Surface Book 2 overheating after update

Question

I was forced to update my Windows 10 back on 10th June 2020 and after updating I have noticed a huge issue with heat.

I have noticed my Surface Book 2 overheating with fans running so loud especially when gaming or when idle. This issue never happened before the update and back then, while it ran warm it didn't burn to touch. 

However, now it is just too hot to touch when playing games especially on keypad area where the GPU is located. Worst still, I cannot seem to uninstall the updates or reset it.

Any solution or is anyone facing similar issues?

[Moderator Edit: Moved from Windows \ Windows 10 \ Performance & System Failures**]**

Answer 1

I was forced to update my Windows 10 back on 10th June 2020 and after updating I have noticed a huge issue with heat.

I have noticed my Surface Book 2 overheating with fans running so loud especially when gaming or when idle. This issue never happened before the update and back then, while it ran warm it didn't burn to touch. 

However, now it is just too hot to touch when playing games especially on keypad area where the GPU is located. Worst still, I cannot seem to uninstall the updates or reset it.

Any solution or is anyone facing similar issues?

[Moderator Edit: Moved from Windows \ Windows 10 \ Performance & System Failures**]**

This has been a known issue for years, the original issue being even doing simple web browsing, the unit's CPU would throttle due to high thermals

I have noticed after the May updates the device gets even hotter

And the fans stopped coming on after a firmware update 1-2 years ago when the unit is docked to a Surface Dock and lid is closed

I have been through 4-5 replacements, they all have the same EXACT issues

Microsoft refuses to fix their devices/software

Answer 2

Hi. my surface heats up and makes a whirring noise during a zoom call. Sorry which key did you press and did it help?

Answer 3

Bump. I am experiencing an identical issue to FixItMicrosoft in their June 12, 2020 post:

After updating to Windows 10 v.1909 on June 14, 2020, my Surface Book 2 (15" i7, 16GB) was suddenly running much hotter and a LOT louder than ever before - so loud it's distracting and so hot I'm literally worried it's headed for a meltdown. I looked for help online, tinkered with the power settings, found and ran the Surface Diagnostic Toolkit, and no errors were found (tweaking reduced some of the noise at idle, but not under load).

I scheduled a call from Microsoft tech support. The earliest I could get was about 40 hours later, and I received the call right on schedule and spoke with a Tech who gathered my info and then put me on hold for 10 minutes. When he came back, he informed me it was a hardware issue and said "we will replace the device." I asked how it could be a hardware issue when it coincided exactly with the update, and right then the call dropped. I waited five minutes and no call back. So I called MS at the number they'd used to call me, (425)635-2970, and eventually got through to another Tech who had no record of the prior call (which confounds me: if there was an incident log that MS used to call me, how can there be no record of it?). Anyway, she and I ran through diagnostics and remote access for an hour, but with no results. She noted that the v.2004 update should be available soon, but couldn't tell me how to get it. She was very polite and helpful, but her focus seemed to be on turning off background programs to reduce CPU usage: not a bad idea, but if those apps weren't causing overheating before, why would they now? In any case, after disabling startup programs and background apps, we still didn't see any improvement. She again suggested that it was a hardware issue - that only makes sense to me insofar as the software is clearly making the hardware act up.

Since my MS manufacturer warranty expired about 8 months ago she told me that I would be eligible for a discounted replacement: not an upgrade, but a discount on the same ~$2800 computer that I purchased 20 months ago. I told her I would wait to see what happens with the next update, and whether MS can fix this issue.

I continued digging after the call and learned that if I became a "Windows Insider" I would be eligible for the v.2004 update, so I did that today (6/19) and installed v.2004 hoping it would address my problems. It did not.

Microsoft, we are eagerly awaiting a fix for this, and it seems to be a not uncommon problem:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/forum/all/surface-book-2-overheating-issues/cef6939e-1687-46d7-a25a-c7457394d08e

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/forum/all/surface-laptop-2-overheating/f30520fb-d31d-4923-bc7e-13fa343f4b89

Answer 4

To give everyone here who has posted an updated, I spoke to the microsoft team and was advised to do the following,

1. Recovery and update reinstall 

I did this and still faced the same problems, was subsequently advised to

2. To a full recovery/factory reset

Which I will have to attempt over the weekends after backing up my work files, barring which they will,

3. Replace a set for me

But it is indeed quite disappointing to spend nearly 4k on a premium device for it to face issues. Using HWInfo to monitor, during load GPU and CPU throttles to 100 degrees.

But the weird thing is that if I were to press the window's key the temperatures and fan drops immediately. This even with the windowed application running in the background. Shouldn't loads be the same as application is not minimized or sent to background?

Makes me conclude this is a software issue.

Answer 5

Other than chronic problems with the disastrous dock, never had speed/heat issues with my 2 year old work issued SB2  - until the last week or so. My company manages updates so not sure if I'm on the same version as others, but the thing gets super hot and slows to a crawl every day now. Version is W10 Enterprise 10.0.15063.

The 16gB memory hovers around 50% usage which seems pretty high considering I have a few browser tabs,  Msft Teams, Skype and maybe a couple of other apps open. Unfortunately Msft doesn't have a history of taking responsibility for their failures so I'm not hopeful they'll fix this.