Does the 15-inch Surface Book 2 really have battery-drain issues? That depends ...

Microsoft's Surface Book 2 has been on the market for a few weeks now, letting potential issues and limitations be discovered. While reviews for Surface Book 2, specially the xv-inch version (limited just to the U.S. market place so far) have been overwhelmingly positive, information technology wouldn't be a Surface launch without at least some controversy.

In my review, I noted that in sure more extreme conditions, the 15-inch Surface Volume 2 with its powerful NVIDIA GTX 1060 graphics card could drain the battery even when plugged into an outlet. The problem was commencement spotted by The Verge'southward Tom Warren before our review went to press, letting u.s. verify the merits.

Since then, a lot of discussion around the topic has sprouted up on the internet, and today and I'll intermission downwards what seems to exist happening and whether information technology's a big deal.

What exactly is happening?

When the Surface Volume ii xv is plugged in using the included Surface Connect power supply with the ability plan slider is fix to "Best Performance" (versus the default "Recommended") the battery may drain instead of recharging during intense activities. This drainage only occurs when pushing the CPU and GPU to the max for an extended duration in certain circumstances.

The problem becomes axiomatic for some with a subset of high-end video games.

Microsoft says that after a few hours of drainage the GPU will throttle downwardly letting the bombardment charge back upward. In theory, the Surface Book two 15 should never completely discharge at this stage leaving the user with a dead bombardment.

What is Best functioning fashion?

All-time Performance is one of four settings found on modernistic Surface devices (the others beingness Battery saver, Recommended, and Improve Operation). The settings have carve up conditions, so you tin can prepare, for case, Bombardment saver when on bombardment, and Best Performance when plugged into an external power supply.

It was initially introduced in January 2022 to Windows Insiders and is part of the larger "Ability Throttling" and "Power Slider" feature found in Windows ten.

From Microsoft:

With "Power Throttling," when background piece of work is running, Windows places the CPU in its near energy efficient operating modes – piece of work gets done, simply the minimal possible battery is spent on that work.

When a user forces the slider to All-time performance, this energy saving feature is disabled letting the processor max out.

Additionally, power throttling does not apply when the Surface is plugged into external power.

Yous can read more than about Microsoft'due south Power Throttling and Power Slider in its detailed web log post on the discipline.

What games are affected?

The reply to this ane can be hard, every bit it depends on the game's display settings.

Destiny two is cited as the most common case, but it's not across the board. Destiny two defaults to a weird 1282 x 728 resolution, instead of something at, or about, the native 3240 x 2160. Users cannot manually change that resolution either in the game settings – which is odd. Anti-aliasing, texture anisotropy, and texture quality are either on or set to well-nigh-max settings.

At these settings, with Best performance enabled and plugged in with the brandish brightness fix to maximum, the Surface Volume 2 15'south battery tin drain betwixt five and 10 percent per hour.

Destiny 2 at native resolution on the Surface Volume 2.

The Destiny 2 issue, however, is complicated. You can change the game settings, including its resolution, and even make them better while not getting battery drain.

In a related Reddit thread, I asked users to submit other games and scenarios where battery drain occurred.

1 user noted that Fornite at "ballsy settings" tuckered around 10 pct over an hour. World of Tanks as well reportedly drained effectually five pct an hr equally did Middle Earth: Shadow of War at high settings with anti-aliasing configured to TAA.

Other games like LEGO Marvel Superheroes two, Assassin'south Creed Origins, PUBG, DOOM, and Overwatch, reportedly did not have whatever problems.

Why is this happening?

The included 102W Ac adapter may not be big enough given farthermost situations. Only virtually 95W goes to the Surface Book 2 equally the remaining seven watts is used for the USB Type-A port for external charging.

In nearly cases – whether apps or even high-stop games – the AC power is more than than enough to run the Surface Book 2 and actively charge it. Most situations do not put the CPU and GPU at 100 pct usage at a constant pace for hours or even minutes at a time. However, when a user turns on Best operation, the organisation goes into a turbo-like mode, letting the Surface Volume 2 15 drain more than it tin can pull from AC.

To be clear, you do not demand to game while using Best performance, but patently, gamers will want to try and max out the process and graphics cards for the best look and frames-per-2d (FPS) operation. Besides, even draining at x percent an hr, information technology would take five hours to deplete the system to 50 percent – which is a lot of gaming for one session.

Intel XTU shows how under duress Intel'due south CPU tin can down-regulate wattage to control for oestrus and reduce power describe.

There are other factors, also. If the room you lot are gaming is cold (beneath lxx degrees F, or 21 degrees C) there is less Power Limit throttling (PL1) from Intel. PL1 throttling reflects how hot the computer chassis gets. To forbid discomfort and burns, the wattage of the CPU is briefly reduced to allow the system cool. Therefore, despite starting at 20 watts for the Core i7 processor, information technology cuts to between 12 watts and 15 watts over 20 minutes or more when running at 100 percent consistently.

Past this logic, the colder the organization is, the more than power the CPU can draw (and get better long-term performance in a single session). Gaming in a warmer room will cause the thermal-pattern-point (TDP) to driblet more rapidly, causing less power drain.

Over again, this consequence is complicated.

