Surface Laptop 5 (i7-1255U) randomly becomes extremely slow - CPU stuck at 200–300 MHz, no overheating

There are multiple reports from users with Surface Laptop 5 experiencing identical 0.3 GHz behaviour.

When an Intel CPU drops to 200–300 MHz with normal temperatures, the cause is almost always non-thermal throttling.

Try a different charger — preferably another official Microsoft Surface 65W/127W adapter

Control Panel → Power Options → Change plan settings → Advanced power settings → Processor power management → Minimum processor state: set to 20% (instead of 5%)→Maximum processor state: 100%

Open Device Manager → System Devices → Intel Dynamic Tuning

Update driver through Windows Update

Check BD PROCHOT / Power Limit using HWiNFO

Reset UEFI to defaults (Volume Up + Power → Reset)

If it still continues then it may be a battery or, motherboard issue.

Hello,
Thank you for the suggestions!

Trying a different charger This is definitely not the cause. I use original high-power Microsoft Surface adapters both at home and at work. The issue appears periodically in both places.

Control Panel → Power Options → Processor power management Unfortunately, I don’t have this section at all. Under the Balanced plan I only see: Hard disk, Desktop background settings, Sleep, PCI Express, Display, and Battery. There is no “Processor power management” entry available.

1. “It may be a battery or motherboard issue” I don’t agree. I have no symptoms of hardware malfunction. In my opinion this behavior is caused by Microsoft’s drivers. After uninstalling Intel Connectivity Performance Suite / Intel Performance package, the problem seems to have disappeared. At least for now -I will continue monitoring.

However, I am honestly very disappointed with Microsoft’s quality. When I buy a Surface device, I expect reliability - not random CPU throttling down to 0.3 GHz caused by software issues.