SURFACE LAPTOP 3 - Overheating when charging and excessive Fan Noise

Question

Edit: 16 Jun 2021

Laptop is going OK - not much fan noise or heating as I haven't been using it much. mostly my work laptop

Got a better data USB C to USB C cable to plug into the dock and using a Lenovo Dock Gen 2 for the additional screen, think they are helping in better handling and keeps fans not to rev so much

Being my 3rd laptop (replaced 2 before) battery is performing better than the other two. Haven't run the full tests yet - still in progress to test real word batt life (office work, no games, no memory or cpu intensive apps)

Edit: 17 Feb 2021

Well, this 3rd laptop replacement is not as bad as the other two, however, the rocket engine fan noise is not completely gone. 

this laptop is for light use only, any slightest workload "WHEN hooked up to an additional monitor" + Microsoft teams video call, 3-word documents, 2 webpages, this laptop cannot handle. It runs however fans rev up and won't stop until we close a few applications or disconnect additional monitor. 

I think its the quick charging or charging which using additional display via display USB-C. Not much was done during the testing phase. 

I hear dell XPS's and some other laptops rev fans too, however only when there is significant load, not just basic office work.

Example: I had sticky notes, 1 webpage, and a TEMAS interview video call: Laptop fans did not stop revving at max speed until the end of the interview and I closed all applications. 

For this time there is nothing more I want to do - there is no fix for this, so i will have to s*C* it up and make a better decision next time. 

Edit:28 Oct 2020

Nothing changed its still overheats when plugged to an external display. Fans still rev high when on Microsot teams meeting or charging. Laptop battery looks like it gave up (3 to 5 hour max) on light use. What a shame this issue is not getting enough attention. 

Edit: 28 Aug 2020 

No change - Laptop still goes crazy when plugged to an additional screen

All Microsoft Stores are temporarily closed until further notice. So I have to escalate this again to Microsoft

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Edit: 17 Apr 2020

The issue still continues, Couldn't attend MS Store because of COVID lockdowns.

At this stage im hoping they can fix this via software patch. However, after research, this has been a problem for a few MS products (charging, especially fast charging) 

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Edit: 21 Jan 2020

Still did not go to Microsoft store. With this COVID 19 going on, working from home most of the time.

I will give away my laptop to the store soon to test. 

Biggest change I noticed.  Battery is being effected. When ever the laptop is hot during couple of hours of work connected to dock.... remove from the dock....u get 3 hours or so max on full battery... guessing due to excessive heat I guess. 

I tried multiple times charging with power adapter. Works fine without issues, no heat, battery lasts longer a little. Daily heating issue is causing battery to deterioate quickly 

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Surface Laptop 3 - 13inch, i5, 8GB, 256GB SSD.

Surface laptop overheating on every charge - even with no applications running. Brand new laptop, room temperature is under 21 C. After plugging in the charger, if you listen closely near the exhaust vents - there is a faint static electric noise, not to mention is scary as i don't want to use this anywhere close to me. 

Laptop has already been replaced with a new one, still same issue. With some research a lot of people are experiencing the same issue. Any solution for this ?????

Answer 1

Every single step you mentioned was already tried, Including replacing the device. Look up my account - I already contacted Microsoft support with my first surface. 

Please check your Microsoft forums - there a few people having these issues 

Thread "https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/forum/surflaptop3-surfupdate/surface-laptop-3-faint-buzzing-sound/d800b696-ff7c-4cf0-a2db-99c2c2082144?messageId=f216459d-8d78-4659-b653-d578e59405f9"

Absolutely sure not applications causing this, same when laptop is closed or in shutdown state - its not just warm - its stupidly hot, warm is near palm rests. i would say 8 times out to 10 its HOT. the other two times, I close the laptop lid, sleep mode- and wait for it charge.

Even when working - i have 4 to 5 Chrome tabs, outlook, skype (mostly idle), basic work stuff..... nothing memory/CPU hogging. think this is not just one device fault.

Answer 2

I am seeing the same issue on my Surface Laptop 3 Intel i5 1035g7 8 gb 256 gb ssd.

Brand new laptop with all the latest windows updates installed. This stated happening the first time I tried to charge it.

If I plug it in to charge when the screen is closed, the laptop gets incredibly hot and the fan starts running full speed. It seems like the overheating causes it to crash as the opening the screen does not wake it up. I can only revive it by holding the power button for >10 seconds.

WHEA errors are noted in System logs: "A fatal hardware error has occurred. A record describing the condition is contained in the data section of this event."

Charging when I'm working on the laptop with the screen open seems to work fine.

I've run the surface diagnostics toolkit. No issues are found.

Answer 3

Hi eagelfox,

Thank you for reaching out Microsoft Community. We apologize for the inconvenience this may have caused you.

This sounds weird if it's overheating even though there's no application running. Most likely, if a device is charging and certain applications are running, it is actually okay if it gets warmer than normal, but if no applications running, that's really odd.

Well, to sort things out if your Surface device is having a hardware issue,  we would like to know if you were able to double-check if there were no background applications running in Task Manager. Were you able to reset this device back to its factory settings? Is it doing the same thing after the reset?

To make sure that there's no applications running in the background, kindly open Task Manager by: 

Right-clicking on Windows Icon on your task bar. Select Task Manager, then click Details

If there's no applications running, you can reset the device if you haven't tried resetting the Surface by:

Going to Settings > Updates & Security > Recovery > click Get Started underReset This PC option, then select Remove Everything.

After resetting, kindly set it up again, then install the updates available under Updates & Security. 

If issue still persists after doing the above-mentioned steps, we highly recommend to contact support for replacement options again. 

Kind Regards,

Crest_Z

Answer 4

Hi eagelfox,

Thank you for sharing to us that thread. I will raise this concern to our backend support and will get back to you for updates. 

Kind Regards,

Crest_Z