Actually I'm in California. How do these Ultra RTX Spark machines handle an x86 executable? Speed, compatibility, etc.

talking about this thing if you're too young to remember.

the surface form factor transformed mobile computing, then all the OEMs took it on and now it's just internal upgrades for each release with the overall innovation lacking.

I suppose Hub is as close as it gets but looking at that video after all these years, I would still love to see that giant tablet interact with objects placed on it come to life. no doubt it would just face the same fate as the Duo or something as it would need major first and third party development buy-in.

Hi,

I reinstalled my Surface Pro 9 (Intel i7) from a USB stick. Now the Windows setup stops at “Connect to a network” and asks me to install a network adapter driver. The “Next” button stays greyed out.

I downloaded several driver packages from Microsoft and Intel and extracted them with 7-Zip, but none of them seems to contain the right WiFi driver, or I can’t find it. I tried the “Install driver” button, but I don’t know which file or folder to pick.

Which package do I need, and which file do I select? Any workaround is welcome too, for example USB tethering or an Ethernet adapter.

Thanks!

I just vibe coded a PDF Editor app for my Surface Pro. All interactions are optimized for Surface Pro touchscreen & Surface slim pen.

The app now support English & Chinese.

I did not have an arm device, so it is now only for x64 (maybe someone with arm devices can port it with their coding agent).

It now supports:

• Annotation with Pen & Extra Chart (Excalidraw Sketch / Markdown Text / Review Note)
• Several AI features, e.g., OCR, Speech2Text, Writing2Formula, AI Translate, GPT Helper... (may require extra environment and model weights)
• Day & Night Mode (which also transforms the PDF content)
• Draft Mode (introduces a large sheet for you to write)
• Searching & Indexing
• Zotero Connector (allows you to directly open PDF from your Zotero bank)
• Pen Pressure & Haptics
• Sequential Reviewing Mode (allows you to sequentially annotate every PDFs inside a folder and port them out in a batch operation)

Note: The APP and some features are now experimental (e.g. the PDF Elements Editing), try them cautiously and make a copy of your original PDF Documents

You can try it here (download latest release):
https://github.com/Pscgylotti/TixTab/releases/

Let me know if your guys have any problems or feature suggestions with this app :)

I’ve been using Surface devices since 2014 and this is the first defective unit I’ve had. Not bad, I guess. A little disappointing though.

Hi all, been lurking here a minute. Commenting when I can.

Asking for help.

I've been using Debian for like 5 years for CNC and 3d printing motion controllers. On Pis, desktops, etc. Love it. Know enough commands to get most things done in terminal.

Switched to mint for home PC after some light distro hopping. I like that it's reliable, my dual gpus went in easy, and it works every day so I can power thru time sensitive tasks.

I like that Debian and mint use the same packages and commands.

Currently:

I have ubuntu 24.04 and surface kernel 1 on a surface pro 7. This was after much screwing around with distros and kernel switching to get most things working. It's just meh. I tried the latest and greatest and kept having to take a step back for it to work ok.

Y'all have been super informative in various comments suggesting other distros, but I'm so far behind on surface pro 7 research. Touchscreens. Etc.

I don't care about the camera function.

Anyone having luck? I just saw fedora 44 has a surface kernal so thinking about trying that.

I don't need fancy and newest, I want the tablet to be reliable and basic. To browse, stream, and the most basic Excel and simple utilities.

Any suggestions and reasons why? This touch screen thing is different from what I'm used to. I'm not a guru by any means. Solo researching isn't as easy on this topic for me.

Any help for a new guy on this hardware?

Hi everyone,

I'm having a strange touchscreen issue with my Surface Pro 8, and I'm wondering if anyone has experienced something similar or knows how to fix it.

I started charging my Surface Pro 8 through its USB-C port using a 67W USB-C charger. After four months of using USB-C charging, I noticed that touchscreen input started malfunctioning in a specific area near the right side of both USB ports.

The affected area extends approximately 4 cm from the ports, and touch input and gestures are no longer being registered correctly there.

Any advice on how to fix this or insights from anyone who has experienced a similar issue would be greatly appreciated!

Hi all,

A few months ago, I posted about my infinite canvas app called NeatNotes, and I can't express how much the love and support I got from here meant to me. As of today, NeatNotes has crossed more than 6,000 downloads, thanks to all of your support.

