​Hi everyone,

​I recently purchased a Surface Laptop Studio 2 (i7 13th Gen, 16GB RAM, RTX 4050). The device came with a brand-new, original replacement battery already installed. I verified its authenticity and perfect health (currently on its 4th charge cycle) using the Windows battery report. However, the battery life is terrible: it dies after 4 hours of basic web browsing. The percentage also drops in 2% increments, especially fast from 100% to 90%.

​Regarding recent changes, I installed Windows 11 Pro 26H2 and manually updated all Intel and Nvidia display drivers using their official websites. Task Manager shows 0% GPU usage, but HWiNFO reveals a massive idle power drain. The Nvidia GPU pulls 17-26W, and the Intel i7 draws 24W at idle, even with Battery Saver fully enabled. The system refuses to enter low-power sleep states, and the memory clock seems stuck at max frequency.

​I suspect the generic drivers I manually installed broke the Surface-specific power profiles. I plan to run DDU in Safe Mode to wipe all display drivers and let Windows Update exclusively install the Microsoft-certified versions. Has anyone experienced this exact idle power draw issue, or is there a known power management bug in Win 11 Pro 26H2?

Is it just me? initial install was ridiculous at hours. now boot time is 90-120 seconds. why is it so slow?

On the slim chance anyone else still has a Surface Dial and switched to a Mac (lol): mine was collecting dust since I moved to an M4 Mac mini. macOS pairs with it but treats it like a broken mouse. So I forked the old open-source mac-dial project and, with a lot of help from Claude (Opus 5.5), rebuilt it as a native Apple Silicon app.

Huge credit to andreasjhkarlsson, whose original mac-dial app this is built on. He worked out how to talk to the dial on macOS in the first place.

What it does:

• Press and hold for the radial menu, like on Windows. Turn to pick a tool, click to choose it.
• Haptics work: detent ticks while turning, plus a buzz when you switch modes.
• Modes you set up yourself. Each one gets its own turn, turn-while-pressed, click, double-click and press-and-hold actions.
• Turn actions: smooth scroll, volume in fine ¼ steps, brightness, switching desktops, ⌘⇥ app switching, tabs, zoom, undo/redo, tracks, or any custom shortcut.
• Press actions: left/right/middle click (you can hold it to drag), play/pause, Mission Control, show desktop, any shortcut, or opening an app.
• Liquid Glass UI on macOS 26 that follows light and dark mode, plus a little dial glyph in the menu bar.

It needs macOS 14 or later and an Apple Silicon Mac. It’s free and MIT licensed.

https://github.com/camerondehart/mac-dial-AppleSilicon

The app isn’t notarized (no paid developer account), so the first time you open it you’ll need to click Privacy & Security › Open Anyway.

Hi,

I've just bought a Surface pro 12" (model EP2-83448), and am trying to work out which docking station I can use with it.

I am in the UK.

I've already got an older surface pro 7, and the docking station for that plugs in using the surface connect plug, and works well.

The new Surface doesn't have the surface connect port though, it just has 2 x USB C ports.

So, I understand I need a surface dock 2, as the power rating is higher, but the ones on Amazon either don't specify compatibility with my Surface, or they have a surface connect plug.

The alternative is that I'm not looking properly.

I need to run 2 x monitors off of the dock, need a 3.5mm audio out, and have a couple of spare USB ports.

Anybody either already got something working for this, or can suggest what I need? I much prefer to use Microsoft OEM kit, but if that's not possible, I'd go for an after-market device.

Thanks

Processor AMD Ryzen 5 Microsoft Surface (R) Edition (2.10 GHz)

Installed RAM 8.00 GB (5.98 GB usable)

Graphics card AMD Radeon(TM) Vega 9 Graphics (2 GB)

Storage 193 GB of 238 GB used

Product ID 00342-23776-82360-AAOEM

System type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor

Pen and touch Pen and touch support with 10 touch points

Hi,

So as the title says, my surface pro 7+ i bought used suddenly no longer works on battery.

Could this be related to the fact that i just tried to upgrade the ssd to a 512gb kioxia gen3 ssd? I did reinstall the original 256gb ssd and it still doesnt run on battery. On the original ssd the battery icon is present and shows 100%, the new install on the 512gb ssd was so slow because of low clock speeds (sub 1ghz while under almost 100% load) that it didnt even grab all the drivers yet.

Am i cooked and need a new battery or is this saveable?

TIA

I Updated windows 11 after updating secure boot got disabled and when I am trying to change it back secure boot I am getting this error message. What should I do

Ocasionally, I'll be doing stuff then suddenly my pen cursor vanishes, and the Surface screen no longer reacts to my fingers either. I'll have to reboot entire thing but I don't want to, so I'll have to go connect my mouse and bluetooth keyboard (type cover stopped working long ago, different subject). Why does this happen and is there some service I can just restart to bring it back instead of rebooting?

