Surface Book 2 (13" and 15", GTX 1050/1060) announced

I think I'll likely do that anyway. You get 45 days, so there's no rush. Batteries typically aren't covered fully by warranties, though, and who's to say how generous MS will be about the level of degradation required before replacement (or that the degradation wouldn't become annoying only after the second year)? If there's a technical solution, I'd be happy to apply it, but I haven't found anything. If there were a charge limiter I'd just set it at 70% and not sweat it, but Google suggests that folks have been asking for that since the first Surface, and it remains absent.

I mean, the battery is completely unreplaceable, and these machines are clearly designed with an "always plugged in" desktop-replacement use case in mind. Is it reasonable to hope that they're designed well enough for it not to be a problem? If there's an unused battery overhead of 15% or more, it would be a non-issue, but that seems unlikely.

 

l can understand your concearn. I allways am troubled by battery life. . . in the beginning. After some time it gets better. And when I finally sell my notebooks (to get the latsest model), I find out that the battery live is still o.k. Neither my Surface Pro 3 nor any of my clevos had any big issues there. Still in the beginning I want them to last forerer ^^

best regards

phila

P.S.: personally l bovgth the SB2 to really use it on the go. So l am curious how i will get along.

 

An answer from someone who ACTUALLY owns the device. lol.
Yes that describes me to tee.
Still on the ropes between this and a razer however.
I don't think anyone on this forum is seriously considering this as a gaming first $3000 laptop with a 1060 in it.

Thank you!

 

Maybe I'm the only one who didn't know about this, but...
Right-click the speaker/volume icon > sounds > playback > speakers > Dolby Audio -- you can turn on an audio boost that makes the built-in speakers noticeably louder (and in theory better-sounding). I was finding the volume levels too low, so this made a meaningful difference to me. I'm not sure why this wasn't on by default, presumably a licensing opt-in thing.

 

My Dolby Audio was already turned on by default?

 

I spent some time with the device on a few occasions now while at the Microsoft Store and have devoured all the online content available on the laptop and have a few questions.

- Battery drain aside, is it able to do FHD ultra / high quality gaming at 60 fps on triple AAA titles (Destiny 2, Star Wars Battlefront 2, Wolfenstein The New Colossus, etc.)?

- I understand it can do dual 4K displays at 30hz and dual 2560 x 1080 displays at 60hz from the surface dock. I'm curious if anyone knows, with no dock, and a single monitor connected to the usb type c port if it could run a single 2560 x 1080 at a high refresh rate (120hz+)?

 

Yes Rickybambi. It will do that. Destiny 2 is the only game they found to cause battery drain. ALL others tested the surface charged while playing. If you drop AA and up the resolution Destiny 2 will not drain battery either! Its ONLY in one specific condition.

I would not hesitate to get the book 2. It's one of the best devices available now. I just finished watching a video comparing the book 1 performance vs the new touchbar MBP. The book converted a video in premier CC 6:20 faster than the MBP. Thats AWESOME. Add in all the functionality of the book 2 with pen. touch. detachable screen....it's THE BEST device available right now. Miles ahead of most anything else available.

 

Someone also tried it to play rts like age of empires? or dota2 ? we can play good with pen?

 

Divinity OS palys great with pen!

One other thing: Win 10 1709 does not cahnge the energy profile correctly for me:

If I start with AC adapter plugged in, and unplug (even though engergy profile switches to "recommended"), the CPU will keep to boost up to 4.2 Ghz.

Only if i reset the energy profile manually the CPU will stop to boot beyond 2.4 Ghz.

Can someone verify?

I helped myself by using Throttlestop (want to undervolt anyhow).

Best regards

phila

 

Update: Thoght throtteling via TS the problem with the speed shift remains. After unlugging the CPU will bee clocking up much faster... Still hoping for verification.

Best regards

phila

P.S.:Trying to cure this with TS as well...

P.P.S.: Speedshift does not seem to work...

 

See the package power in TS. I think its hitting TDP limit.

 

Thx! I hope you got me right: The trottling is not the problem, but the fact, that on battery an energy state "recommended" the SB2 keeps boosting wich causes battery drain. This only happens when the machine was plugged in at startup and you unplug it afterwards. To avoid this you have to manually reaply the energy state to "recommended".

Best regards

phila

 

You mean the power plan slider for best performance, battery life etc?

 

Greetings all!

Just reporting in that I bought a SB2 13" and then a 15" after owning a SB1 for about a year and a half very happily. Was planning to just replace my SB1 with the SB2 13", had it about a week and loved it so much I decided to swap it out for the 15" to replace both my SB1 and my desktop.

I'm in the process of parting out my desktop Skylake i7/1070 machine, and committed to one machine finally. The SB2 15" is obviously slower than my desktop, but I never dreamed it would be as close as it is, so to simplify to one machine it's worth the little bit of gaming performance loss. Not to mention, love the built in Xbox wireless connection! I'm playing Forza 7 smoothly with great graphics and smooth performance in a Surface package where I can detach the screen and walk through a jobsite at work with a pen?? Fantastic!