Today, I am back with another update. The new version comes with a lot of big fixes. Here's what's new in v2.5:

• Key Bindings: One of the most requested features was the ability to bind tools to keys on the keyboard for easier use.
• Export to Image: The second most requested feature was the ability to export the canvas in high resolution, along with improved PDF export.
• Hand Tool: A dedicated tool to easily traverse through the infinite canvas.

There are additional new features that I haven't included here, along with general improvements and bug fixes. More details is available on the website.

I hope you guys try out the app and give me your feedback. Looking forward to hearing from everyone!

Download NeatNotes from MS Store: Click Here
Website: https://stamelabs.com/neatnotes
Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/c8vqb8RkA

I have a Surface Pro 6 running an i5-8350U CPU and 8GB RAM on Windows 11. Even on "Best Performance" within "Power & Battery" and power plugged in; I get massive slow downs with Bluetooth audio. These slow downs are really annoying, especially as Spotify audio skips a lot.

I know people state it makes not difference, but I changed the "advanced power settings" "Processor power management" "Minimum processor state" to an arbitrary 35% from the default. This has eliminated these slow downs completely. It doesn't appear to be affecting heat output.

Is there anything I should be concerned with doing this? Is there a better value for minimum processor state?

Sorry for the poor quality image but I think my sb2 is absolutely cooked so if can provide any advice I would appreciate it

I recently got this book for around 250 dollars refurbished and I was happy with it for 3 months

Then I thought of installing linux on it...but I didn't do it yet thinking of the driver issues

My sister unfortunately while cleaning the display with a display cleaner poured a little too much and it seemed to have leaked into the charging port

The very next day when I tried to open it it got past the login screen and died.

After that I tried turning it on again today and the same thing happened

It seems to be water damage from the pictures so if anyone knows any way to fix this or if it's atleast salvageable I would appreciate it

Note:even if it doesn't seem like it in the picture the tablet part's connector is also burnt too

It was introduced with Surface Pro X in 2019, that is 7 years with the same design and wanky feeling. Do you think Microsoft will finally redesign it?

I'm trying to disable the touchscreen on a Microsoft Surface Laptop (Model 2156) for a user who keeps accidentally touching the screen while working, causing windows to close and resulting in lost work.

I'm assisting the user remotely through Microsoft Quick Assist.

Here's what I've tried so far:

• Opened Device Manager and checked Human Interface Devices.
• Couldn't find HID-compliant touch screen listed.
• Enabled Show hidden devices, but still couldn't locate the touchscreen.
• Checked device properties, but the Disable Device option was grayed out.
• The user has standard permissions, but I have access to an administrator account.

Has anyone encountered this issue on a Surface Laptop, particularly model 2156?

Is there another device name I should be looking for, or a way to disable the touchscreen remotely using PowerShell, Device Manager, or another method?

Ideally, I'd like to disable only the touchscreen without affecting the touchpad, keyboard, or other functionality.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

I tried putting in a 4tb 990 Pro I have, but it didn't recognize it.

Any ideas what could be going on?

I bought my current keyboard six months ago and all of a sudden the pen just does not charge in it. It's currently dead so I can't even reset it. Just wanna know if theres a way to fix it so I don't gotta go to a microsoft store or whatever to get it swapped out.

Few days old surface pro 13 with x2 elite started doing this flickering out of nowhere and stops when touching the display, anyone had something similar? Still under return period.

I was a big fan of the SurfaceBook but I'm at the point where I'm moving on given there have been no new models. I was curious if there was any market for used units? I have two that aren't getting much love anymore but I'm not sure if they're worth re-selling versus eWasting or donating to a refurb for kids type program. Thoughts?

What I have:

Surface Book 2 15" / i7q / 16GB / 512GB / NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB GPU GDDR5 w/ Surface Pen & Surface Power Adapter

Surface Book 3 - 15 inch, Intel core i7, 32GB, 2TB, NVIDIA GeForce 1660 Ti 6GB GDDR6 w/ Surface Pen & Surface Power Adapter

No matter what I do... I can't make these color swatches go away. Is the GPU/monitore fried?
I tried everything mentioned in https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/troubleshooting-options-for-a-screen-with-discoloration-brightness-or-dimming-problems incl. reinstalling the GPU and display drivers.

(Microsoft Surface Pro 11 Copilot+ PC for Business - 11th Edition - 33 cm (13") - Core Ultra 5 "236V" - 16 GB RAM - 256 GB SSD)

I've been using the SLU for the weekend and now a full work day and wanted to give a few quick observations.

