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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Anonymous

2014-01-23T18:28:05+00:00

The January Firmware update fixes the sleep / hibernate issues but the incorrect battery indicator is still present.

There is also a problem when using a micro sd card with the device. The CPU usage stays at around 20-30% after cold booting / waking the device with a micro sd card installed. This causes the SP2 to constantly use power and decreasing battery life.

The only way to bypass this problem is restarting the device but if it sleeps and you wake it up you're back with the same problem. The best solution is avoid using an sd card if possible until a fix / update is released.

I always wondered why my SP2 lasted 7-8 hours on 50% brightness and after installing an sd card I average about 5-6 hours.
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Anonymous

2014-01-23T18:11:38+00:00

I certainly can't previously recall a situation comparable to where the "updater repair tool" is itself broken. Astonishing. And their lack of clarification of the Surface update situation is simply a disgrace.

I've seen worse. Oracle not only had Java bugs, but a few months ago their bug reporting tool was broken and the email address for reporting problems with the bug reporting tool bounced.

But the opacity of Microsoft's bug reporting system is well illustrated by the discussion at http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_2007-excel/how-do-you-report-a-product-bug-to-microsoft/0ef12a13-78eb-40c1-b946-f963cbe26b6e

One of our conclusions about the value of experts on forums in medicine was that a major impediment was the "free rider problem" of people associated with other healthcare providers benefiting as much as people associated with the expert's own institution. But the free rider problem doesn't apply to the situation with Microsoft products. And we're talking about bug reports, not technical support., so this doesn't require the same sort of investment that Apple made placing "geniuses" in stores.

The ability to inform Microsoft about bugs seemed to work pretty well until ~2005, and since then Microsoft has become pretty bureaucratic and impenetrable. Some others has gone downhill also - for example, one used to be able to add addendums to Java bug reports but that is now gone. But in the same period Apple improved.

This is something a new CEO can turn around. As an example, the Surface is a much better model of tablets than the overgrown phones that other companies are selling. Microsoft needs to reconnect with its techie roots and leverage its advantages.
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