topic Re: Sky go Windows app causes tablet to overheat and slow down. in Archive

Sky go Windows app causes tablet to overheat and slow down.

memyselfandaye — Sun, 13 Oct 2019 15:24:00 GMT

Evertime I use the Sky go app my Windows surface go tablet gets very hot and after a while it causes it to slow down due to the overheating. This only happens when I stream sky go. Netflix, Amazon, BT Sport apps all work perfectly. I have saw a few posts online about MACs being affected by this, so I waited until the new update was pushed out to see if it would have been fixed, but I am still having the same problems.

It has got to the stage where I can not watch a full football match on it as after about 10 mins when my device gets really hot, it starts to freeze and buffer.

Re: Sky go Windows app causes tablet to overheat and slow down.

jamesn123 — Mon, 14 Oct 2019 09:35:05 GMT

Hi @memyselfandaye

What are the specs of your tablet? Does it meet the minimum requirements detailed here

Re: Sky go Windows app causes tablet to overheat and slow down.

memyselfandaye — Mon, 14 Oct 2019 13:09:06 GMT

CPU Intel pentium 4415Y 1.6 ghz

8GB Ram

There are no other streaming services that have any issues streaming on this device exept Sky Go.

BT Sport works

Amazon Prime Video works

Netflix works

Shudder works.

I got this device about a year ago, and didn't have any issues to begin with, so something has clearly changed in the past few months to make the sky go app more resource intensive. I even just re-imaged the device to see if that would help, but it didn't.

Re: Sky go Windows app causes tablet to overheat and slow down.

jamesn123 — Mon, 14 Oct 2019 13:34:21 GMT

Hi @memyselfandaye

The CPU in your tablet is not powerful enough to run the Sky Go app, see this comparison of your tablets CPU vs the minimum specified by Sky, your CPU is way underpowered so you'll likely run into overheating of your CPU as well as stutters, lagging and crashing.

If you want a smooth experience you'll have to upgrade to a more powerful PC or look at getting an Andriod or iOS tablet that can run the Sky Go mobile app.

Re: Sky go Windows app causes tablet to overheat and slow down.

memyselfandaye — Mon, 14 Oct 2019 13:44:54 GMT

@jamesn123Yes, I get your point but it is perfectly fine for everyother streaming service on the planet. Sky go isn't anything spectacular so why does it need to be so resource greedy.

Re: Sky go Windows app causes tablet to overheat and slow down.

TimmyBGood — Mon, 14 Oct 2019 14:41:39 GMT

@memyselfandaye wrote:

@jamesn123Yes, I get your point but it is perfectly fine for everyother streaming service on the planet. Sky go isn't anything spectacular so why does it need to be so resource greedy.

Just seems to be the way it's created, unfortunately. I suspect the overhead of running Cisco VideoGuard in the background for DRM doesn't help.

Re: Sky go Windows app causes tablet to overheat and slow down.

rscott — Mon, 14 Oct 2019 14:25:44 GMT

Might be worth excluding the Sky Go directories from your anti-virus too - that can help improve performance.

Re: Sky go Windows app causes tablet to overheat and slow down.

memyselfandaye — Mon, 14 Oct 2019 14:30:25 GMT

@rscottmight be worth excluding Sky all together. This along with ongoing issues with Sky Q boxes & Av receivers it seems sky charges a premium price for sub-premium services,

Re: Sky go Windows app causes tablet to overheat and slow down.

jamesn123 — Mon, 14 Oct 2019 14:40:34 GMT

@memyselfandaye

Its the background DRM protection that makes Sky Go resource heavy, recent versions of the app have drastically improved performance and in my experience basically halving CPU usage during streaming. Other offerings from BT & Netflix use web based streams which are not as resource heavy but also are much less protected than Sky's own app with cisco video guard, this is why Sky choose to use their own app on the Windows & Mac platforms.

To be fair to Sky the CPU in your tablet is very underpowered and I certainly would not run modern Windows apps on it myself.

Re: Sky go Windows app causes tablet to overheat and slow down.

memyselfandaye — Mon, 14 Oct 2019 14:46:44 GMT

@jamesn123Yes I know it's just a Microsoft surface go device, not a surface pro, so far from a workhorse of a device, which I just bought to take offshore with me. I have a £1500 HP gaming laptop which is more than capable, but with it comes weight lol. This does me for every other thing I need to do on my 2 weeks offshore except for sky which is very annoying.

Re: Sky go Windows app causes tablet to overheat and slow down.

TimmyBGood — Mon, 14 Oct 2019 14:47:10 GMT

@jamesn123 wrote:

To be fair to Sky the CPU in your tablet is very underpowered and I certainly would not run modern Windows apps on it myself.

What else are you going to do with a whole 4.5 watts? Quite extraordinary: a 14nm fabrication with onboard HD 615 IGP eating barely enough power to make an LED glow. I remember when you could use a Pentium 4 to make toast...

Re: Sky go Windows app causes tablet to overheat and slow down.

Yakety — Thu, 17 Oct 2019 19:55:40 GMT

Despite people being sniffy about your tablet, as you say @memyselfandaye IT's not the issue but the app itself. The windows app is utter mince. I came in here to see if any word that it had got better in the past few months but obviously not.

