software problem but it's still the same

[GoodBytes]

1 hour ago, diogossmartins said:

Yes that's right! And i already installed 3 different versions of windows to see if it was a software problem but it's still the same

Doing some quick research I see a few others mentioning this problem with no solution (not even your workaround). But not enough to suppose it is a wide problem. I don't know for sure if a replacement unit will fix the issue or not (maybe even, and hopefully not, multiple refurbished if the issue was not identified on MS side). Or maybe the problem is the power delivery of the system, so maybe the power adapter is broken (worth trying to replace under warranty instead of the system).

 

What you can try, is use Intel's Extreme Tuning Utility (XTU) (https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/24075/Intel-Extreme-Tuning-Utility-Intel-XTU-), and downvolt the CPU a hint to help with the power delivery, by reducing the power that the CPU consumes, it also should reduce a hint the CPU temperature. See if it helps.

[diogossmartins]

Thanks you so much for your help. I already tried downvolting the cpu with no success unfortunately, and i think it's not the power adapter since on battery i have the same problem. I talked with the MS support guy and he told me the best thing to do is to send it over to microsoft, i think it's an hardware issue since the computer was perfect for like 1 month maybe a little bit less and somehow it started doing this. If it was a software issue shouldn't the surface work after i installed a older version of windows? When i was researching i saw that not a lot of people have this problem... 

[GoodBytes]

There is a new driver/firmware released by MS for the Surface book 2. Delivered via Windows Update, you can see if those help, if you didn't send in the device yet.