Surface laptop 5 is the worst device I interact with

Question

Surface laptop 5 is the worst device I interact with

Dexter Morris 0

TLDR: The device is slow, runs hot enough to burn me, you cannot customize it much, it did not work properly when i received it, the battery doesn't last, and it is generally unpleasant to use.

I have had my Surface Laptop 5 in the Christmas Holidays of 2023. Ever since, the experience has been terrible. Firstly, the setup of the surface lead to a non-functional touch screen. This is a major selling point of a surface laptop for me, and I was disappointed to see my fancy new tech not work on arrival. Alas, I installed windows 11 from an installation media USB. This time the touch-screen worked. However, the battery kept dying. From the moment I got the laptop, the battery would last about 5 hours, which has since degraded to 4. This is nowhere near the advertised 16. I don't do intensive work; I primarily work with spreadsheets and word documents.

And with time, it became slow. Windows would be using 80% RAM and opening apps would fill into swap space. This made the experience janky and slow. Not to mention that it made even the touchpad laggy, which made coordinating any actions on the device implausible.

Then, the CPU ended up at nearly 70% at any given time. I was fed up and re-installed windows; this fixed it for only about a month. My startup apps were nothing except for Komorebi, YASB, and defender which I had tried going without Komoerbi and YASB. Regardless, random processes would fill up my processor. All of this with a constantly hot CPU.

Moreover, the touchpad drivers had to be re-installed several times. It simply kept stopping. This was terribly inconvenient when I did not have a mouse available.

So, I abandoned Windows; I now use Gentoo compiled on a different device to give it the best chance. RAM and CPU are no longer an issue! Battery life now lasts closer to 6 hours. but heat is still an issue. It overheats to 100 degrees anytime I compile a program or do anything intensive, which literally burns on my lap. A "laptop" that cannot sit on top of your lap. I thought I would just change the fan-curve but this is not exposed as something you can alter, only something you can view. The chosen fan-curve by Microsoft is NOTHING until 100 degrees. Moreover, how the device exposes its keys does not allow my device to be woken by anything but the power button when sleeping.

More general hardware complaints are that the feet on it fall off due to the overheating. This happened when I was still on Windows, so it is unrelated to the workload really. They will provide new feet to stick on, which for me soon thereafter also fell off. The camera is terrible quality. The battery runs out even quicker than the aforementioned 4 hours on any reasonable brightness. The keys on the keyboard are difficult to get off without snapping the strange little arm underneath that feels like it is placed there simply to break. The metal the laptop is made of smudges notably anywhere you touch it, especially with tine (the back, front, and next to the touchpad). It is heavy because it is metal.

Even the bios has issues. Not only is nothing customizable (including the fans), but on disabling secure boot you get a large red bar with a badly designed white lock unlocked appearing every time it boots. People ask me what it is often.

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2 answers

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Answer 1

Heat: Microsoft’s firmware keeps the fan idle until about 100°C, and the fan curve isn’t user-editable.

Battery: The 16 hours is a light video-playback figure. Real use gets about half that or less.

Build: The smudging, weight, fragile keycaps and peeling feet are all common complaints about this model.

Firmware: The Secure Boot banner and the power-button-only wake are by design.

Probably a faulty unit or bad drivers:

The dead touchscreen at setup and the touchpad that kept stopping. Generic Windows install media lacks the Surface driver pack.

The constant 70% CPU on a clean install.

Fixes worth trying on Gentoo:

Use the linux-surface kernel and run thermald.

Disable turbo before heavy jobs: echo 1 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/intel_pstate/no_turbo

Set MAKEOPTS="-j4" so it isn’t pinned at 100°C for hours.

Build on your other machine and install binary packages here.

Run upower -i to check battery health. If wear is high, that explains the 4 hours.

Answer 2

Stop using the Surface Laptop 5 on your lap or for intensive workloads that make its enclosure hot enough to cause pain, and open a Microsoft hardware-service request because the heat persists across operating systems and the feet have repeatedly detached.

Immediate safety action

Shut the device down and disconnect the charger when it becomes excessively hot.
Move it to a cooler location on a hard, stable surface and allow it to cool for at least five minutes.
Do not maintain skin contact with the hot enclosure. Microsoft warns that sustained contact with warm Surface components can cause discomfort or injury.
If a thermometer icon appears, or keeps appearing after cooling, contact Microsoft support. ^1^
If the enclosure is separating, bulging, or otherwise suggests battery expansion, stop using it immediately and do not press on or puncture it. Excessive heat can accelerate lithium-ion battery deterioration. ^2^

A reported CPU temperature of 100°C does not, by itself, establish the chassis temperature or a particular failed component. However, recurrent burn-level exterior heat, short battery runtime, touchpad failures, and detached feet warrant physical inspection rather than another software reinstall.

Request hardware service

Back up your Gentoo installation and personal files.
Go to the Microsoft devices page named in the repair instructions and sign in with the Microsoft account associated with the Surface.
Register the Laptop 5 if it is not already listed.
Select it to check warranty status, then create a service order.
Choose an authorized in-person provider where available, or send it to Microsoft. Out-of-warranty service may also be offered. Back up and erase sensitive data before shipping. ^3^
Include these concrete symptoms in the request:
- enclosure becomes painful to touch during load;
- reported CPU temperature reaches approximately 100°C;
- behavior persists under both Windows and Gentoo;
- battery runtime was about five hours when new and has degraded;
- touchpad repeatedly stopped under Windows;
- replacement feet detached again.

Surface Laptop 5 feet are replaceable, but their repeated detachment alongside the heat problem makes replacing them again an incomplete remedy. Microsoft lists replacement by authorized providers or skilled technicians, with availability varying by market. ^4^

Optional evidence before service

Do this only if support requests Windows-based evidence or if you choose to restore Windows temporarily; it is not another recommendation to repeat a generic reinstall.

Generate a battery report from an elevated Command Prompt:

powercfg /batteryreport

Open the HTML file at the path printed by the command and save a copy. Record:

Design capacity
Full charge capacity
Cycle count, if shown
Recent usage
Battery usage

Microsoft documents this report as the supported way to inspect estimated capacity and usage. ^2^

The advertised figure is not a guaranteed runtime: Microsoft’s Laptop 5 estimates used a defined mix of active use and standby, 150-nit brightness, Wi-Fi, and preproduction Windows configurations; actual runtime varies with workload and settings. The documented estimates are up to 18 hours for the tested 13.5-inch configuration and up to 17 hours for the tested 15-inch configuration. ^5^

If Microsoft requires a supported Windows baseline, use the model-specific Surface factory recovery image, not ordinary Windows installation media. It restores the Surface image and drivers but erases personal files, settings, and installed applications. ^6^

Firmware and Linux limitations

Microsoft documents Surface Laptop 5 support for Windows 10 and Windows 11; Gentoo/Linux behavior is not covered by that support matrix. ^7^ Surface UEFI exposes device, security, and boot controls, including disabling Secure Boot, but the documented settings do not include a user-configurable fan curve. ^8^

Consequently, the red Secure Boot warning and Linux wake-source behavior may not have a supported firmware customization available. Those limitations should be separated from the heat and hardware symptoms when filing the service request.

References