Throttle-gate comes to the Microsoft Surface

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Way back in June 2018 we reported that Apple’s new Core i9 Macbook Pros were not offering their promised performance due to thermal throttling.

Today it is Microsoft’s chance to join the throttle-gate club, with Microsoft’s Surface Pro 6 and Surface Book 2 reportedly dropping to 400 MHz clock rates (from 1.6 GHz)  following a seemingly botched firmware update.

The issue appears to be due to an erroneously set CPU flag called BD PROCHOT (bi-directional processor hot), which tells the processor to throttle down due to high system temperatures.

Microsoft has acknowledged the issue, and promised a solution, saying:

“We are aware of some customers reporting a scenario with their Surface Books where CPU speeds are slowed. We are quickly working to address via a firmware update.”

Have any of our Surface-totting readers been affected? Let us know in the comments below.

Via Techrepublic