Forum Discussion
Video calls and screen share make Teams and Windows 10 unusable
I represent an enterprise organisation that uses Surface Pro hardware and the full 365 suite across 22 employees in the UK.
We have been using Teams for almost 3 years now, but in the last month the performance has degraded and is making the system unusable. We, as many organisation rely on Teams video calls and screen share for collaboration (more so now, then ever before). However when the video is enabled on a call, the performance of the Surface Pro's drops. There is huge lag and stuttering on the machine, meaning you cannot multi-task and the video quality begins to degrade as well.
We have a variety of surface pro's in use, ranging from the Surface Pro 5th generation, through to the very latest Surface Pro 7th generation. All machines have the latest Windows 10 build and Teams versions.
I have been checking system performance on a few calls, and I cannot work it out. The CPU performance is quite low, likewise the GPU isn't operating at maximum either.
This requires an urgent fix.
51 Replies
Here we are in 2022 with same issues.... Maybe Windows 11 is the answer? 24Plimlico
I don't thinf so. My surface Intel Processor doesn't support Windows 11 nickh1975
24Plimlico I have the same issue too and someone else has mentioned this too but it is a heat issue with the fanless Surface Pro's.
If you use Teams on a voice call the issue does not occur. Start a video chat and after a couple of minutes the performance degrades. If you feel the top left corner on the rear of the Surface Pro it will be incredibly hot to the touch. Only fix I have found is to position a small desk fan behind the Surface Pro and blow cool air on it. 100% of the time video calling is stable. Weirdly this seems to only be a Teams issue. Tested video calling using the Zoom client which seems to be much less resource hungry and doesn't heat the device as much retaining performance.
- Yes. Seems Microsoft want to continue overloading the pc with these videocalls. I run a hp laptop with same problem and solution: cooling pad and make sure to not do anything else on the laptop than the conference itself during the conference (as its too slow). Or of course run zoom which runs nicely.
Has anyone found a solution yet? I have a range of Microsoft Corporation Surface Pro 7+'s having similar issues.
I wonder, if the surface built-in camera produces a big part of the lag.
I found it much better to attach an external camera (Microsoft Lifecam Studio).
The lag in video delay is much less than the built in camera (built in, up to 5 sec, external less than 0.5 sec). And other applications could be used, while Teams is in action (video send an receive + screen send).Surface Book 2 13.5" , i7 + NVIDIA, 16G Ram
Surface Dock + two additional displays (1920x1200)
Windows 2004 (19041.685) + Teams 1.3.00.30866- Same here on hp laptop, but only when connected to my external screen.
Seems like this article which is bit fixed.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/troubleshoot/known-issues/teams-slow-video-meetings-laptops-4kJostein555 THANK YOU! I was using a digipower usb-c dongle on my Dell i7 workstation and experiencing all these issues and removing it resolved them.
Additionally, Microsoft-made Surface branded usb-c to hdmi adapter does not seem to have the same problems.
I'm using a Surface Book 2 (Core i7 with 16GB of Ram), and I'm seeing similar behavior when I make video calls with anyone. Even a single person with incoming video makes everything almost unusable. It can take up to 30 seconds to load a webpage, 20 seconds to bounce between tabs in Teams, and just generally extreme lags in anything I do.
I'm using the 2004 build of Windows 10, the July 24th build of Teams, and my Surface Book 2 has discrete graphics. I've tried disabling the hardware acceleration in Teams, but that has made little to no impact so far. I've also tried rebuilding the computer, using it without the dock, updating all drivers, but I keep seeing the same behavior. This really makes me not want to use Teams anymore.
Riley Hale that is exactly my experience, too.
I have opened a support case with Microsoft for this. Hope I will get some information and solutions. Will keep you updated if so.
Rgds
Aleksander
Aleksander_Weber great, I've never been able to do that, so hopefully some progress.
