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

Anonymous
2013-12-10T19:14:53+00:00

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.

Surface | Surface Pro | Install and update

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
2013-12-19T06:53:02+00:00

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
2014-02-15T00:49:31+00:00

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
2014-02-13T22:35:08+00:00

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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  1. Anonymous
    2014-02-13T11:48:31+00:00

    Dear Steven_B,

    I can't afford the luxury to be on-board another leaking vessel for another month. The failed Dec update was fun while I had the spare time, and we learned a lot about our SP2 in that time frame, others may disagree nor be so convenienced. I know I went from someone who loved my SP2 to not being able to trust it. Could you please give the reasons as to why the lab-rating phases falls to us users? An insight into how the Microsoft smart update works perhaps would help us understand why these problems occur. I'm only suggesting a speculation here. Personally however, I would love to hear about the Jurassic high CPU when boot with microSD card inserted.

    It is unfortunate so many of us have had issues with the device after December. Since my replacement my device is working fine, but I am not installing this February update for at least another week due to a lack of trust.

    Might I ask what type of microSD card you have installed? I have never seen this high CPU problem when booting from a microSD card. At least I was never able to reproduce or verify it. My first Surface Pro 2 did have a lot of the symptoms of waking up on its own and getting very warm, and unreliable battery meter, but I never saw the high CPU. My current new device has no issues.

    My SP2 has high CPU when boot with microSD card inserted.

    I have unsuccessfully tested a lot of microSD cards with my SP2 (on the contrary I have no problem with my SP1). Perhaps (I hope) it is a firmware-driver issue.

    In any case I would like to ask you the same thing: what type of microSD card are you using?

    Have you installed some kind of audio software-driver?

    (I have seen that the high CPU issue is affected if I open/use sound recorder, for example)

    I am not interested in "hibernation" and "sleep", I prefer to "switch off" my SP2, (I have deleted hibernation file in order to obtain disk space).

    With windows 8 (but now it seems unavailable in windows 8.1) I have simply set the screen brightness level to 5% after 5 minutes of inactivity.

    The use of my microSD card is a priority, instead.

    It's troublesome for me to have an attached usb pendrive while I use the SP2 in motion.

    Dear Francesco,

    • I too did not have MicroSD vs. High CPU Boot issues with my Surface Pro 1.
    • I am currently using 3 x SP2s -with- 3 x SanDisk Ultra 64Gb cards, all exhibit the same high CPU at boot.
    • I have tried autoplaying an audio file to deal with the issue. only worked 1 out of 5 instances.
    • Tried updating my Realtek HD Audio driver with Microsoft's Oct-2013 Driver pack as well as the Jan-2014 ones. No improvements.

           *** ----- ***

    Here was the answer I gave to TBone for his question earlier:

    Dear TBone,

    I have 3 x Surface Pro 2s and am using a SanDisk Ultra 64Gb MicroSD cards.

    All of my 3 units displayed exact same signs of the problem.

    These are as follows...

    1. Cold-booting a BRAND-NEW out of the box SP2 with the MicroSD card inserted and leaving the unit idle for 30sec, Task Manager opened showing CPU usage sorted view. Hogging the CPU is the Client Server Runtime (csrss.exe). The 40%-60% csrss.exe lags the system to the point where starting applications are a pain and scroll or swipes gestures at the Start Screen are no longer smooth.

    Solution: Put the unit to sleep and wake it back up to temporary rid the problem.

    1. Once updated to October Firmware and above... Cold-booting SP2 with the MicroSD card inserted and leaving the unit idle for 30sec, Task Manager opened showing CPU usage sorted view. Hogging the CPU are System (ntoskrnl.exe) & System Interrupts. The 30% ntoskrnl.exe does not visibly lag the system, but battery hungry enough to ruin your day, every day.

    Solution: Put the unit to sleep and wake it back up to temporary rid the problem.

    A Jurassic issue cross-threaders can read all about HERE... something which plagued all of my 3 x SP2 units, Tried updating the SD-SLOT driver in the Device Manager but there isn't one. You can try updating the SD-Card driver after you insert it, but the best driver has already been applied. Hope I make sense.

    PMR.

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-02-13T12:04:57+00:00

    I've got my SP2 for a couple of months now and I have only experienced the battery-meter-issue-thingy once. A reboot and it sorted itself out.

    Regarding the FW Upgrades etc. the 11.feb 2014 update gave me a "Unknown Device". Pretty much the same as the cover telemetry driver as beeing described above.

    Though never (and still don't) have any sleep or hibernation errors.

    I'll keep you guys updated sometimes tomorrow as I might figure out some more.

    Yashin_AL; Keep me posted!

    Did a sfc /scannow and Windows made "some" repairs.

    Went for another Windows update, got a whole bunch of .net updates (bundled with some other W8 / 8.1 updates).

    Did a reboot, now the telemetry device is working properly (by working, meaning not showing any warning in the Device manager)

    I have completey reinstalled windows 8.1 on my SP2.

    Unfortunately I have had to perform the procedure 5 times.

    In the end I have used the following steps:

    1. perform complete reinstallation with new partitions using a previously saved/generated USB recovery pendrive
    2. an unknown device is present in Device Manager
    3. download the complete January 2014 Surface Pro 2 firmware and driver pack from microsoft website
    4. install/update manually one by one the drivers (included video and the unknown device)
    5. only now start windows update manually (install, restart, install,.......)
    6. In the end I have not installed the optional update microsoft silverlight and the following security update for microsoft silverlight; because after the above-mentioned optional updates I have had during the first 4 reinstallations a strange problem: a) no-stop/endless windows update and b) endless/hang windows shutdown.

    During the next days I'll try to install silverlight again (I use it a lot) directly from microsoft download page and not as a windows update. But I'll probably try a full ssd backup beforehand with clonezilla; in order to avoid the pain/time of a new, sixth, complete reinstallation if something will go wrong.

    Now the SP2 seems to work well apart from the high CPU issue with microSD card inserted.

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