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
    2013-11-18T14:48:13+00:00

    Microsoft please give me something simple 

    i have not managed to do my degrees in reverse engineering and astro-physics yet

    I am getting quite allot of battery drain problems and i am wondering if this causes it.

    powercfg.exe /energy shows a few errors one is this problem (other is USB state problem)

    anyways :¬) nice to find a thread that helps

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  2. Anonymous
    2013-11-18T14:04:57+00:00

    Looks like someone has found a permanent fix for the "Surface cover telemetry" unknown device.

    http://systemsadminguy.wordpress.com/2013/11/16/how-to-update-surface-pro-2-recovery-image-drivers/

    Nice ... although I've got the technique I ironed out set to memory so will probably not go through this.  I would expect Microsoft to release something more seamless, such as "run this program."  :-)

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  3. Anonymous
    2013-11-17T06:38:15+00:00

    Looks like someone has found a permanent fix for the "Surface cover telemetry" unknown device.

    http://systemsadminguy.wordpress.com/2013/11/16/how-to-update-surface-pro-2-recovery-image-drivers/

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  4. Anonymous
    2013-11-16T19:05:57+00:00

    Thank you for your reply. Right now my touch cover 2 is not responding, my guess is related to this 'surface cover telemetry' unknown device driver problem.  I have to rely on the touch screen to do all input.

    i had recovered from the fubar from reset but changed to pro 2 type cover.  ugh trackpad works but not keyboard.  have to get home and hope type cover 1 still works.

    Update: Got the TC2 to worka after a reset (again!)

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