Heat and Fan on the SP4

PLGomez

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I've got the Surface Pro 3 and what I dislike most is it heating up and the fan going off, other than battery life, from only web usage. Those who've gotten their hands on a new pro 4, how is performance holding up? Any trouble with heat up at the top corner and fan going off? Is there a significant reduction in heat when compared to the pro 3?
 

Rafaelcab

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the heat and fan management is way better I haven't yet heard the fan come on and correct me if I am wrong but they improved the displacement of heat around the whole device so that overall heat is minimal, which for me its holding true.
 

PLGomez

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Awesome. What model do you have of the pro 4? I've got the 256GB i5 pro 3 and I'm experiencing the heat and fan going off as I type...
 

Rafaelcab

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I'm rocking the same conifg as you 256gb i5 which for my processing needs is plenty. so if your happy with you set up I would definitely recommend sticking with it unless you need more.
 

Nutmegz

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I'm surprised you haven't heard the fan yet. Mine goes on all the time while charging and just downloading files. When charging the whole device gets really warm with the fan full blast.

Edit: This is a SP4 i4 256GB Model.
 

PLGomez

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I'm surprised you haven't heard the fan yet. Mine goes on all the time while charging and just downloading files. When charging the whole device gets really warm with the fan full blast.

Edit: This is a SP4 i4 256GB Model.

Nice to hear different input. I'd definitely upgrade if there was better battery life and better heat dissipation/management but was waiting to see how they worked for everyone else. The heat issue alone, if solved, would maybe be enough to switch, but I dunno. I did get the new keyboard for my SP3 and I'm definitely enjoying that.
 

Nick Steinmetz1

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I havent had the fan come on to much but when it does ive looked at the task manager and cpu was at 99%. I guess it depends on what your doing but playing videos medium web browsing ive seen almost no fan kick on or heat build up.
 

TheCudder

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I'm surprised you haven't heard the fan yet. Mine goes on all the time while charging and just downloading files. When charging the whole device gets really warm with the fan full blast.

Edit: This is a SP4 i4 256GB Model.

Same here. Unplugged and average use there's no heat & quiet. But plug it up and the fan turns on to full blast and it gets really warm. Not ideal to use as when charging I suppose.
 

netmann

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I'm surprised you haven't heard the fan yet. Mine goes on all the time while charging and just downloading files. When charging the whole device gets really warm with the fan full blast.

Edit: This is a SP4 i4 256GB Model.

Do you mean Core i5 256 GB Model? This model has a cooling fan and you should not experience fan on full blast while charging! There is something wrong with the battery in your device. I would return it to MS for an exchange if I were you.
 

Nutmegz

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Yes, I mean i5. Well the fan finally turned off once it hit 100% battery but it is still really warm. All i'm doing is streaming Spotify. It even stays warm when I put it to sleep and leave it plugged in.
 

netmann

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Yes, I mean i5. Well the fan finally turned off once it hit 100% battery but it is still really warm. All i'm doing is streaming Spotify. It even stays warm when I put it to sleep and leave it plugged in.

Well, if the battery and fan in your device are flawless, then I would blame the overheating on the cooling design and specifically the copper plate located between the battery and display. The display generates minor heat. The battery would also create its own heat while charging and at the same time it is designed to dissipate 60% of CPU heat! It seems there is a miscalculation on MS part for the percent heat dissipation from the plate to outside of the case through the slots around the casing edges and the size of the plate itself. Perhaps the copper plate could have been larger, and a better location for it would be between the battery and the back casing which would help conduction of heat through magnesium casing.

It would be interesting to see how SP4 preforms thermally under heavy load overtime. The Anandtech review unit fan only came on noticeably under gaming and heavy benchmarking.
 
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Idelgado782

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I have the i5 256gb model and I have noticed the fan Come on frequently. It's come on while browsing the web and not so intensive tasks such as writing up notes in OneNote. I sold my MacBook Air and I'm honestly starting to get concerned with my decision. I also have the yellow tint issue on edge and the speakers also started randomly popping when using the pen to write and selecting the predicted words.
Or when hitting the spacebar.
 

badMojo69

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Same...like I said b4 Microsoft better fix it soon or mine is going back in two weeks. I'll buy it again after they work the bugs out. I really love the screen.
 

Nutmegz

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So I woke up this morning with the surface quite warm. When I went to bed I closed all applications and put the surface to sleep.

I ran the "powercfg /sleepstudy" and found that the CPU was active for 77% of the time and the GPU was active for 88% of the time during sleep!!!! There was some other usage from WCM (6%) and Network Activity (2%).

Anyone else notice this usage when the surface is supposed to be sleeping. Kind of crazy that it is using so much CPU and graphics when sleeping.
 

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usafballer

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This is a big question of mine as well.

The anandtech review said the fan rarely came on except for extended benchmarks or gaming sessions.

If the fan spins up during normal web-browsing like my SP3 did, it's going back, but I don't think that's the case.

I can see why the fan would turn on when plugged in though - recharging batteries is a heat intensive task.
 

michael4man

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I have the i5 256GB version and its been great so far, but I have noticed that there is a slight high pitched sound coming from the right side of the tablet, its not terrible but its just enough to be slightly annoying, has anyone else noticed this?

Also, I haven't heard the fan kick on even once since I got it Monday, I've done a lot on it to, lots of web browsing using chrome, 1080p videos in VLC and iTunes (this use to cause my SP3 Fan to go crazy)

Posted via the Windows Central App for Android
 

ioaniro

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I have the i5 256GB version and its been great so far, but I have noticed that there is a slight high pitched sound coming from the right side of the tablet, its not terrible but its just enough to be slightly annoying, has anyone else noticed this?

Also, I haven't heard the fan kick on even once since I got it Monday, I've done a lot on it to, lots of web browsing using chrome, 1080p videos in VLC and iTunes (this use to cause my SP3 Fan to go crazy)

Posted via the Windows Central App for Android

I had ages ago a laptop that was doing the sound you describe when the bluetooth was on. I had to turn it off permanently it was driving me nuts :grin:.
 

apoc527

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My SP4 (i5/256GB/16GB) is usually plugged into the Surface Dock and the fan runs waaay too often. Right now, Outlook is eating CPU. Not sure why. Of course, I installed Insider Preview, so kind of my fault.
 

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