System Firmware Update - 12/10/13 fails to install

Anonymous

Got the updates on todays patch Tuesday, but the firmware update failed to load. Rechecking for an update does not give the opportunity to try and reinstall.

Anyone else having this problem? I do notice that my telemetry driver is now loaded. so not sure what is going on here.

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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Anonymous

Josh,

We are working through the holidays to deliver a fix for the small number of customers that have experience decreased battery life and booting/sleeping problems as a result of the December update. We took the update down to prevent additional customers from ending up in this state. All hardware failures, none of which are known to be caused by the December update, are being handled promptly through our warranty exchange policy.

The UEFI firmware that we released in the December update prevents some devices from entering sleep mode (and other low power states) properly during periods of inactivity. In order to release an updated version of the UEFI firmware we need to test the new version with the other drivers in the set to make sure we are not releasing yet another unknown state to customer machines. We certainly feel your pain and assure you that we are doing everything possible to make this right, as quickly as we can.

Thank you,

Tim

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Anonymous

Greetings all,

We understand that the February Firmware Update has fixed the Battery gauge issue and the Firmware showing as failed. However we can see that there are some customers who are still experiencing issues with their Surface Pro 2 going into Sleep mode and Hibernate.

So we can better track those particular issues, we have decided to close this thread off. We encourage you to create a thread related to your Surface Pro 2 not going to sleep or not going into Hibernate. Please give as much detail as possible to your scenario.

We understand that the February Firmware update did not resolve the issue with waking from Sleep or Hibernate, as it was not intended to fix that particular issue. We are continuing to work to deliver a high quality solution. More updates will become available as this effort progresses.

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Anonymous

The February update has resolved all issues for me. The firmware installed with no issues. Prior to this, I had all sorts of problems with the December firmware. Sleep and hibernate issues were rampant. The January update helped a bit, but the battery meter was always getting off calibration.

With the February update, all issues have been resolved and my Surface 2 128gb is working as it was prior to the December updates. Very solid and all is back to normal.

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997 additional answers

Anonymous

2014-01-19T00:55:09+00:00

EDIT: Didn't realize The New Normal was suggesting that his 12/10/13 cleanup result is specifically blocking the 1/18/14 firmware update when I wrote what's below. The Verge article today, quoted several posts earlier, says the the 1/18/14 firmware fix will work whether or not the 12/10/13 firmware was successfully installed and the 1/18 version replaces it. Since it flashes a section of ROM, nothing you do with the Windows Update Troubleshooter or Disk Cleanup should affect whatever state the failed firmware update left that ROM in..... Others more expert than I can correct my comment.

On 12/10/13 after update problems, I ran the Windows Update Troubleshooter and received a similar report upon completion. I then ran the further fix suggested by Dylan Tullberg, following all his steps. His suggested solution has been voted Most Helpful Suggestion and is on p.1 of this forum.

The Disk Cleanup including System FIles, especially Windows Update, cleans out your Windows Update History. But since doing it, with two exceptions, my Surface Pro 2 (256 Gb, 4200U) has behaved ~normally. I shut it down every time I am done with it. After running Tullberg's solution, I did receive a hardware update dated 12/10/13 that I seemed to have successfully installed and have received numerous other updates since then including the January Patch Tuesday Updates and numerous English Input Personalization updates..

I have been putting my SP2 into Airplane Mode before shutting down and for a while, I was using "Shutdown /p" at the Admin Command Prompt which forces all running processes to close and immediately shuts down your machine with no warnings about running processes. One of the only two times my machine came on in its bag was the night after the 1/14/14 Patch Tuesday update using this command. Since then I have switched back to using the Shutdown command available from the Power button icon after touching the Settings Charms screen button and haven't had any other instance of my machine coming on.

So if you're lucky, Dylan Tullberg's suggestion will fix you up until you get the 1/18/14 firmware update. A Microsoft Support Tech told me in a chat that it was the best known way of trying to recover from a failed 12/10/13 firmware update (whether that is actually true or not, don't know, but my machine has been very well-behaved compared to others). I have never tried an SD card in the machine and the power consumption issues on booting with one inserted are said to be a longstanding separate issue that the 1/18/14 firmware update does not address.
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Anonymous

2014-01-19T00:26:34+00:00

After my failed update, the diagnostic tool reports the following:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/i9bx3kf7gxqxpgl/Screenshot.png

perhaps these updater issues are stopping windows asking for the new update?
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