GPU not detected in Surface Book 2

Question

Hello MS support,

I bought surface book 2, 256 GB, NVIDIA GeForce 1050, 2GB model  in November, 2017 and it worked pretty well until recently. I don't know why it stopped detecting the GPU. It's not showing up in the display adapters. I tried detaching and attaching the screen it gets detected for a moment and goes off again. I tried one solution offered in the Microsoft page to uninstall the driver (checking the delete software ) and restart the PC but with no luck.

Is it a hardware problem or a frequent software problem ? I will be really glad if you can provide me a solution to this.

Thanks,

Rajeev

Answer 1

Hi Robert_at_lane,

I had the same problem as you the last days and I also tried the different solutions posted here in the community I nearly gave up but today I tried it the last time on a different way and it seems like it is working now. Graphics card is still there and isn't switching off anymore even if I use programs which need a lot of performance, also waking up is working super fast again without any problem and the power button is working as well. (I guess there is some issue with the power management because when my power supply was plugged in the power button and the startup worked, unplugged I could press what I wanted, only the detach button was waking up the device and the Nvidia cards always disappeared after a short time except when I was using Rhino3D plugged in with best performance)

Maybe my solution helps you as well....

1. Make sure that all windows updates are made and the latest firmware is installed, also the latest Nvidia driver (397.64)
2. Put the power settings to best performance (plugged in and in battery mode)
3. Open the device manager and keep it open
4. Unplug your SB2
5. Detach the tablet and wait for ~10-15sec until the system updated the connected devices (the device manager should flicker once or twice until it stops, maybe there is a sound as well)
6. Reattach and wait until the Nvidia card pops up in the device manager
7. Quickly make a normal shutdown as long as the card is still visible in the device manager
8. When the device is off, do a hard reset by pressing the volume up button and the power button for at least 20 seconds (Press and hold the volume up button before pressing and holding the power button)
9. The UEFI interface might appear, just exit and let the system restart.

These steps seemed to work in my case...I hope they help you as well...if there are any changes during the further use of my SB2 I will inform you.

Best regards.

Answer 2

Thank you for your feedback. We have completed our investigation and have published a set of drivers and system updates which includes a fix for this issue. This is now available in Windows Update.

We recommend that you install the latest updates to keep your Surface performing its best. You can get updates now by checking Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update.

• Update 8/1/2018: New drivers are available for Surface Book 2 15” PixelSense™ Display with NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1060
• Update 11/28/201 8: New drivers are available for Surface Book 2 13.5” PixelSense™ Display with NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1050

You can find the details of the latest update on our Surface Book 2 update history page.

Answer 3

I have the most powerful Surface Book 2, have never had an issue.  Occasionally i will play a game (Forza 7) which is pretty intensive on the GPU, rarely do i play it but sometimes i like to.  Tonight i went to play it and it was taking forever to load and looked a mess, mouse was locking up and when i went into Task Manager i noticed my GPU was at 100%.  I went to Nvidia's site thinking i could just re download the drivers but when i had it auto detect it said i didnt have any Nvidia hardware??  

When i go into device manager under display adapters it just shows the integrated Intel, not my Nvidia???  Its like it just disappeared.  Nothing has went wrong with this laptop, it has been working perfect.

Any ideas?

Moved from:      Surface / Surface Laptop / Display and screen

Answer 4

I've been having this issue as well and it is driving me crazy. I first noticed it several days ago but that is the first time I needed the Nvidia GPU in a while so it may have been there for weeks. The last time I am sure the GPU was stable was mid December. Here's what I've figured out so far:

1. It doesn't matter what graphics driver is installed. It happens with the default driver from Microsoft, new Nvidia drivers, and an old Nvidia driver that I had installed right after getting the laptop (worked fine for a month or so).
2. You can usually get the dGPU to show up again (very briefly) by detaching and reattaching the screen. The system will lose it again in a few minutes but you usually have enough time to try updating drivers or whatever.
3. I have not been able to find any sort of pattern as to when the laptop loses track of the dGPU after the detach/reattach trick. I am not even using the dGPU during that time - just doing basic tasks (Word, Edge browser, etc). I was leaving Device Manager open to see when the Nvidia GPU disappears and it's just random.
4. Possibly related other issues with the laptop: whenever I leave the laptop alone for about 10 minutes it reboots. Never happens when I am using it. I have set the power settings to never sleep, never hibernate, never turn off network, and to use the black blank screen saver instead of turning off the screen. None of those changes helped.

I have given up on this after wasting a whole weekend on driver updates, to no avail. Several thousands of dollars spent on this laptop, and the only GPU I can use is the underpowered Intel integrated one that is also found in laptops a fifth of the price. I plan to make one attempt at a fresh install of Windows but if that doesn't work then I think I'm going to have to call it quits on the SB2.

Answer 5

Right there with you, I noticed the same thing when I detach the screen which I never typically do, I'm going by the Microsoft store in the AM and they better swap this out, it's about 45 days old and 3400.00, ain't no way I'm sitting quiet about this!!