Things aren't all perfect though. The current Surface Dock is unfortunately underpowered for the new SB2's, particularly the 15" versions. The SB2 comes with a 102W power adapter, which works great for just about everything with only a bit of occasional battery discharge in severe usage (in reality they should have at least offered, if not included a 120+W). The Surface Dock however is 65W and causes significant battery drainage during heavy usage. So, until Microsoft releases a new Dock, keep using the provided 102W power adapter if you do anything like gaming, graphics work, or heavy disk/network usage.

To get around the Surface Dock issue, I'm using a USB-C to HDMI adapter for my monitor, a powered USB 3 hub, and the included 102W power adapter. Hopefully Microsoft releases a revised Dock and it will be a simple one plug solution again like it was with my SB1.

 

Yes. Exactly.

Best regards

phila

 

Save the code in this link as a bat file and run it as admin. https://gist.github.com/theultramage/cbdfdbb733d4a5b7d2669a6255b4b94b
See if it fixes the sudden boosts whilst plugging/unplugging AC power.

 

Dear Vasudev!

Thank you fro your effort. Unfortunately the .bat that I created form your code did not fix the problem. After unplugging the CPU behaves like plugged in (allways keeping the clock beyond 3.x Ghz) until I manually apply the power plan slider to recommended. Afterwards the clock will settle about 1.5 Ghz when idling and up to 2.4 Ghz when under load.

Best regards

phila

 

Ok. Honestly, its not my code.
Any luck in undervolting using TS? You can configure profiles, one for AC and battery. Configure the battery profile for max battery life by setting Speedshift to 200 and power plan to max battery life.
While switching between power sources there will be brief burst in cpu clocks which is caused due to many backgrounds apps or processes running. You can disable turbo on battery I usually disable turbo boost on battery and cpu clocks at stock speeds.

 

I did all of this. Unfortunately Speedshift does not seem to work with the SB2. Plus: Even If I disable the Boost, the CPU will not clock down to lowest clock when ideling (900mhz). TS is better than nothing, but right now you really got to switch manually. I hoe MS will fix this issue for me. I worte in the MS forums allready... but who knows...

Best regards

phila

 

Follow this thread The ThrottleStop Guide
Ithink its worth checking FIVR and TPL settings which provides an accurate value of CPU turbo ratios(FIVR) and cTDP(TPL).

 

I'm experiencing a superficial but annoying problem. I've got my SB set to screen-off after 10 minutes (in theory it's not sleeping, although it sure seems like it is since I need to log-in again). When I return, the taskbar thumbnails for my open apps have disappeared, leaving a blank square. The thumbnail returns when I click on the app.

This is an almost entirely cosmetic issue, but it means that I constantly have a bunch of apps with no thumbnail. It's rather ugly (especially in the alt-tab task view), and occasionally makes it hard to remember what was open in each window.

My previous laptop (a Dell XPS 12) did not do this -- the thumbnails stayed forever. So, it seems there's a setting somewhere. But I can't figure out what it is. "Save taskbar thumbnail previews" in the advanced settings sounded promising, but nope (and I now wonder what that setting even does). I assume some cache somewhere is emptying unnecessarily, but no idea how to change it.

Anyone else seeing this?

*edit* Nope, what I originally had here was wrong -- it's any program, app, whatever.

 

Try adjusting your advanced power plan settings. You can change max and min power state there. Put battery CPU Maximum to something like 50%.

 

Things are a little more complex here. First problem ist, that those settings are not unlocked on the Surface Book 2 by default. I know how to unlock them. But besides loosing the "Standy By" option by unlocking them (for some reason I do not understand) the SB2 has way more parameters under "Processor Power Management" than min / max / cooling. It has something to do with adjusting Speedshift "on the fly" in relation to how long/how much load you got on your CPU... I´d rather not meddle with those settings if it is not necessary.

Best regards

phila

 

so someone with more details about the gaming side? RTS first?

 

I think your machine specs destroys SB 2's if they are NVLink'ed.

 

I played the preview of Spellforce 3 and have no complaints regarding the performance -> I could play with the settings on "high" 1500x1000p resolution at a pretty stable 50 FPS. Of course erverything will depend on the mulit core optimisation, as many games from the RTS genere are dependant on many cores AND high clocks, the latter of which the i7-8650u can not allways deliver.

Best regards

phila

 

No doubt xd, but i am always around the world, so during the flight will be easier to play or do something else.

 

Got the full version of Spellforce 3 now. 40 FPS at medium-high settings...

Best regards

phila

 

So, to get back to the question about voltages: what would be considered a "normal" max voltage with the SB2 15"?

 

Haven't done much RTS yet, but I honestly have been quite impressed with the gaming performance on my 15". Forza 7 is gorgeous and runs great and X-Plane 11 looks and performs great even with some addons.

