Surface Book 2 GPU Problems

Question

Hello,

My surface book 2 is 4 years old now, I know it is on the old side but it is still working like a charm. Except for one small issue, for some reason, when playing games on it with the integrated GTX 1050, everything works fine for about 5 minutes, the GPU then throttles and I get massive FPS loss, the solution I found is to unplug the charger and plug it back immediately, I can't seem to understand why but the GPU seems to start working fine again, smooth gameplay and FPS again for a small time, until I do the same again. Note that this only works on triple A games, I'm also not playing demanding games, 2015 games and before that. I am using a non Microsoft charger that provides the same wattage that the original, I've been thinking for a while this might be my issue but I can't figure out why. 

I'm also on the latest updates always, Nvidia drivers and it has always been the same symptoms.

Hopefully someone has experienced this and has a fix to it.

Answer 1

Hello Force Cypher,

Thanks for posting your concern here.

When this happens, it may be due to the new Graphics performance preference setting may not be able to set the GPU preference for the application. If you use the Graphics performance preference setting to set an application to use either the Power saving GPU (Intel) or the High Performance GPU (NVIDIA), the setting may not always take effect. There are a few reasons why the new Windows setting may not work for an application:

• Some applications have an independent GPU preference setting that will always override the system settings. The customer should check with the application provider.
• If the application does not have its own setting, but uses Vulkan or OpenGL, it is necessary to specify the GPU preference in the NVIDIA control panel.
• If no preference is specified in the Windows settings (for apps that don’t use Vulkan or OpenGL) and is specified in the NVIDIA control panel, then the NVIDIA setting will be used.

In the meantime, we suggest to use the Feedback Hub app to report additional problems or send suggestions to us.

Hope this helps.

StevenK

Answer 2

This is not the case though, I can see which GPU my game is using in the Task Manager and it is definitely the GTX 1050. The game runs fine for a while until is starts throttling and 99% of the time, I can fix this by unplugging-plugging back the charger. Also my settings in the Nvidia control panel are optimized for performance and not graphics, also running games on very low graphics to reduce the FPS loss, but it is still very noticeable, I can go from smooth gameplay and 60-70 FPS on demanding games to 10-15 when it happens.

Answer 3

Steven,

I might have found a solution to my issue. 

I downloaded MSI Afterburner and tweaked around with undervolting the gpu. I'm running it stable at around 1,100 Mhz at 800 mV and the settings are stable as well as FPS in games. Although I will need to explore this further and try to see if I can get as close to original performance without my issue appearing. So I'm almost positive this is due to some thermal limitations, 

If you have found another solution please let me know as I'm not 100% comfortable messing with my GPU settings, regardless, this might be a possible solution.

Thanks.

Answer 4

Hello Force Cypher,

Thanks for keeping me posted.

In this case, please try to Force a shut down and restart your Surface. Press and hold the power button for 20 seconds. It resets the hardware and clears all the cache and memory for your hardware. Run Surface Diagnostic Toolkit and check for Windows Update. Make sure to check View Optional features and select all recent updates. Restart the Surface after installing updates. Afterwards, set the Power slider mode located in the battery icon on the taskbar to Best Performance, and see if the issue persists or not. Also, Update drivers and firmware:

Check what is the current OS Build of your Windows version by typing winveron the search barnear the Windows logo.

Go to Download driver and firmware for Surface**,**choose (your Surface model) then click Download.
Choose the .msi file that matches or nearest to your current OS Build and click Next.
After downloading, run and install the .msi then Restart. 

Let me know how it goes.

StevenK

Answer 5

Steven,

Thanks for taking the time to helping me and sorting this thing out. I'm pretty sure it's not a software thing. Did all you asked:

• Slider is always on "best performance" when I game, I can actually sometimes fix the throttling by lowering the slider down to "better performance" and then turning it back up to "best performance", that fixes my performance issues just sometimes, but it is not the cause of it.
• Updates: I'm always on the latest updates, except for experimental or optional ones, still, I did a full download of all those yesterday.
• Surface Diagnostic Toolkit does a full test of the machine but doesn't show me any errors.
• Download drivers and firmware directly from Microsoft I didn't fully do, doing the "winver" command you told me, it shows me my Version is 20H2 or OS Build is: 19042.667, which in the download page nowhere come close to it, the latest option is for OS Build 18362.24593.0 which I don't know if it'll even help, let me know if I should try that download and see.

To round things up I'm almost positive it has to do with some power delivery fail inside my machine, or something related to power, I've never experienced a machine slowing down after being plugged in, let alone smooth up once you unplug it. *Note, when I unplug it, my game runs smoothly again with no issues, usually I plug it back in immediately, I've left it unplugged for a while though and it does slow down, almost as if the machine doesn't know it is unplugged after a while, it just senses the voltage or power change being delivered to it and goes into full power mode.

Thanks.