14 DAY TRIAL // Surface Pro 6 and Surface Book 2 are throttling down the processor to 400MHz after a recent firmware update, and Microsoft confirmed the problem.
As laptops grow ever thinner, the problem of overheating becomes more and more relevant. Companies have to make sure that their hardware doesn’t fail, so the immediate solution is to throttle down the component to a lower speed, which in turn cools downs all the hardware components.
It sounds like a good plan, but it turns out that if the hardware or software component that controls the throttling process fails itself, the end-users are going to suffer unjustly. And when throttling is caused by an unknown problem, the frustration is even more significant.
Microsoft might be to blame
According to a TechRepublic report, Microsoft has already acknowledged the problem and that some users have been experiencing this problem, although it’s still unclear why this is happening. It seems that the latest firmware upgrade is to blame, but that hasn’t been determined yet.
In the case of Surface Pro 6 and Surface Book 2, a possible culprit seems to be a CPU flag BD PROCHOT, which stands for “bi-directional processor hot.” Seems to be sufficiently clear, but the problem os that other hardware components have access to this flag, for a good reason. It might very well be a problem with something else than the CPU, and that needs investigation.
For now, some users are using an application called ThrottleStop, which intercepts BD PROCHOT calls and stops them. In theory, only real calls are let through, but it’s still a risk for the users.
Hardware throttling is not something new, but it’s becoming more prevalent. Apple had some serious issues with its latest MacBook Pro, which was doing the same thing, although in that case, it was a problem of poor design for the cooling system.
In the case of Surface Pro 6 and Surface Book 2, the issues seem to be the latest firmware update, so maybe it can be corrected the same way.