Other fairly recent/demanding games I've installed and tested with great results I simply need to find more time to play are Gears of War 4, ARMA 3, Battlefield 1, Halo Wars 2, Middle-earth Shadow of War, Sea of Thieves, Resident Evil 7, Civ VI, Homeland Resistance, Fallout 4, Wolfenstein: Old Blood, Forza Horizon 3, Kerbal Space Program.

Many other less demanding games too but they run on most stuff regardless. If you haven't played it yet though, check out Bomber Crew! It's a sort of FTL type crew management game, but in 3D instead of 2D set in WW2 and quite hard but addictive ha.

I'm using both the internal 512BG SSD for some and an external Samsung T5 1TB SSD for others with great results on the go. Also have a 3TB HDD while docked for backup and addition storage at my desk.

 

As a follow up while testing with games, the "Power Mode" slider under the battery icon in the taskbar is quite useful on the SB2! It works in real time and I can control the performance to fan noise and power draw instantly. It's pretty cool, while gaming for example and moving it I'll go from 60FPS and some fan noise to a notch or two back and see 45-50FPS with an almost silent experience depending on where I'm playing and my current needs. Very cool feature MS added!

 

I got one questin concearning a special game. I tried to run Resident Evil 6 but it only works with the HD620. Forcing the 1050 will give me an Error message: 3dderr_notavailable. Fatal error MP_core... sowthing like this. Anyone got an idiea how to work around this!

Best regards

phila

 

Yes. The book 2 has all kinds of cool stuff. Btw nice Connie.

 

Hello everyone,
So I got my surface book 2 (15", 500gb) a few weeks ago and there has been one thing that has been annoying me a bit and I was hoping you guys could help me. The problem is that when I go into full screen mode on youtube, the integrated graphics driver decides to adjust the contrast of the image, which causes the image to become over saturated. Someone suggested that I try to get rid of this by using the intel control center, but by changing the auto-contrast, battery life, and color range in this control center, you are only able to slightly change the issue so that the image becomes under saturated in full screen mode. This is pretty annoying because it means that anytime you are watching something in full screen and accidentally move your mouse or use the arrow keys to move forward or backward, the color of whatever your watching will go through different contrast modes and flicker while doing it. For example, if I am watching a youtube video in full screen and press my arrow key forward the screen will instantly become less saturated when the UI appears and then when the UI fades it will snap back to being more saturated. This issue is really frustrating me because when watching a video out of full screen mode it doesn't happen at all, so it is only when the video is in full screen mode that the iGPU decides to mess with the contrast. If anyone could help me with this issue I would be elated!
edit - figured out the problem is solely with youtube when using google chrome.

 

I was going to suggest that. Use edge for most everything and chrome only when you HAVE to. Edge is quite optimised for the surface and windows 10 in general. You have quite the device there...congrats!

 

Why Edge when you can use Firefox. I get consistent 8+ hrs on Windows and Linux on my PC.

 

Because I never like firefox, and chrome is meh at this point to. I use edge. It has touch support as well that chrome does not have. I ditched firefox in 2003. ha ha. I also get great battery life with edge.

 

First uninstall both Intel and nvidia drivers using control panel or Apps or Features. Afterwards, use DDU to wipe both Intel and nvidia GPU drivers in safe mode. Install Intel drivers followed by nvidia.

 

Enable Firefox touch keyboard and see the difference.

 

I am quite happy with Edge.

 

The 7700hq will definenitely outperform the 8550u IMO.

 

Agree

 

Thx! I`ll give it a try when I install the game next time.

Think so too! Still in games that demand high single core CPU clock the 8650u does quite well. I had some issues with Borderlands 2 on my 6700hq in CPU limited areas which I did not notice on my Surface Book 2. The performance in Grim Dawm is also very nice.

Best regards

phila

P.S.: Has anyone tried to undervolt the GTX 1060 in their SB2 15"? I´d be curious to hear wo many watts this will save you...

 

Mostly it will be locked. You can try it using MSI AB and see if it works. Don't forget to save profile after undervolting.

 

Yes, thank you! I got the 1050 in my SB2 undervolted via Afterburner. It works very well. Still, I`d be interested in expreiences concearning the 1060.

Best regards

phila

 

Better ask @Mobius 1

 

I only had the 1st gen surfacebook without the dGPU :|

 

You have undervolted several Pascal notebook GPUs, right?

 

Undervolting might not the very exact term, but yes: Afterburner (ctrl+f) allows to set the relation between "mV" and "mhz" (nvidia Pascal) and thus allows to run the craphics card with a lower mV/mhz-ratio. For my SB2 got two settings:

Power saving -> with the base voltage of 800mv I achive a fixed 1278mhz

Performance -> with a voltage of 925 mv I achive a fixed 1798mhz (about 100mv less than the card would draw at stock clocks)

Taking this into regard, I think the SB2 15 inch 1060 draining issue, could be somewhat diminished by undervolting the GPU.

Best regards

phila

 

Use a bigger AC adapter like 180W.
Use nvidia inspector to turn on battery boost that will reduce the chance of pulling additional power from battery by limiting FPS to 30.