SB2 15" and charge wattage
- Thread starter wynand32
- Start date
OP
wynand32
Well-Known Member
Yes, that's true, and it makes sense for preserving the battery. I started the thread because some people over on reddit were concerned that their chargers weren't providing enough power to the batteries, only around 20 watts rather than around 40 watts. I'm guessing they were seeing that because they were looking at the charge when the batteries were at greater than 90% charge.
OP
wynand32
Well-Known Member
I hope everything's okay!
Hi! I got my Surface Book 2 15" 1060 some days ago and tried some gaming to see how it performs. Unfortunately I had MASSIVE battery drain (like 10% in 15min). I saw this thread by searching on google and tried to run BatteryInfoView (thanks for the hint!).
This is the result:
Imgur
After running the application for some minutes it seems the charging won't go above 20Watt in total. That is pretty low, isn't it?
It feels like the power adapter doesn't work or is broken and doesn't deliver the energy by far (especially in gaming).
Anything I can do?
Thanks!
This is the result:
Imgur
After running the application for some minutes it seems the charging won't go above 20Watt in total. That is pretty low, isn't it?
It feels like the power adapter doesn't work or is broken and doesn't deliver the energy by far (especially in gaming).
Anything I can do?
Thanks!
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OP
wynand32
Well-Known Member
Hi! I got my Surface Book 2 15" 1060 some days ago and tried some gaming to see how it performs. Unfortunately I had MASSIVE battery drain (like 10% in 15min). I saw this thread by searching on google and tried to run BatteryInfoView (thanks for the hint!).
This is the result:
Imgur
After running the application for some minutes it seems the charging won't go above 20Watt in total. That is pretty low, isn't it?
It feels like the power adapter doesn't work or is broken and doesn't deliver the energy by far (especially in gaming).
Anything I can do?
Thanks!
Interesting... I would think that you'd be seeing a significantly higher charge rate with your base battery so low. So, yes, that does seem odd.
One check you could do is to let your base charge to 100%, so that both batteries are fully charged. Then, run on battery doing usual non-gaming tasks, and let it run down to 50% or so (both batteries should be run down at this point). Then, start charging and note the charge rate. If it's not around 40 watts charge rate between both batteries, then you might very well have an issue -- and it might not be just the power supply.
Thanks. I'm currently not at home so I will try on the weekend and post again. But at least the battery drain while gaming doesn't seem to be normal (I've read that there will be 10% in 1h but not 10% in 15min 
).
Maybe I will also try to reset my PC. Really don't want to send in my notebook and wait weeks for a replacement...
).Maybe I will also try to reset my PC. Really don't want to send in my notebook and wait weeks for a replacement...
So... I'm already back and I had the possiblity to check the battery consumption. The battery consumption when not-gaming seems to be normal. But now I'm charging the battery at around 50% and I still don't get more than 20 Watt in total. I also tried gaming with battery-only and after half an hour my base battery went down from 100% to 35%. Doesn't seem to be a normal behaviour - so I probably have to exchange my notebook + ac-adapter. Damnit
OP
wynand32
Well-Known Member
Yes, unfortunately, I think you're seeing the behavior that kicked off that reddit thread that I referenced in the OP. When the battery is sufficiently low, you should see 40+ watts charge rate (when the dGPU isn't being used) until it hits around 90%, at which point the charge rate will slowly fall to less than 20 watts until it hits 100% charged.
Another question: you say you were at around 50% -- what're your base and tablet values at this point? I found it interesting that in your results above the base was so low while the tablet was still at 100%. That's suspicious as well -- mine usually hits both batteries but I believe fully charges the tablet battery first.
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I asked the Program Manager in charge of the Surface Book 2 about this week and here is what is happening (it is by design). The SB2 15" Thermals were actually quite a bit better than they anticipated and allows the CPU/GPU to run at a much higher wattage so the Power Supply will give the CPU/GPU the power without throttling rather than the batteries up to a point - it will only allow the battery to go down to ~30% and then it will start charging the batteries by slightly throttling the CPU/GPU. Their tests show that the throttling would be the equivalent of moving from 60fps to ~54fps....
Hope that clears that up....
Hope that clears that up....
OP
wynand32
Well-Known Member
That's interesting, but it doesn't answer the main issue identified in this thread. Here, we're talking about when the dGPU is NOT being utilized, and a limited amount of power is being delivered to charge the batteries. On my SB2 15", over 40 watts is delivered to charge the batteries when they're low enough, but on some SB2s, apparently, including spcial's, around 20 watts is delivered.
What the program manager is saying is interesting to me, however, because it seems to imply that the battery drain during gaming is going to be more than Microsoft has indicated. I know for a fact that my SB2 15" will burn the battery when I'm running ANY game and task that uses the dGPU on "Best performance." It will even hit the battery when I'm running some games and tasks using the dGPU on "Better performance." This is contrary to Microsoft's official statement so far, which is that only very intensive gaming will discharge the battery. Also, if you check various forums, you'll find that some peoples' SB2 15's burn much more battery during gaming than others' (also like spcial's in this thread).
I just want to give an update on my battery drain issue. I've send in my surface book 2 to customer support and I just received a completely new surface book 2 15". The battery drain issue is therefore gone - with best performance mode and some GPU stress test running I now have a max. of -10mW with an expected battery runtime >6h. It loads faster as well.
BUT
Now the fan in the display-part (I assume it is the CPU-fan) makes loud rattling/mechanical noises ... I'm pretty frustrated with my surface book 2... Since I bought it here (Germany) I was probably using it only for 2 weeks - that sucks. I probably have to send it in again (actually I'm now at a point where I would prefer just to have my money back and never ever again give MS so much money). Don't get me wrong, the surface book 2 is an amazin device... but the quality just sucks (or I'm just having extreme bad luck).
BUT
Now the fan in the display-part (I assume it is the CPU-fan) makes loud rattling/mechanical noises ... I'm pretty frustrated with my surface book 2... Since I bought it here (Germany) I was probably using it only for 2 weeks - that sucks. I probably have to send it in again (actually I'm now at a point where I would prefer just to have my money back and never ever again give MS so much money). Don't get me wrong, the surface book 2 is an amazin device... but the quality just sucks (or I'm just having extreme bad luck).
