Check Your Task Manager
First of all, check your Task Manager. There are many ways to access it, here are a few ways to do it:
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Type in taskmgr in the Start search box, or
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Hold down the Windows key and then press X, or
- Right-click on the taskbar at the bottom of your screen and select Task Manager
Click on the Performance tab and check on the Speed of your CPU. A normal, idle CPU when you aren't actively running any programs should hover around 1.0 to 2.0 GHz like what's shown above. Its value should also fluctuate constantly, i.e. it should be jumping around from 1.05 GHz to 1.34 GHz, then back to 1.10 GHz, up to 2.15 GHz, and so on.
When the lag happened, my CPU speed was stuck at 0.19 GHz and there was no fluctuation. So what did I do next?
Force a Shutdown and Restart the Device
Admittedly, I ended up resetting my whole device, effectively removing all my data. It was not that big of a deal because most of my personal files on my Surface Pro were already backed up in the cloud. But don't do this, because it did not fix the problem!
When I reinstalled Windows after the reset, it took hours, supposedly because it was still running on a CPU that was somehow stuck at a low speed.
Suddenly I realized that I've been leaving the device on top of my thick bed duvet, which trapped heat. So I sat the device on the cold hard floor in my apartment and the reinstallation went whoosh—it was completed not long after.
But even after that, I had the same problem. It was still laggy.
After fumbling around with the device, it turns out the fix was simple:
While the device was on, I simply pressed and held down the power button for about 20 seconds, which forced it to shut down and restart.
Voilà. Problem solved.
My Surface Pro was back up and running at its usual speed, the CPU speed in Task Manager was shown to be fluctuating and I can't believe how simple the solution actually was.
I hope this helps!
Your Turn
Got another tip? Leave it in the comment section below.
18 Comments
Comments posted before March 28th, 2023 can no longer be replied to, but you can start NEW conversations in the comment box below!
On February 9th, 2023, Tom wrote:
I've been trying to fix my Surface 7 Pro for the last week, resetting it, trying different drivers, blocking processes, nothing worked... ...holding down the power button for 20 secs worked instantly. Thank you so much, A Rather Shocked and Annoyed Reader
On November 10th, 2022, Hero wrote:
Thank you for this post!
On April 21st, 2021, Anonymous wrote:
This is insane. My company purchased the tip of the line model, and turn it on to the surprise of a 486VGA speed of even unzipping a file. Installing. Syncing. Can’t. Even. Check. Anything. To. Trouble. Shoot.
Currently trying windows memory diagnostic and then will try this hard reset.
On February 9th, 2021, Anonymous wrote:
This is insane! It actually worked.
On February 8th, 2021, Anonymous wrote:
This fixed my issue on my surface book. Amazing how many official microsoft threads there are on this and microsoft support does not even suggest this. How hopeless outsourced support is.
On January 31st, 2021, Shivansh Duvedi wrote:
Thanks, man - It worked. I had the exact same issue
On January 3rd, 2021, Miguel Guerreiro wrote:
This solved my problem!!! My surface pro 5 was stuck on 0.38 and 0.40, after restart 20 secs holding down te button, problem solved. Thx!
On December 21st, 2020, Colin Winberg wrote:
Hi All
I did try these suggestions and they didnt improve it much on my Surface 6. It was still around 0.39GHz.
I did notice that my ram usage was quite high considering that I only had Chrome open, so I looked around and went in to the Startup folder on TaskManager and saw that quite a few Apps/programs were rated as high. Many of them I wasn't even using. So I went in and disabled the startup of many that I didnt need and rebooted and my speed fluctuated from 0.39GHz to 1.18 - 1.60 Ghz.
An amazing improvement
On November 17th, 2020, K.t. Htut wrote:
Hi All,
I have Surface Pro 5 CPU is stuck on 0.38 GHz and even holding down the power button for over 20 seconds has not made a difference. It stays at 0.38 GHz and does not change. I have done fresh reinstall the windows, but the issue is not resolved.
Could you please advice me if you have any recommendation to resolve this issue?
Regards,
On November 21st, 2020, Matt replied:
On December 21st, 2020, Colin Winberg replied:
On October 28th, 2020, xyz 25 wrote:
Mine was also stuck at 0.19 GHz and this manual restart fixed it, now it's back to ~1,2GHz.
Thank you so much!
On August 8th, 2020, Nettra wrote:
This is absolutely insane. Mine was stuck at 19 GHz as well--- and has been the case for a week!
On August 6th, 2020, Chris wrote:
My Surface Pro 5 CPU is stuck on 0.38 GHz and even holding down the power button for over 20 seconds has not made a difference. It stays at 0.38 GHz and does not change. What else can I do? I am ready to buy a new one which I do not want to do and hope that your tip would have saved me, it did not.
On November 17th, 2020, K.t. Htut replied:
On November 21st, 2020, Matt replied:
On July 11th, 2020, Jesse wrote:
just ran into the same thing on my 1 day old surface book 3... I tried restarting it and nothing.... was a few clicks away from restoring it when I found your article... mine was stuck at 0.19 as well... I had used it inside a hot vehicle for a bit to run some tuning software so it must have gotten too warm...
On May 26th, 2020, Dylan Maree wrote:
This solved the issue for me as well (after trying and googling for a day). Thanks a lot for sharing this! :)