Surface Pro 4 - Screen won't wake from sleep

Actually, instead of the fancy Alcantara Type Cover, here's what the well-dressed SP4 is wearing these days (picked this up from acme-speedshop.com at the Lonestar Roundup Hotrod show here in Austin last weekend...)

(Oddly, this is the ONLY thing that changed before my SP4 started waking from sleep - maybe it was "Scared Straight" by the sticker?  Not that I expect waking to become a regular thing, but it did wake this afternoon after sleeping for a couple of hours, and only lost a few % on the battery.)


Alternatively: "Surface Pro 4 - the tablet that comes on.  Sometimes."

The Alcantara Signature Type Cover is probably just as likely to fix our problems I think.

I should order one :) after trying everything else.

Must be all those well-fed sheep giving such soft wool that makes Surface feel all warm & fuzzy...?

let's tell engadget.com about this

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.

A few days ago I took my machine to the local microsoft store and told them about all this.  The manager I spoke to recognized the issue and confirmed my hibernate work around.  He then told me that according to company policy I needed to demonstrate the problem and they needed to install a fresh build.  I told them to go ahead and guaranteed that it would crash, I was also prepared to wait at the store until that happened.  While I was waiting I asked a few questions to an attendant about whether they receive many crashing machines, whether they've seen this problem, ect.  He seemed intentionally vague and I got the distinct sense that they knew all about it but were instructed not to talk.

After some waiting, the manager came back and looked at my box.  A wave of recognition came into his face as he saw the lot number.  He asked me if I'd bought from this store, and I affirmed.  He went away and came back with  a new one without waiting to test my device, and told me that this would resolve the issue.  I asked him if this was one of the later lot numbers, and he looked up and nodded.

So I went home and tested the new device.  It was very clear to me that this Surface was quite different from the last.  The display had a warmer white point and seemed sharper.  It seemed like a display from a different manufacturer than the last.   Also this device performed perfectly, with no backlight bleeding, no screen flicker on low brightness, and absolutely no sleep crashing.

So, what I think is happening here is that there was a manufacturing fault or change, probably with the displays, early on in the production and they have most likely fixed it.  If you have this issue, go to a local store and get a new one.  I think they know about it but for whatever reason Microsoft doesn't want the bad press.  My new machine is flawless and exactly the experience I expect for my money.  For those who are waiting with flawed devices, I don't believe there's going to be a firmware fix.