Surface Pro 4 - Screen won't wake from sleep

The first test indicated there is an update for Intel Watchdog Timer Driver - what ever that is.

That makes some sense - a Watchdog timer is a very special kind of hardware timer used to catch and correct situations where the running program/OS goes off into the weeds and becomes unresponsive.  Basically, the code has to periodically reset the watchdog timer every so often - if that doesn't happen and the timer counts up enough to trip it, then it's supposed to initiate some corrective action (usually a reset or reinitialization of some kind).

So if a watchdog timer isn't working, and something does go wrong, a "wedged" or unresponsive system is kinda what you'd expect.  Sadly, though, based on reports above, this driver alone isn't sufficient to fix the sleep problem.

Wonder when they're planning on pushing this stuff through Windows Update?  (And is there a reason they haven't yet?)

BTW, resubmitted my review of the SP4 on store.microsoft.com w/o link to this thread - maybe it'll go through this time.  Also went in and upvoted relevant and correct critical reviews (and some positive ones, too). 

I was surprised at the number of complaints about sleep not working and hot bag issues (not just in one-star reviews, either).  I think these issues are far more widespread than we may think, it's just that most people never manage to find their way to this forum, or give up in disgust when they see MS isn't doing anything to fix it.  Looking at the reviews there, here, and on reddit, Microsoft *MUST* know the SP4 (and really, the SB, too) is a miserable stuttering cluster-foxtrot of a failure.  The questions is, are they even going to do anything about it, or just pretend it never happened and put all their effort into the SP5 that's supposed to be coming out in a few more months?  (And will that one still be compatible with my docks, type covers, etc.?)  On the other hand, some people really don't seem to have any problems - the lucky (watch)dogs!

At the very least, all of us who have suffered through this BS for months should have the option to swap our SP4s out for a reliable device when available...

ran the program and it updated the watchdog timer. It found no hardware errors but unfortunately i still got the sleep of death.

My suggestion for anyone having problems is to return the device and get another, somewhere between Amazon, BestBuy and MSFT they will figure it out. Once the loss of revenue become apparent they will try and fix things.

Aaaand back already from store - got notification much earlier than expected.  Thought it was too soon to be of any use.

Aaaand I was right.

All they did was remove Preview, revert everything to regular Windows 10 that's publicly available, "run hardware diagnostics" which apparently confirmed this isn't a faulty unit, and then tested Sleep a few times. 

I was exasperated with the conversation with the person who returned it to me - essentially he said they are aware of the problem, it is less, it "happens sometimes", and there is no known permanent solution ("what do you want me to tell you - they haven't told us anything else").

So, a load of nothing. 

Anyway, for now at least Sleep is working.  I guess I will have to assume that the Preview builds were at fault - for my instance at least.  And let's try this for a few days and see how many times it happens again.

Sigh.  Sorry all - no good news to report.

So I went to a store last evening.  Very helpful tech.  Admitted they have seen the problem - both sleep as well as battery life - but it has been decreasing since Feb update.  Told her Feb update did not help - only worsened.  So they have kept it for testing to remove preview OS to isolate the cause as either software (unreleased OS update) or hardware.

Expect to hear back by Friday evening.

That's very helpful of you indeed, LordZemus.  I will try this evening at a nearby store and report back.

Hello everyone, I just wanted to add my experience as it may help.

Like a lot of people here I had the #nowake sleep crash issue on my surface 4. My machine also displayed a noticeable screen flicker when set at low brightness.  It had been working up until the Feb 17 update at which point it started failing.  I set my machine to hibernate and followed this thread hoping for some news from Microsoft on a possible fix.  I also tried everything to fix it including completely wiping the device and restoring with a factory build several times, not installing various third party drivers, ect.  Nothing worked, my device regularly crashed during sleep.  I concluded therefore that this is a hardware problem.

So I went to a store last evening.  Very helpful tech.  Admitted they have seen the problem - both sleep as well as battery life - but it has been decreasing since Feb update.  Told her Feb update did not help - only worsened.  So they have kept it for testing to remove preview OS to isolate the cause as either software (unreleased OS update) or hardware.

Expect to hear back by Friday evening.

That's very helpful of you indeed, LordZemus.  I will try this evening at a nearby store and report back.

Hello everyone, I just wanted to add my experience as it may help.

Like a lot of people here I had the #nowake sleep crash issue on my surface 4. My machine also displayed a noticeable screen flicker when set at low brightness.  It had been working up until the Feb 17 update at which point it started failing.  I set my machine to hibernate and followed this thread hoping for some news from Microsoft on a possible fix.  I also tried everything to fix it including completely wiping the device and restoring with a factory build several times, not installing various third party drivers, ect.  Nothing worked, my device regularly crashed during sleep.  I concluded therefore that this is a hardware problem.