NVIDIA GeForce Feel is a must-have for gamers

1 interesting solution is to use the NVIDIA GeForce Experience app for Windows.

Microsoft does not include the GeForce Experience app with any of its Surface devices. Instead, it pushes out new GeForce drivers through Windows Update later vetting them for problems. Users can featherbed this with the Surface Book 2 by installing the GeForce Feel app. The risk is NVIDIA's drivers may crusade bug or performance issues. Newer is not always ameliorate, and so choose wisely if y'all install a new driver.

However, ane significant do good of the NVIDIA GeForce Feel app is that it automatically detects your hardware and games installed. After a quick analysis, it provides recommended graphics settings for your games when on Air conditioning ability and battery. Users tin can then change those settings even more in instance they want to override them.

Using the GeForce Experience, users can alter Destiny 2 to run at higher resolutions including 2560 ten 1600, or even native the native 3240 x 2160, instead of the paltry default 1282 x 728. Playing at 2560 x 1600 with anti-aliasing disabled and texture quality lower, Destiny 2 can nonetheless play at lx FPS and wait better. These settings can as well make it, so the battery doesn't bleed when plugged into the wall.

Any users who are looking to use the Surface Volume ii 15 for gaming actively should install GeForce Feel. Not but does it let you to amend the graphics, but information technology may very well address the battery bleed problem.

Download NVIDIA GeForce Experience for Windows

The Surface Dock is non a good option

Another confounding issue is the optional Surface Dock. Unfortunately, the Surface Dock is a few years old now and supplies less power to the Surface Book 2 partially because it allocates some of the power for the other ports (four USB Type-A, Ethernet, and two DisplayPorts).

In other words, having multiple devices and displays connected to the Surface Dock may reduce the overall power to the Surface Book 2, which is normally fine for everyday computing, but when in Best performance, may not exist enough.

Two power supplies at in one case is not possible

Users cannot use both the Type-C port for Surface Book 2 and a Surface Connect for charging at the same time. In all cases, the Surface Connect power supply will override the USB Type-C.

This practise is standard on all laptops, because various currents flowing to the reckoner board could be dangerous.

USB Blazon-C chargers also practice non go over 100 watts, meaning they are non a viable solution (though you are free to use information technology as an culling charger).

Decision and what should be done

The Surface Volume ii fifteen tin drain the battery fifty-fifty when plugged into Ac when certain conditions are met:

• Best operation slider is enabled, overriding default Recommended.
• Display brightness is 50 percent or higher.
• Certain games when graphics are not set to friction match the hardware contour.
• Libation environments that let the CPU and GPU draw more power.
• Using a Surface Dock with multiple devices connected.

To be clear, all or most of those conditions must exist met – not just ane – for the drainage to occur.

In my testing, and asking users for feedback, the overwhelming majority of video games exercise not have this problem. Those that exercise, like Destiny two, tin have their graphics settings changed (even improved) to prevent this from happening by using the GeForce Experience app.

As to what Microsoft tin or should do ii solutions come up to mind:

• Release an optional, larger power supply (Air-conditioning charger).
• Release a firmware update that reduces power depict from the GPU.

The first option seems the most obvious, but it'due south not without some issues. Beginning, information technology will take months for a new AC charger to be designed, tested, approved, and pushed to retail.

Second, information technology doesn't make sense to ship a bulkier charger with Surface Volume 2 since when using it as a standard PC – even under heavy duress – this drainage problem is a non-issue. Making consumers bear a bigger Air conditioning charger considering some people use the Surface Book 2 equally a heavy gaming laptop seems wrong.

Destiny ii looks and plays keen on the Surface Book 2 15.

A new charger likely won't be inexpensive either. Microsoft currently sells the 102W power supply for $73. A larger 1 in the 150W range will fetch more than than that.

Microsoft could just patch the Surface Book 2 xv so that even when set to Best performance it can never draw more ability than is coming into the arrangement. But patching it now will likely anger many users. Given a choice to run the Surface Book 2 15 at max mode, ability drainage be damned, or non, nigh power users would opt for the former choice. From Microsoft'southward perspective, withal, capping the GPU's power drain would solve whatever customer complaints.

Update: The Surface Connect port can only have up to 120W of power. While that is nonetheless below nearly gaming laptops with beefier 45W processors and 150W ability supplies, it does provide some potential room for more than overhead with a larger charger, were Microsoft to make one.

For now, Microsoft is giving users the option to run the Surface Book 2 15 without hindrance. While an optional more substantial power supply would be welcome, there is not much show that about users are experiencing this problem.

I game every day on the Surface Book 2 15, playing Destiny 2 and DOOM. Frankly, I'm still diddled away playing a high-end AAA game at 2K resolution with vertical sync at 60 FPS on a Surface in 2022. It'southward awesome.

If you lot experience Surface Book ii 15 should never drain the battery nether any circumstances (even when user-initiated), spend your cash elsewhere.

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It'southward here

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After a very long await, the original Surface Duo is now eligible to receive its over-the-air OS update to Android 11. Here is what is new and stock-still with the biggest update nonetheless for Microsoft's beginning dual-screen Android device.

Source: https://www.windowscentral.com/does-surface-book-2-15-battery-drain

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