Surface Pro 8 - Video Call Performance

Question

Hi,

I have a 4 month old Surface Pro 7 (I7 16gb RAM) which is unuseable on video calls (all platforms - Zoom, Google and Teams). From research this appears to be a design issue with the device throttling the performance due to thermal issues.

I plan to return and upgrade. I love the Surface Pro and want to stay with that setup. Has anyone had any issues with Surface 8 and video calls ?

Also considering moving to a Surface Book 4 as an alternative.

thoughts ?

Answer 1

Hi Graeme Edwards (graeme.edwards)"),

Thank you for reaching Microsoft Community. I'm sorry to hear about the video conferencing issue you experienced on your Surface Pro 7.

Regarding with the issue on the Surface Pro 7, have you tried disabling the hardware acceleration on the apps you used for video conferencing? If not yet, kindly try these steps:

For Microsoft Teams:

Open Microsoft Teams

Select the 3 dots icon on top

Select Settings

Under Application on the General tab, check the box next to Disable GPU hardware acceleration

Restart Microsoft Teams

For Zoom:

Open Zoom

Select your profile photo

Click on Settings and select Video

Go to Advanced

Disable the hardware acceleration for these options:

Video processing

Sending video

Receiving video

For the query on the Surface Pro 8, we do not have specific details on this but we welcome other Surface pro 8 users to share there experience here.

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

Hi Marrion,

I have tried disabling the hardware acceleration and the problem still exists.

Thanks,

Graeme

Answer 3

Hi Graeme Edwards (graeme.edwards)"),

Thank you for the response and I'm sorry for the delay in getting back. Regarding with the Surface Pro 8, so far we don't have details on issues with video conferencing on the device but again, we welcome our Surface Pro 8 users to share their experience here.

For the Surface Pro 7, please open Device Manager and expand Firmware. Double-click Surface System Aggregator, go to its Driver tab and share with us here its Driver version. An update on the driver was released previously that was suppose to address CPU throttling (Surface Pro 7 update history (microsoft.com)).

Is your Surface Pro 7 still running on Windows 10? How about upgrading it to Windows 11?

Kindly try running these steps on the device also:

1: Run Surface Diagnostic Toolkit

See: Fix common Surface problems using the Surface Diagnostic Toolkit (microsoft.com)

2: Check for Windows Update

Go to Windows Settings > Update & Security and select Check for updates

Make sure all updates need are installed including Optional updates

3: Update drivers and firmware

Check what is the current OS Build of your Windows version by going to Settings > System > About. 

Go to Download driver and firmware for Surface, choose Surface Pro

Then click the link next to Surface Pro 7 then click Download on the next page.

Choose the .msi file that matches your current OS Build and click Next.

After downloading, run and install the .msi then Restart. 

4: Run System File Checker Tool

See: Using System File Checker in Windows (microsoft.com)

Hope this helps.