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Surface Pro 2 1.9 CPU Lot Numbers

Jasmine

Member
And that was?? Sorry if I did not catch while reading the previous posts.

Over heating issues, terrible battery life (I don't think I've ever gotten over 3 hours), along with fan issues (the fan runs loudly). :(
 
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olimjj

Active Member
Over heating issues, terrible battery life (I don't think I've ever gotten over 3 hours), along with fan issues (the fan runs loudly). :(

I have thankfully,to date, not encountered these issues to the degree you have described; this while using the my SP2 unit in a wide variety of ways, each of which has put a different and significant stress on it.
I am also aware that we all differ, to various extents, in our specific usages of the unit. Mainly, are you able to narrow what sort of specific uses brought about these issues with your SP2? Your complaints seem logical in sequence. Stress-----> Heat------> Fan issues--------> lower battery life.
 

Moodi

New Member
I got the old 4200 U 256GB model back in December ,i live outside the USA so returning my SP2 to USA will be a very expensive option considering the value earned.
SO MANY members here and on other forums ,reported little to NO DIFFERENCE in performance ,having a higher CPU clock speed (at 100% CPU utilization) is NOT something conceivable ,when using "balanced" or "power saver" power plans BOTH CPUs are FORCED to run at lower speeds(less than 1 Ghz) , i do play games on my 4200 U and i feel they RUN very smooth ,no lags whatsoever

I am not having any batter life issues and i have no desktop animation issues either ,people who solved those problems after returning their devices got those issues resolved because of software related updates ,this has nothing to do with the CPU.

I am happy with my 4200U pro 2 ,technology evolves every day ,what are u going to do when sp3 is released?!

if you are playing games 24h/7 on your sp2 ,why didnt you buy a PS4 that runs DDR5 with a dedicated GPU? SP2 is NOT designed to be an advanced gaming device.

what if MS decides to change the CPU in a month? are you going to replace it?
 

olimjj

Active Member
My intent in asking for a specific usage was not to confirm any preconceived relationship; but rather whether it would suggest a software induced cause , a hardware malfunction or an inherent defect. This stress event would then be the root, and the other symptoms would then manifest themselves as a consequence, much like a Domino effect
 

Philtastic

Active Member
I got the old 4200 U 256GB model back in December ,i live outside the USA so returning my SP2 to USA will be a very expensive option considering the value earned.
SO MANY members here and on other forums ,reported little to NO DIFFERENCE in performance ,having a higher CPU clock speed (at 100% CPU utilization) is NOT something conceivable ,when using "balanced" or "power saver" power plans BOTH CPUs are FORCED to run at lower speeds(less than 1 Ghz) , i do play games on my 4200 U and i feel they RUN very smooth ,no lags whatsoever

I am not having any batter life issues and i have no desktop animation issues either ,people who solved those problems after returning their devices got those issues resolved because of software related updates ,this has nothing to do with the CPU.

I am happy with my 4200U pro 2 ,technology evolves every day ,what are u going to do when sp3 is released?!

if you are playing games 24h/7 on your sp2 ,why didnt you buy a PS4 that runs DDR5 with a dedicated GPU? SP2 is NOT designed to be an advanced gaming device.

what if MS decides to change the CPU in a month? are you going to replace it?

Your sources are bullshit, then, specifically the claim that they throttle to under 1 GHz. Even my SP2 only throttles to 2.5 GHz under 100% CPU load and 2.0 GHz with 100% CPU+GPU due to the 80 degrees ceiling. The guy at the top post of the following link has both a 4200U and 4300U SP2 and benchmarked software on both, finding that the 4300U was 10-25% faster. This is probably because most applications don't ever use 100% load constantly such that you don't have max heat generation which allows the clockspeed to stay higher on the 4300U. In fact, in the 3rd post of the following link (note that I have the 2nd post :p), they see that the 4200U stays at 2.3 GHz while the 4300U settles in at 2.6 GHz:
Surface Pro 2.5 i5 4300U 1.9 Ghz 2.5 Ghz - Microsoft Community

