Microsoft has pushed out the first software update for the Surface Laptop Ultra, its Nvidia RTX Spark powered answer to the MacBook Pro, and it targets three specific complaints: screen flicker, long reboot times and unexpected restarts.
The update appears in Windows Update as System Hardware Update 200.0.7.0, packaged with the usual vague line about general performance improvements. Microsoft says firmware support for the machine will run through 2032.
The flicker was reportedly inconsistent rather than constant. Some owners said the screen only misbehaved while idle. Others described a flicker that ran all day and then disappeared for good the next morning, a pattern that points to the display firmware or backlight controller mishandling the handoff between power modes. Notebookcheck's review of the laptop did not catch this flicker, which suggests it was intermittent enough to dodge standard testing even as it frustrated real users.
The reboot and restart issues trace back to the laptop's 20-core N1X chip, built on Nvidia's new RTX Spark architecture. The chip runs at up to 80 watts in short bursts and settles to 60 watts sustained, and that kind of rapid swing between light and heavy loads demands tight power state management. Notebookcheck reports that poorly tuned transitions are a known cause of slow boots and surprise restarts, and some Surface Laptop Ultra owners also noticed the machine running hot even during light workloads, a sign that power management on this new chip may still have rough edges even after this patch.
What the update does not touch is the display itself. Notebookcheck's testing measured a 57 millisecond black-to-white response time, visible ghosting, no local dimming and a 0.61 nit black level, high enough to give dark scenes a grayish cast instead of true black. PWM backlight dimming came in at 4,650 Hz, a frequency high enough that most people won't notice flicker from it, but that is a separate issue from the display bugs this update addresses. None of the panel's core weaknesses can be fixed in firmware, according to the outlet's testing.
On raw performance, the N1X chip's multi-core scores reportedly land in the same range as the Asus ProArt P16, while single-core performance sits roughly a third behind Apple's M5, a gap that tends to show up across Apple's silicon whether it's in an iPhone or a MacBook.
The Surface Laptop Ultra starts at $2,599 on Amazon, pricing it squarely against premium Windows workstations and Apple's own MacBook Pro lineup. For a laptop at that price, a display with no local dimming and visible ghosting is a harder sell than slow boot times ever were, and this update does nothing to change that math.
Microsoft has not said when the next firmware update is due, but with support promised out to 2032, this is likely the first of many smaller patches rather than a one-time fix.
CDFiled by The Computing Desk
Laptops, desktops, processors, graphics cards and the operating systems that run on them.
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