Microsoft recently announced the new New Surface lineup, which includes Surface Laptop 3, Surface Pro 7, Surface Pro X and more. Sadly those devices, Surface Pro 7 and Surface Lap 3, housing Intel AX201 driver has been hit by a bug. When these devices wakeup from sleep, none connect to the WiFi network or if they do, WiFi is slow. One Reddit user reported that he is getting 12% of the original speed.
Surface lineup reportedly facing Sound & WiFi problems
The Antenna Sleeping is causing the WiFi Problem
The root cause behind this problem is the Intel AX201 driver from Microsoft. The current version is 21.40.1.3. Intel AX201 is the new Wifi 6 adapter from Intel. Luckily there is a workaround for that which has been posted on Reddit as well.
- Go to the hardware manager > Network adapter -> Intel AX201 -> Advanced -> MIMO power save mode
- Change “Auto SMPS” to “No SMPS.” While this resulted in the bug occurring less frequently, only changing the setting to “Static SMPS” (-> disabling MIMO) eliminated the problem entirely for me.
- (Optional) Go to the Windows Settings App -> System -> Power & Sleep -> When my PC is asleep and on battery power, disconnect from the network -> Change “Never” to “Always.”
The reason for the problem is even more interesting. Intel AX201 comes with double the number of antennas compared to standard wifi adapter. You will get double speed if the router supports it. When the computer goes into standby, one of the antennas is disabled, while the other runs on a lowe power state.
However, when the Surface laptop wakes up, the antennas dont get into the active stat; they remain as if they are still on standby hence resulting in a lot slower speed or sometimes disconnection.
How is the speed affected before and after sleep?
Here the two images posted on Reddit, which explains how terrible the situation is for now.
Internet Speed before sleep
Internet Speed after wakeup
How does the workaround help?
When you change to No SMPS, it doesn’t let the wifi adapter get into standby mode. So they stay connected and might consume more battery but will make sure the bug doesn’t hit.
That’s where you can use the second option. You can choose to turn off or disable the wifi, so the battery doesn’t get hammered.
If you are having a problem with your new Surface device, reinstalling or getting a new Surface won’t help. One guy did that, but the problem occurred on both of them.
Surface Lineup Faint Buzzing Sound
Apart from the WiFi issue, some users are reporting about Faint Buzzing Sound on their Surface 3. The recent Microsoft Answers post has multiple users informing about the subject.
I noticed a fairly faint buzzing sound coming from under the keyboard. It was faint enough you couldn’t hear it from a couple of metres away, and sometimes buzzed continuously, other times buzzed in short repetitive bursts.
The problem occurs both when plugged in and unplugged. So it seems to another hardware issue which doesn’t have any workaround for now.
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