Also, people play games on their SP2 possibly because they can and can do so on the go in a convenient form factor that has its own screen. Lugging a PS4 and TV around on a long bus or train ride isn't my idea of a fun time. The Intel HD 4400 is a respectable integrated graphics solution that can play most modern games at playable framerates at low to medium settings, mostly at 720p but some at 1080p.
 

jrapdx

Member
Your sources are bullshit, then, specifically the claim that they throttle to under 1 GHz. Even my SP2 only throttles to 2.5 GHz under 100% CPU load and 2.0 GHz with 100% CPU+GPU due to the 80 degrees ceiling. The guy at the top post of the following link has both a 4200U and 4300U SP2 and benchmarked software on both, finding that the 4300U was 10-25% faster. This is probably because most applications don't ever use 100% load constantly such that you don't have max heat generation which allows the clockspeed to stay higher on the 4300U. In fact, in the 3rd post of the following link (note that I have the 2nd post :p), they see that the 4200U stays at 2.3 GHz while the 4300U settles in at 2.6 GHz:
Surface Pro 2.5 i5 4300U 1.9 Ghz 2.5 Ghz - Microsoft Community

Also, people play games on their SP2 possibly because they can and can do so on the go in a convenient form factor that has its own screen. Lugging a PS4 and TV around on a long bus or train ride isn't my idea of a fun time. The Intel HD 4400 is a respectable integrated graphics solution that can play most modern games at playable framerates at low to medium settings, mostly at 720p but some at 1080p.

Of course, mileage does vary. I started out with an SP2 with the 4200u, but replaced with a 4300u because the first unit was creamed by the Dec10FW event. With both machines, the CPU speed has varied quite a bit, depending on conditions, per report of Task Mgr.

The 4300u has clocked in at 0.75 GHz on battery and Power Saver plan chosen, so it does "settle" to low clock speed to save power. The highest speed has been around 2.7 GHz for the 4300u, while the 4200u never exceeded 2.5 GHz. When I've activated Hyper-V, both SP2's sat at 2.49 GHz constantly, but curiously this hasn't had a noticeable effect on battery life.

What I'm learning is that the SP2 is hard to pin down, user experience has varied tremendously, and unpredictably. With any luck I'll work out how it can useful for my purposes, and hope we don't encounter further firmware disasters, only improvements.
 

CrippsCorner

Well-Known Member
Over heating issues, terrible battery life (I don't think I've ever gotten over 3 hours), along with fan issues (the fan runs loudly). :(

3 hours!? Wow... that's bad. Almost half of what I'm getting on my Surface Pro. Are you going to return it again?
 

macmee

Active Member
Of course, mileage does vary. I started out with an SP2 with the 4200u, but replaced with a 4300u because the first unit was creamed by the Dec10FW event. With both machines, the CPU speed has varied quite a bit, depending on conditions, per report of Task Mgr.

The 4300u has clocked in at 0.75 GHz on battery and Power Saver plan chosen, so it does "settle" to low clock speed to save power. The highest speed has been around 2.7 GHz for the 4300u, while the 4200u never exceeded 2.5 GHz. When I've activated Hyper-V, both SP2's sat at 2.49 GHz constantly, but curiously this hasn't had a noticeable effect on battery life.

What I'm learning is that the SP2 is hard to pin down, user experience has varied tremendously, and unpredictably. With any luck I'll work out how it can useful for my purposes, and hope we don't encounter further firmware disasters, only improvements.

These are my experiences exactly. When I turn on my device I'm not sure if it's going to work flawlessly or turn into a wrecking ball. I have an ongoing advanced exchange (been waiting 9 days for it to ship) and I'm hoping my new surface works with my Touch Cover (also the dec update caused overheating and I think this may have hurt my device).

With regards to future firmware, I was so excited for the December firmware and it ended up being a disaster. My new strategy is that if it's not broken, I'm not updating it.
 
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