Surface Pro 4 - Screen won't wake from sleep

Anonymous
2015-10-27T05:32:42+00:00

I received my Surface Pro 4 today and it worked fine. I put it on "sleep" for awhile, came back and turned it on. Once again it worked fine. I made an error and instead of putting it on "sleep" I  hit the power button to turn it off when I finished. Now it won't come on at all. The screen stays dark. If I push the power button I can see lights under the keyboard keys, then if I hit the power switch again they go off. But nothing happens to the screen no matter what I do. Has anyone else suffered from this?

Surface | Surface Pro | Display and screen

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Anonymous
2016-08-19T19:27:34+00:00

It works fine for me after the Anniversary Update to Windows 10 Pro (Version 1607). It no longer goes into a coma.

I just traveled all week. Put my Surface Pro 4 (SP4) to sleep 10 to 20 times each day, and currently my task manager shows the up time to be 7:21:35:21 - 7 days! It is actually working the way I expected it to when I bought it!

It was such a relief to not be scared to put it to sleep during meeting breaks to save battery when working with my Pen and OneNote. For the past 7 months I've had to have it on power when in meetings so that it wouldn't go into a coma. That was always so embarrassing.

You can update to the latest version of Windows 10 by opening Settings > Update & security > Windows Update, and selecting Check for updates.

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  1. Anonymous
    2016-02-22T05:05:09+00:00

    This is a very interesting thread. I had to deal with the frustration from this "unable to wake from sleep" issue since November but the 2/17/2016 update seems to have fixed it for me!

    For those that encountered this issue for the first time, I feel your pain. I have lived through it for 3 months (hibernate to the rescue) and now it finally seems to be fixed for me.

    UPDATE:

    I have continued to test it and determined that the "unable to wake from sleep" issue is not fully resolved. In my case, it seems to be going to sleep and waking up fine as long as power supply is not involved. But with power supply (I use Surface dock power cable), I have been able to find a couple of scenarios where it still fails to wake from sleep. 

    Scenario 1: If Surface Pro 4 is disconnected from power supply and I close the lid, it goes to sleep per my "close the lid" setting. While it is sleeping, I connect the magnetic power supply cable. Now when I open the lid and try to wake it up, the IR light and keyboard light up but Surface fails to wake up from sleep. I have to close the lid again to make it go to sleep mode in power supply "connected" mode. Then it wakes up on opening the lid and pressing a key/button.

    Scenario 2: If Surface Pro 4 is connected to power supply cable and you close the lid (it goes to sleep) and then you disconnect the power supply cable and then open the lid and press a key, it won't wake up from sleep. The IR light and keyboard light up but screen stays dark. I have to close the lid again to make it go to sleep mode in power supply "disconnected" mode. Then it wakes up on opening the lid and pressing a key/button.

    So the bottom line is to try to wake it up in the same power supply cable connected or disconnected state that it went to sleep in. Otherwise, close and open the lid a second (or sometimes 3rd) time.

    I will post more as I test more.

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-02-22T04:51:52+00:00

    What I really find hard to understand is why I am now seeing this issue after the 17/Feb firmware update.  I very occasionally had a return from sleep failure before that, but now it has occurred every day.  If Microsoft did any reasonable amount of testing of this fairly fundamental problem I can't see why they didn't see the issue as I do.  And I am not even looking for it ...

    I really do love the Surface Pro 4 but this is such an annoyance and it is tarnishing the whole experience.

    I can believe that it might be a tricky software bug to fix, but we have waited months, only to be severely disappointed.

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-02-22T04:10:22+00:00

    Fingers crossed. I have not had issues with either of my surfaces (sp4 i7, s book) since the update). But battery life is diminished. 

    The machine still suits my needs, but frustrating.

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-02-22T04:03:48+00:00

    Hi all, I am the guy whose post on the first page of this thread was voted the most. I have been watching this thread for some time now. I finally downloaded the 2/17/2016 update for my Surface Pro 4 (i5/8GB/256GB) today. In my first 2 hours of testing, I have not encountered the "unable to wake from sleep" issue so far.

    I have now set my surface to go to Sleep (instead of hibernate) on closing the lid. The other settings such as power button are still set to hibernate. I will post back if I encounter the issue. Fingers crossed and good luck!

    ![](http://fud.community.services.support.microsoft.com/Fud/FileDownloadHandler.ashx?fid=29ecf210-f09e-4c40-8fc1-3d786ee60d7f)

    UPDATE:

    I have continued to test it and determined that the "unable to wake from sleep" issue is not fully resolved. In my case, it seems to be going to sleep and waking up fine as long as power supply is not involved.

    But with power supply (I use Surface dock power cable, but no peripherals and no external monitors), I have been able to find a couple of scenarios where it still fails to wake from sleep > 50% of the time.

    Scenario 1: If Surface Pro 4 is disconnected from power supply and I close the lid, it goes to sleep per my "close the lid" setting. While it is sleeping, I connect the magnetic power supply cable. Now when I open the lid and try to wake it up, the IR light and keyboard light up but Surface fails to wake up from sleep. I have to close the lid again to make it go to sleep mode in power supply "connected" mode. Then it wakes up on opening the lid and pressing a key/button.

    Scenario 2: If Surface Pro 4 is connected to power supply cable and you close the lid (it goes to sleep) and then you disconnect the power supply cable and then open the lid and press a key, it won't wake up from sleep. The IR light and keyboard light up but screen stays dark. I have to close the lid again to make it go to sleep mode in power supply "disconnected" mode. Then it wakes up on opening the lid and pressing a key/button.

    So the bottom line is to try to wake it up in the same power supply cable connected or disconnected state that it went to sleep in. Otherwise, close and open the lid a second (or sometimes 3rd) time.

    I will post more as I test more.

    UPDATE#2

    Closed the Surface Pro 4 lid, put it in the bag, left work and drove home. The Surface Pro 4 was very warm when I took it out after 40 minute drive. So I call the 2/17/2016 Surface Pro 4 update mostly useless for "sleep of death" issue. I am going back to hibernate.

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