My use case:

Lots of TEAMS use, 10-20 EDGE browser windows open, Copilot (app), Gemini (app), and Claude (app) all installed and used regularly, O365 all installed with heavy use of PowerPoint, Excel, Spotify, Phone Link.

Less often:

Offline LLM. I'm exploring this more. I was trying to do this on my SL7 with near zero success. This is completely next level.

Rarely:

Light video and audio editing.

1. Keyboard/Touchpad are excellent. This feels better tahn any laptop I've used since my ThinkPad X1 days. I have wrist issues so the keyboard makes a huge difference.
2. Screen is good but not class leading. My wife's OLED Laptop looks sharper overall but the screen is ESPECIALLY good for word/excel documents assuming you are using a white background. I have the consumer version which is reflective with a black background.
3. Speakers are also excellent. Best I've used by good margin. Loud with good balance .
4. Performance - for office/business tasks this is very good. I found that my Surface Laptop 7 with 16GB was NOT as fast as even though I'm mostly using CPU based work. The extra RAM here is what helps the most (I have the 48GB version)
5. Weight/Size - I love the screen size but have never used a laptop this large. I have a lot of travel so I'll need to make a decision on this.
6. Webcam/mics - Good. Similar to the SL7 which just beat out the MacBook pro/air for quality. Mics are industry leading. Much better on my recordings than others in the room.

EDIT: The webcam is causing me issues. After using it for another full day I get super low quality video on TEAMS and with the MS camera. It is sort of out of focus and grainy. Like I've got a "water color" feature on. Anyway, I'm seeing that this is reported by a few other as well.

1. Battery- I found this to be surprisingly good. I charted this out... this is (unless noted) with the screen on the entire time I was working.

Estimates

• Full charge, mixed day: about 9–10 hours of actual use, using your 10.4%/hr average over the 6.25 hours you were using it. Averaged over the whole 7.5-hour window including lunch, I lost about 8.7%/hr. That gives roughly 11.5 hours of wall-clock time.
• Light office work: about 11–12 hours.
• Teams-heavy day: about 7 hours.
• From 35% at 5 pm: about 3.9 hours at 9%/hr (empty near 8:50 pm), or about 2.3 hours if you’re on calls (empty near 7:20 pm). Windows will sleep or warn before 0%, so plan on usable time ending around 7:30–8:30 pm.

Let me know if there are any other questions.

NVIDIA RTX Spark Laptop Found on Roadside Gets Reviewed Before Official Launch | TechPowerUp

A few months ago, a user named Fouqin posted about a pre-release engineering sample of the Surface Laptop Ultra on the TechPowerUp forums. The important point is that local dimming was clearly present on the Surface Laptop Ultra at that time, even though it worked rather crudely. Therefore, I think the issue reported in Notebookcheck’s review—that local dimming does not work—is probably due to a firmware problem and may be fixed in a future update.

My barely one-year old Surface Laptop (bought Oct 2025) has these marks on the palm rest; I'm not sure what they are and how to get rid of them. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

*nt settings without data loss? I found a beat up but functioning Surface 3 on campus 8 years ago and was able to bypass the installed user account and password with a thumb drive but I'll be damned if I can find it on my pc. And online searching is turning up nothing that I recall. It worked really well and allowed me to use the Surface without any data loss. Thanks for your help with this. I rescued six first model Surface Pros and five of them work, but all have locked accounts.

Hi everyone, my son bought a Lenovo slim pen for his Lenovo tablet and it works great on there but he wants to use it on his surface pro 1983 tablet /laptop but can't get it working. The pen says it supports MPP2.0 but he can't figure it out. Anyone got it working before or even know if it's compatible? Thanks.

My 2015 MacBook pro kicked the bucket so my uncle gifted me his first Edition service 13 laptop he got last year because he's upgrading to the second edition. His version has 16gb RAM and 512 gigs storage.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/configure/surface-laptop-13-inch/8mzbmmcjzqv3

I have an Apple Cinema display 27 in with DisplayPort NOT Thunderbolt display 27-in with Thunderbolt port.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/112620

Do you think it will be possible to use a Apple Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2 adapter considering the Thunderbolt 2 end looks like a DisplayPort And the Thunderbolt 3 end looks like a USBC?

I'm not tech savvy and don't want to get rid of a perfectly functioning display if I can continue to use it. Thank you

https://www.apple.com/shop/product/myh93am/a/thunderbolt-3-usb‑c-to-thunderbolt-2-adapter