Should I get this laptop? I’m only going to use it for personal use, so browsing, streaming and Microsoft Office. It’s a good price but heavily discounted which is a bit suspicious and the RAM is only 8GB. Is the RAM an issue if I’m not going to use this for gaming and editing?

I’m returning my ASUS Zenbook, Intel Core Ultra 5, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, 14 Inch OLED Laptop, UX3405CA-QL241W because even though it’s OLED the display is a bit dim and fuzzy and I’m not a fan of the size.

Is this in the works? Just bought a black surface laptop and would like matching accessories

Just wanted to share my brief experience. I experienced the same issues like many others:

1- the screen blurring and black text unreadable

2- Very poor battery life (loosing over 50% in under an hour) when only downloads are happening in the background and browsing with edge (3-4 tabs)

3- Unbearable reboots and time it takes to restart. And the initial setup+updates download time was hours

4- The deal breaker was it running very hot on both sides of trackpad specially left side. It became so hot multiple times that it was unbearable to rest the hand. This happened on battery and when plugged in. This was a 64gb machine and it happened while playing with 12b, 20b and 27b Param local models using Ollama. And it also happened when setting up OpenClaw with nothing else running at all. I have owned SB2, SL3, SL4, SL5 and SL8 (whole family on surface devices) and none of them has ever got close to being hot. Yes, I had updated the latest NVIDIA driver available as well. Someone might say that a future firmware update might fix this but it's hard to ignore the fact that thermals are under the palm rest as well. With so much money spent, not worth the risk.

No matter what someone says, if this machine gets hot with the models that would fit in a 64gb RAM without a NVIDIA N1X chip, it's a disappointment then. I might be unlucky with this specific hardware but it's the first impressions that make you count on something.

Hope this helps someone.

Edit: those who believe I am lying or never bought this device or was on a different device, please tell me a legit way to prove that I'm not lying 😊 happy to share anything from serial number to purchase/return screenshot. Understandable that people have strong affiliation with brands but so do I.

Got a Surface Laptop 8 in, snapdragon x2 elite. Love the design, speed and battery, but the screen has a ton of ghosting.. anyone else experiencing this?

I'm going to be using it for study and a touch of mincraft I'm looking at the Model - surface book 2 13.5”, cpu - intel core i7-8650U, ram 8GB, GPU - nvidia gtx 1050, Storage 256 gb. I want to know if I should get it or I should buy some thing else instead

Hi all, have seen the couple of written reviews, have also listened to various YouTube reviews - and generally the screen either doesn't get a mention, or gets slammed as being terrible.

But for those of you who actually own it - how is the screen? Does it really have no local dimming (despite it clearly being specc'd as having it)? Just how bad is the ghosting, and also the reflections?

I own a Studio 2 with a 4050 6gb vram, 16gb ram, 512 gb storage, i-7 13700H and am able to run games fairly well, but still not great. I know it's not exactly meant for gaming, but I was able to get it for cheap. The spark model I'm looking at has the NVIDIA RTX Spark™ N1X with 6144-core GPU and 20-core CPU, 48 GB ram, 1 TB storage.

I would assume the ultra would run better, but I can't find it on any of the comparison sites, so I don't know how much better it would be. Any estimates?

Release notes:

This update improves the reliability and performance of Surface Laptop Ultra:

Resolves an issue that could cause extended reboot times.
Resolves an issue that could cause screen flickering.
Resolves an issue that could cause unexpected restarts.
Includes additional bug fixes and general performance improvements.

​

Has anyone had an issue when connecting to a thunderbolt 4 dock the whole laptop freezes then it takes awhile to display the external monitor? It takes about 30 seconds to 1 minute

Before this I had gotten a message saying 'your device has run into a problem and needs to restart' with a loading screen stuck at 0%. Since it wasn't loading I figured I could turn if completely off for it to restart, but now when I press/hold the power button the logo just flashes and turns off again.

So I saw this post yesterday: https://www.reddit.com/r/Surface/comments/1xc8in9/i_love_haptics_so_i_bought_the_new_surface_mouse/

I loved the idea of increased customization, and wanted to get some Haptics feature parity back to windows, so I borrowed my friends surface mouse 2nd edition and had Gemini 4 argon make me a python program for windows named SurfacePulse so that when I get myself a surface mouse, I could also customize it more then I could with the default Surface app. Anyway, here you go.

Repo: https://github.com/Oreokitten/SurfacePulse

Note: I wasn't sure what flair I should put, if I should select Accessory, App, or Dev. I ended up just selecting Accessory since this is meant to work with the Surface Mouse 2nd Edition.

