Surface Pro 2 - Surface cover telemetry driver / blank screen after putting tablet to sleep

Anonymous
2013-10-23T05:19:56+00:00

Hi, 

I just picked up my Surface Pro 2 256GB today and it ran into problems right after applying the firmware update that seemed to have been released just today on Windows Update.  I confirmed this problem was caused by the firmware update because I restored the tablet and the wireless was working fine and I applied the firmware update and that broke the wireless.

After the update, the Marvell AVASTAR Wireless Composite Device stopped working...meaning, the tablet does not recognize the wireless card.  This is confirmed by going into the Device Manager and seeing 2 unknown devices (one of them was the wireless card, the other unrecognized device I will explain in the next paragraph) When I tried running the update driver function, it tried to reinstall the driver but returned the following error.

Windows encountered a problem installing the driver software for your device

Reinstall the drivers for this device (Code 18)

I had to go the manual route and there were 2 Marvell drivers listed and one Microsoft driver listed for the Marvell card.  The 2 marvell drivers listed had exactly the same name.  However, only choosing and applying the second one worked.  So, the wireless was working again.

The other "unknown device" turned out to be something called "Surface Cover Telemetry".  However, trying the same troubleshooting process for the wireless card did not solve the problem and the devices still remains "unknown" in the device manager.  I just left it and carried on with installing my other software and apps as the tablet and the Type Cover 2 seemed to be functioning properly.

However, when I put the tablet to sleep by closing the Type Cover (while on battery power but charged up to 100%), the screen remained blank even though I opened up the cover again and tried to wake the tablet.  I knew that the tablet was still on but the screen remained blank even after I tried touching it, typing on the keyboard as well as briefly tapping the on/off button.  When I touch the Windows icon on the bottom frame of the tablet, I can feel a slight vibration and that told me that the tablet was on but the screen somehow is totally off.

I decided to do a soft reset of the tablet by holding on the on/off button for more then 10 seconds.  However, the screen only worked properly after many attempts.

My questions are, could it be that this "unknown device" that needs the "Surface Cover Telemetry" driver is causing this blank screen problem?  And if so, where can I download a driver that works?

Thanks.

Surface | Surface Pro | Install and update

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  1. Anonymous
    2013-10-23T22:36:18+00:00

    Experienced the same problems.  I can't get the surface cover telemetry to fix itself, but for the wireless controller I was able to get it working by first disabling it in device manager, then re-enabling it right after.  Trying to get answers about keyboard now from chat, if anything comes of it I'll post.

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  2. Anonymous
    2013-10-23T23:26:49+00:00

    For keyboard, the work around gets more involved, perhaps.  For me, I uninstalled the driver then reset the surface.  Upon restart the driver appeared again as unknown with an error.  At this point I was able to disable it, then re-enable it, and error gone.  Phew..

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  3. Anonymous
    2013-10-23T21:16:49+00:00

    Been having the same issues with my 256GB Surface Pro 2 and may have found a solution.  When I needed drivers for the surface pro 1 I Found the driver pack here: and instructions on how to inject them all to the os.  After doing this again on the surface pro 2 I seem to have the two drivers working well. This worked for me, but I don't know if its the right course of action. Is I understand it, this installs the drivers files into the OS, and the normal driver update applies them to hardware.

    Here's what I did. do so at your own risk. otherwise call Microsoft.  I also take no credit for the script as I didn't create it and don't remember who did:

    1. Download surface drivers from: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=38826
    2. extract all the files to the c: drive or some other location. its best to use *C:\August2013SurfacePro*
    3. Download this powershell script from my skydrive: http://sdrv.ms/1djX2yS
    4. save that file to folder you zipped the first download into. Probably *C:\August2013SurfacePro* (not into the c:\ root folder)
    5. open Powershell as administrator  **** which is in all apps at the end if you don't know, Right click to run as admin.
    6. If you used a different drive, type the drive letter. IE: d:
    7. type *cd C:\August2013SurfacePro* or the location you extracted the files to.
    8. type Get-ExecutionPolicy
    9. It should say Restricted, If it says Unrestricted, skip to step 12.
    10. type Set-ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted
    11. type Get-ExecutionPolicy    should report Unrestricted now.
    12. Type .\InstallDrivers.ps1
    13. You should see many INF files being processed and two number 1s for each. some will have a 1 and a 0 showing that it wasn't imported, but that should be okay.
    14. Once its done, type Set-ExecutionPolicy Restricted to reset this.
    15. Restart your computer
    16. once restarted, go to device manager and check it out, you may have to update drivers for the devices.  The "Unknown Device" for surface cover telemetry still shows up as unknown, but for me it had no errors after.

    Again, this worked for me and shouldn't mess anything up, but I don't know if its the right course of action. Run windows update when its over.  Hopefully we can get some better driver support from Microsoft soon.

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  4. Anonymous
    2013-10-23T07:44:47+00:00

    I have the similar problem on my surface pro 2. I did a resetting to my surface pro 2 and then I found this unknown device in the device manager. Indeed it says

    I also tried to use troubleshooting but it didn't help. I noticed that some of the devices in the device manager changed after resetting.

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