Windows 10 has undoubtedly been a significant improvement over its predecessors, but the latest operating system from Microsoft isn’t without its issues. Over the past several days, a variety of substantial issues have cropped up for Windows users, most of which appear to stem from recently released firmware updates.
The more urgent of the two issues is affecting both the Surface Pro 6 and Surface Book 2, according to TechRepublic. Users of these two devices have been complaining that their CPUs are being throttled down to 400 MHz, which is just a fraction of the speeds the two devices are capable of reaching. Based on the timing and frequency of Reddit posts regarding the issue, this has been affecting Surface users for at least a year.
TechRepublic explains that the throttle-lock is seemingly being caused by “an Intel CPU flag called BD PROCHOT (bi-directional processor hot),” which tells the CPU to throttle down to lower the system temperature. BD PROCHOT can be found on plenty of devices, but as the site notes, the timing of the reports (which have picked up in recent days) seems to indicate that new firmware is to blame for the recent rash of complaints
“We are aware of some customers reporting a scenario with their Surface Books where CPU speeds are slowed,” a Microsoft spokesperson told TechRepublic. “We are quickly working to address via a firmware update.”
While the CPU throttling problem may be limited to Surface users, Windows 10 users have reportedly been having trouble installing the KB4512508 Cumulative Update. According to Bleeping Computer, users running Windows 10 1903 (which is the May 2019 Update) are being bombarded with error codes like 0x800f0982 or 0x800f081f when they attempt to update their PCs. Unsurprisingly, finding out what those error codes mean is a challenge.
Microsoft has yet to issue an official response, but we’ll be keeping an eye out.