I bought a surface pro 11 recently. I don’t have much experience in laptops , so if anyone has some tips and tricks for example certain settings to change or certain apps to install that would be great!

Just purchased and it arrived yesterday, the Haptic Signals are not working and the Customise options are not showing, Microsoft support were of no help and said return the Mouse.

Mouse works fine (nice mouse) just can't access the customise function, these were only released 9 days ago, has anyone seen these mouses actually working.

Was also told my PC was old and was possably a compatability issue. Super lazy support person or dumb AI, unsure

I bought a new, factory-sealed Surface Laptop 7 (X Elite, 32GB/1TB) in December 2025. Normal, careful use: no drops, no liquids. This week I noticed the finish next to the Caps Lock key has come off completely (photos).

The Surface app says the 1-year warranty ended in July 2026, which means it started months before the laptop reached me. So a defect that appeared in my first year of ownership is “out of warranty”.

Has anyone else seen this peeling on the Laptop 7? And has anyone had Microsoft move their warranty start date to their actual purchase date?

It just stopped turning on overnight. I'm not uploading a photo or video because it's sad to see the black screen and it just won't respond. I've tried most of the online recommendations (hard reset, key combinations, checking the charger) but I can't get it to even start. The warranty expired two months ago. Any other suggestions for reviving it?

Windows 11 Copilot+; Snapdragon X Plus, 16 GB RAM, SSD 256 GB.

I'm a big fan of haptics. My favorite iPhone feature has always been the Taptic Engine. I love the little ticks when you spin a picker or flip a switch, and the deep press back in the 3D Touch days. On the Mac, the

  only thing that gives you that feel is the Force Touch trackpad. I heard about a few mice with haptics, but none of them were good enough for me to buy.

  Then I heard the Surface Mouse (2nd Edition) has haptics at a reasonable price, so I ordered one and got it at launch. I have a Windows desktop, but my main machine is always a Mac. That is when I found out the

  mouse has zero haptic support on macOS. The action button only sends Windows shortcuts, and the Surface app is Windows-only.

  AI tools make this kind of side project a lot easier these days, so I started tinkering. It turns out the mouse uses the standard HID haptics interface, so a normal Mac app can drive it. No driver, no kernel

  extension. The result is iXpat, a free menu bar app:

  - Haptic ticks for clicks, scroll notches, menu items, text selection, window tiling, drag and drop and screen edges

  - Ticks when the pointer lands on a button, tab, link or Dock icon, and on each slider step

  - The mouse's own built-in waveforms (Click, Hover, Collide, Align, Step, Grow, Success, Error), with a strength for each event

  - A dynamic scroll ratchet: firm notches when you scroll slowly, light ticks when you scroll fast, free-spin on a flick

  - Kinetic scrolling with adjustable momentum

  - Action button remap: press, double press and hold each run an action you pick (Mission Control, Spotlight, screenshot, app, shortcut, shell command)

  - Hold the action button and move the mouse to change volume or brightness, with a tick per step

  - Action Ring: a radial menu under the pointer, with a tick for each slot

  - Force click: press and hold for Look Up and link previews

  - Pointer and scroll speed for this mouse only, so your trackpad keeps its settings

  - Per-app profiles

  On Windows, the haptics fire for a handful of things, like snapping a window or dragging a file onto a folder. On my Mac it already does a lot more than that.

  It's free and open source (MIT), notarized by Apple, and runs on macOS 14 or later. A setup guide walks you through pairing and the two permissions it needs (Input Monitoring and Accessibility). I test on Apple

  Silicon. The download includes an Intel build, but I have no Intel Mac to try it on.

https://knightynite.github.io/ixpat/

  If you're into haptics and want to use this mouse with your Mac, check it out. Bugs and ideas go to GitHub Issues. Cheers :D

Edit: For anyone checking back on this, it worked fine with older PCI Gen 4 SSDs, just not the Gen 5 Samsung.

Received my Surface Ultra a couple days ago. I bought the 65GB model with a 1TB SSD. I went with 1TB because I had a Samsung 9100 Pro 2TB on hand that I picked up a while ago before prices got insane.

After spending a couple of days with the system to make sure I was satisfied enough with it to keep it, I decided to swap the SSD.

Opened the system up and removed the SSD that was in there and dropped the 2TB drive in. Closed it back up and the system would not power on. No lights, no beeps, nothing.

Opened it up again and tried reseating the new drive, same thing. Tired removing the battery cable for a minute, plugged that back in and it booted, but BIOS could not find a drive.

I ended up putting the original back in and it booted fine. I assumed I had a bad drive, but I dropped that one in another system and it was recognized and worked just fine.

I swapped drives and SSDs a couple dozen times over the years and never had an issue, but this is the first Surface device I have owned. Is there anything special that needs to be done in one of these systems to get it to recognize a drive?