The OS version on my one mac device works like a dream but the windows version was unusable on my I7 Laptop with 16gb RAM. Ate up over 50% of my CPU, fans in overdrive whereas BTSport uses less than 2! (Please no one prompt me to exclude virus checking, made no odds...).

Several threads on this but Sky don't seem to give a damn. My last laptop failed within 18 months and I'm actually convinced it was trying to watch the cricket on skygo that did it!

I've not even bothered downloading it on my new one and instead illegally stream if using it away from home, the very thing the app was supposed to prevent...

Re: Sky go Windows app causes tablet to overheat and slow down.

deadkenny — Sat, 11 Apr 2020 19:50:36 GMT

I got a basic Dell Venue tablet some years old with Baytrail Atom.

Not speedy device. However, BBC iPlayer via their web site in Edge Chromium and other browsers... perfect. Site is responsive, streams play, live and on demand perfectly in HD.

Sky Go app for Windows takes ages to start, it's very sluggish responding to clicks, half the time it refuses to play anything and when it does it's very slow, misses a lot of frames and the audio is way out of sync. Tried both SD and HD channels, and the same. Tried turning off the Sky Q option (I don't have Sky Q) as suggested by some, no difference.

It's utter garbage. Bearing in mind I'm paying for Sky Go as part of my extremely expensive subscription for standard entertainment pack without sports or movies, that's gone up yet again recently, I expect it to be working. I'm not getting the service promised and it's clearly not a fault of my device if BBC can do the job just fine without even needing an app. It's not DRM if the app itself is very sluggish before even viewing videos.

Amazon Prime videos work fine also, and that's a subscription service.. The app is the problem.

Re: Sky go Windows app causes tablet to overheat and slow down.

dawsonm2 — Fri, 21 Aug 2020 15:12:47 GMT

This is not an answer to an issue that all users of Sky Go on Windows devices have. Amazed that Sky have decided to completely ignore the issue despite numerous "updates" to the app.

I'll continue to illegaly download Sky content when I'm not at home instead of using this useless app.

Well played Sky!

Re: Sky go Windows app causes tablet to overheat and slow down.

pjack — Thu, 18 Feb 2021 09:07:35 GMT

I've suffered the same issue with my Fujitsu Lifebook with Intel Core i3 at 2.3GHz...Sky Go will run for approx 15 minutes , then it gets so hot laptop system shuts down my overheated laptop as a safety measure. The fan cannot cope with the heat generated. It's actually dangerous. ..I get that the processor is about version 3 and they're up to version 11 or something now... The only option for me is to buy a new laptop, with a processor that can cope. I can get skygo fine on my tablet but I can't cast the output to my TV as Sky blocl this..My laptop I link via HDMI to my TV which was fine before. So what size processor do I need to be sure I get a few years worth of Sky GO before that also becomes outdated ?

Re: Sky go Windows app causes tablet to overheat and slow down.

RichGaunt — Thu, 22 Apr 2021 23:07:19 GMT

The more powerful your pc the more it uses.. if you look carefully you will see that even on the main menu it's using 100% of a fairly powerful gpu.. are we all mining for sky???

Re: Sky go Windows app causes tablet to overheat and slow down.

Ivan+Wilson — Sat, 29 May 2021 22:09:02 GMT

Sky go was useless on my old Asus s200e notebook using Windows 10. I was able to revert to Windows 8.1 and it works perfectly. I

Re: Sky go Windows app causes tablet to overheat and slow down.

pjack — Sun, 28 Nov 2021 19:31:48 GMT

Can I upgrade my CPU in my laptop, and if so what level would it need to be to play skygo ? Mine's an i3 which is a 2nd generation, so I guess somewhere towards 11th generation if i can find a compatable one ?

Re: Sky go Windows app causes tablet to overheat and slow down.

RichGaunt — Sun, 28 Nov 2021 19:47:47 GMT

Any modern cpu will do it fine. 11th gen is overkill. Cpu sockets change over time so I would go to scan.co.U.K. And get a motherboard/cpu/ram bundle. I don't know what you have i3 wise but even this bargain set should run 1080p sky player.,

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/asrock-a320m-hdv-r40-matx-motherboard-plus-amd-athlon-3000g-2-core-cpu-plus-corsair-lpx-8gb-2666mhz

a 5800x ryzen bundle at about 550 quid (plus ram) is seriously fast kit if you want a proper upgrade.

if you want to play sky player in 4K (even if sky doesn't look much better in 4K) then soebd a grand on something like..

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/msi-mag-tomahawk-wifi-atx-motherboard-plus-amd-ryzen-7-5800x-8-core-16-thread-processor-bundle

plus fast ram plus a half decent gpu and a cpu cooler.

Re: Sky go Windows app causes tablet to overheat and slow down.

jamesn123 — Mon, 29 Nov 2021 11:02:19 GMT

@pjack wrote:

Can I upgrade my CPU in my laptop, and if so what level would it need to be to play skygo ? Mine's an i3 which is a 2nd generation, so I guess somewhere towards 11th generation if i can find a compatable one ?

I highly doubt it. Almost all laptops comes with a soldered CPU these days. You'd be looking at buying a whole new laptop.