Why are Overheating and Functionality Issues with Surface Book 2 Persistent Despite Following All Recommended Solutions?

Question

Dear Microsoft Support Team,

I am writing to express my ongoing frustration with the recurring issues I've been facing with my Surface Book 2 for the past two years. Despite following all recommended steps, including using the Surface Diagnostic Toolkit and keeping Windows updates fully up to date, the problems persist and have worsened over time.

The key issues I am facing include:

1. Overheating: The device overheats both while working and even when not connected to the battery. This affects performance and usability significantly.
2. Mouse and Touchpad Malfunction: Frequently, the mouse or touchpad becomes unresponsive or stuck. Additionally, the mouse cursor often blinks and erratically switches screens without any input from me, which makes it impossible to work effectively.
3. System Blackouts and Auto-Screen Switching: Recently, I’ve encountered frequent blackouts, and the screen changes on its own without any user input. These issues have become so severe that I can’t use the device for more than 20 minutes at a time. I’ve invested significantly in the Surface Book 2, expecting premium performance and durability, yet these persistent problems are hindering my ability to work efficiently. Additionally, the service provided has not been satisfactory in resolving these issues.

Given the considerable investment, I would appreciate a comprehensive solution or guidance on how to address these malfunctions. Otherwise, I believe further escalation may be necessary.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Regards

Sumit

Answer 1

Hello Sumit,

Welcome to Microsoft Community.

If you are using the Surface Book 2 13-inch product, equipped with Intel Core i5, this product is fanless design, so it may be slightly insufficient in heat dissipation.

However, for most Surface series devices, there are usually several possibilities for heating:

1. Charging the Surface.
2. Application is consuming CPU resources
3. CPU is throttling

It is normal for electronic products to heat up while charging, but in your description, the heat is likely to come from the latter two cases.

Therefore, I recommend that you prioritize which application is consuming a lot of CPU resources when your Surface Book is heating up. You can determine this by looking at the task manager (sort by) in the CPU column to see if a particular application is consuming CPU:

If you notice that there is a process that is highly CPU consuming, then this is the main cause of overheating.

Another case is to check if the CPU is limited. You can see if the device CPU is throttling by opening task manager, performance tab and looking at CPU speed. It will show low clock speed such as .4, .8, etc.

CPU limits can occur for a variety of reasons:

• CPU/GPU temperature limit exceeded
• Low battery (Battery Saver mode)

So here's what you need to do:

Check the CPU speed when the device overheats.

Check if the battery still has enough power.

However, in view of the "Mouse and Touchpad Malfunction" and "System Blackouts and Auto-Screen Switching" you mentioned here, these problems may be related to driver abnormalities without considering hardware failures for the time being, I recommend you to download and install the driver and firmware package suitable for Surface Book 2:

Download Surface Book 2 Drivers and Firmware from Official Microsoft Download Center ****

After the installation is complete, restart the Surface Book 2 and check your Surface again for any anomalies.

However, if that doesn't work, one more thing I can recommend you do is to back up all your important data and then reset or restore your Surface:

Restore or reset Surface for Windows - Microsoft Support

Reset is a relatively simple operation that can be done directly in Settings. However, restoring factory Settings requires you to first create a Surface dedicated recovery drive, which you are recommended to create on another stable Windows computer.

This is the last solution a software-level customer can pursue.

If the problems you mentioned here still occur randomly after you restore the Surface to factory Settings, this means that your Surface Book 2 has a hardware failure, and this is no longer a software solution can solve.

Normally, I would advise you to have your Surface repaired, but unfortunately, because this model has been discontinued, out of warranty support and service for such models is no longer available. We appreciate your commitment to Surface and apologize for any inconvenience.

We'd love to help you upgrade to a new, more capable device. Please check out our****online Microsoft Store, visit one of our locations in person, or chat with an expert to learn about ongoing and special promotions.

Best Regards,

Mitchell | Microsoft Community Support Specialist