Interestingly, today my surface pro 7, has been performing ok whilst on Teams calls with multiple videos on. Really strange. I haven't changed any settings at all
We have the same problem over here. In my opinion it seems so, as if the problem started with the rise of the count of participiants shown in a video call. But I'm not 100% sure if it really started than.
I really hope Microsoft gets the issue fixed asap, because I don't want to loose users because of this issue.
By the way, I've also seen this issue only with Surface Pro and Surface Book devices.
- Emily Kirby
Microsoft
Hi 24Plimlico, Dortega-TRD Mitchell Bakker and all:
We are aware of the issues here. We have fixes that will roll as part of the desktop build version 19173. Rollout has started for this build.
Thanks,
Emily
Emily Kirby I meanwhile have version 1.3.00.34662 so well beyond the build you're referring to, yet the issue is still very much present today on my surface 7. any further pointers towards a solution for this?
I'm on Teams 1.3.00.34662 (64-bit); Surface Pro 4 i7.
Every time I'm in a video-call it's impossible to browse the web.
Almost all of my colleagues who were also using Surfaces, decided to buy a new Lenovo laptop and get rid of the Surface.
Purely due to this Teams issue. Which I find rather ridiculous and a big lost opportunity for Microsoft. Those colleagues will not buy Surface again. And we now have a clear company advice against usage of Surfaces due to the Teams issues.
Emily Kirby How long will this take? I and my colleagues are all on the below. It is poor customer service that Microsoft have not formally acknowledged this issue. We are also aware that Microsoft's own employees do not use or recommend Surface products because of this issue. Your own employees tend to use Lenovo or other devices, because the Surface family is so poor.
Emily KirbyAs posted in my previous post, I'm running version 19565 already and performance is a little better, but this is more because I'm using a different laptop (that has more memory/CPU). But just saw that Teams client is still hoarding mem/cpu.
24Plimlico, we are using Lenovo laptops and Microsoft Surface Pros in our company.
The Lenovo users don't have these problems, but the Surface users do.
I have the same issue: when in a video conference, it's nearly impossible to show something on a website (very slow waiting times)This issue was recently reported in our Uservoice feedback forum. It would be great if you voted for it because the more votes something gets, the greater the priority Microsoft tries to give it (you can imagine the number of requests we get for features and fixes and we do our best to focus our resources where the customer need is greatest). https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/908686-bug-reports/suggestions/40736056-microsoft-surface-pro-teams-kills-processor-spee
I will also reach out to our internal Teams engineering team and see if I can get a more immediate solution for you. I will post back here once I do. EDITED 7/23/2020: Please see the post by Emily Kirby on 7/23/2020 for the Microsoft program manager response.
ThereseSolimeno there are only 12 votes on the user voice thing. yet 800+ views of my post here. Microsoft need to look in to this, its getting ridiculous.
Hi
Have you been able to find a solution to this?
I have the very same problem but only with Surface pro's our Dell pcs work fine. Its so frustrating
Regards
Mark
MarkHodgkissNope, nothing, I don't even know who to speak to at Microsoft about this. We even made light of it on our pitch via Teams to Microsoft for some work and even they said yes its been playing up recently...
Hi all,
What you describe seems similar to what I'm experiencing in terms of performance. See my thread: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-teams/video-call-vs-intel-speedstep/td-p/1488514
When some of you are saying that CPU usage is low, have you checked what the actual clockspeed of the CPU was at that moment?
24Plimlico I totally agree. We use surface Pro from 4 to 6 gen and its very slow hen video is enabled and screen sharing is enabled
We have the same problem , we have an estate of Dell Desktops and Laptops all fully patched etc and all work ok with teams . We have high end users running surface pros 5 - 7's all now are saying that in the last month teams video calls cause the surface pro to grind to a halt.
Surely Microsoft must know about this
- you would hope so, but its ridiculous, their own hardware is failing.
Renaudseries glad we are not the only ones.
I noticed that one of my colleagues is using windows build 1903, whilst the others are on 1909. What windows version are your team on?- 1909
