A Fan noise while charging

[skim175]

I got my surface book a few days ago. I haven't noticed any issues mentioned in this forum yet. But I encountered strange behavior with mine. While I am actually using a surface book, I don't hear much of fan noise. It rarely comes on. However, when I tried to recharge it with a lid closed, surface book gets really hot and fan comes on. It keeps happening since yesterday. Do you have any suggestion? Once I open it, a fan stops.
Thanks, guys.

 

[leeshor]

It sounds like it's trying to run something and sleep at the same time. What are you leaving open, if anything?

 

[skim175]

I thought so. But how come? I am not leaving anything special things on. Usually a combination of Outlook, Browser (usually edge) or MS Office.

 

[leeshor]

If Outlook is set up IMAP that could be an issue. At least until it fully syncs. How long have you been using your Surface and have you manually checked for updates?

 

[skim175]

My outlook is all Exchange accounts. But it has been only a few days since I picked up SB.

 

[leeshor]

Exchange doesn't help. If it doesn't settle down after a few more days you may want to consider turning it off before charging. You could also disable connected standby which would keep it from doing anything when you close it.

 

[skim175]

I had to do that for the past two nights. I actually woke up because of the fan noise. Even the base was really hot. Of course, SB was barely charged for 4 hours.

 

[protip]

I routinely have a similar issue with my Surface Book, which I use every day at the office. While at the office, I have it docked and charging all day. I often leave it with Windows locked and when I return, I find that the fan is running at full speed and, once unlocked, the CPU has been busy executing an application named LockAppHost.exe. Unfortunately, that seems to be a container process meant to run other tasks, so it's not clear to me what the Surface Book is doing.

Here is a grab from Process Explorer showing the CPU utilization while the device was locked (followed by normal CPU utilization patterns after unlocking, toward the right of the chart).

I would expect a device to use very little CPU while it's locked and idle. But that's not often the case with the Surface Book. I joke that Microsoft has our devices mining Bitcoins because there's no reasonable excuse for cranking the CPU that hard while the device is not being used.

Also see a similar thread on these forums:

Surface Book Fan Running While in Sleep | Microsoft Surface Forums

 

[flar]

This just happened to me for the first time the other day as well. I would say that it is new since the most recent updates, but it sounds like others have seen the behavior before...

 

[skim175]

It appears that it is not just me. Right now the only solution is to turn of the SB before charging. It is very inconvenient.

 

[kiomon]

This happens to my SB as well, when charging it seems like the fans come on. I chocked it up to thermal management. In my case, its on even when the computer is NOT locked, when I am just using it.

 

[protip]

This happens to my SB as well, when charging it seems like the fans come on. I chocked it up to thermal management. In my case, its on even when the computer is NOT locked, when I am just using it.

Can you keep something like Process Explorer running all day (if you're not already) so that next time you see this happening, you can take a look at the CPU utilization history? It would be interesting to get a feel for which processes are consuming CPU horsepower and heating it such that the fan turns on.

For me, it's always that LockAppHost.exe.