Surface Pro 4 - Screen won't wake from sleep

Hi,

I was the original guy who said - "hey let's run CPU-Z and see if there are any CPU differences!"

After I posted my results, no one with the properly working sleep posted their result. I have a buddy at work who has a surface with no issues with lot number 1602 - I had him run it and concluded that CPU/MB/GPU were "identical"  - at least as far as CPU-Z knows - to mine.

After 2/17 update, and numerous hypothesis and failures - the 4/19 update was what boiled over my frustrations. I finally gave up and went to the Microsoft Store - ready to start speaking loudly with lots of customers around.

I was pleasantly surprised that they didn't force a debugging cycle, asking me to come back after they debugged it, etc. They said - ok we can probably exchange this for you. The only caveat was that I had to make up the difference between my "for sale price" that I got my i5/8GB/256GB ($1050) to the current price of $1299 - I said, "are you serious?" The guy then spoke to his manager and removed that requirement offered me to sell me the Microsoft Complete Warranty - My device was 2.5months old I had thought the opportunity to purchase the plan was over - so I did take the offer based on this exchange. I had previously bought the Squaretrade's 3-year warranty for the original purchase - but it seems Microsoft Complete may be a better option for me (being fairly close to the Microsoft store). By the way, it was a classy thing that the guy who helped me thanked me for putting up with Microsoft and staying with them. I told him that an iDevice was just not going to cut it and I really like the device but the sleep issue is really annoying.

By the way, from the time I walked into the store, I told the guy who was helping me that I was not going to take a replacement that has a lot number less than 1602. He brought out a new box with the lot number date of 1604.

About the new device - I've just set up the device with basically no software, but with my account and all the Microsoft updates. I have repeated the steps that reliably crashed my old device in a long sleep. But this thing isn't crashing. I'm going to install all the software that I had in my old device and see if it goes bad. I'll post my results later. If the new device continues to work, there is something to the theory that there was some sort of a hardware change on the SP4 and that's responsible for the difference in behavior.

• Peter

So I really wanted to write that my replacement i5/256/8 lot 1611 is perfect.

I've had this brand new replacement for almost a week and seemed fine, without any sleep issues, even though all of a sudden the type cover was unresponsive numerous times. I tried to ignore this new issue. The pc has been sleeping since last night, plugged in with the type cover  installed. I just opened it up. I mean am I suppose to do something different? The keyboard lit up. I pressed the space bar..nothing, black screen. I pressed the power button...nothing, black screen. Deja vu from my earliest comment with the previous Surface. And yes, please do not ask if I have all the latest updates. I do. I am without speech once again.

I've been doing a bit of experimentation with the Surface after having Reset it (kept my files).

What seems to be happening to me is that as more and more programs get on the Surface, the sleeps become less and less reliable.

For instance, I worked with the unit for the first day, and everything was perfect.  Many, many sleep cycles, both with pressing the button, or just closing the cover.   Wanted to believe that reset had done the trick.

Once I convinced myself that I had an idea of the kind of operation I'd been getting, I started adding Office programs back onto the unit.  I'm still testing, but as I have been adding other programs, things seem to be operating more and more unreliably.

I've now had to hard-boot twice, and I have yet to add more programs I need.  The ones I really need are development tools, and I know that they will require Hyper-V to be on (some might remember that awhile ago changes were made to make Hyper-V compatible with Sleep and fast boot)  We'll see soon how well they work.

At any rate, with all the input here, it is too bad that we have not solved the issue.   What I think, and I wish I didn't think it -- is that the Surface has a few problems with Sleep.  I see no evidence that the sleep cycles are different on newer devices or older devices -- my hypothesis is that the newer devices are most likely lacking of most of the software that the device that is being replaced has.

However, I'm pretty sure that the issue, for my device at least, was caused, or at least exacerbated by the 2/17 update.  Pretty sure that things worked better before that.

I would like to hear from others who got replacement units to see how long they've been operating problem-free, and what software they've loaded.   Do any of you who got replacements have dev tools, Office, SharePoint, using Hyper-V, etc?

Good luck to everyone.

-e

Hi,

I was the original guy who said - "hey let's run CPU-Z and see if there are any CPU differences!"

After I posted my results, no one with the properly working sleep posted their result. I have a buddy at work who has a surface with no issues with lot number 1602 - I had him run it and concluded that CPU/MB/GPU were "identical"  - at least as far as CPU-Z knows - to mine.

After 2/17 update, and numerous hypothesis and failures - the 4/19 update was what boiled over my frustrations. I finally gave up and went to the Microsoft Store - ready to start speaking loudly with lots of customers around.

I was pleasantly surprised that they didn't force a debugging cycle, asking me to come back after they debugged it, etc. They said - ok we can probably exchange this for you. The only caveat was that I had to make up the difference between my "for sale price" that I got my i5/8GB/256GB ($1050) to the current price of $1299 - I said, "are you serious?" The guy then spoke to his manager and removed that requirement offered me to sell me the Microsoft Complete Warranty - My device was 2.5months old I had thought the opportunity to purchase the plan was over - so I did take the offer based on this exchange. I had previously bought the Squaretrade's 3-year warranty for the original purchase - but it seems Microsoft Complete may be a better option for me (being fairly close to the Microsoft store). By the way, it was a classy thing that the guy who helped me thanked me for putting up with Microsoft and staying with them. I told him that an iDevice was just not going to cut it and I really like the device but the sleep issue is really annoying.

By the way, from the time I walked into the store, I told the guy who was helping me that I was not going to take a replacement that has a lot number less than 1602. He brought out a new box with the lot number date of 1604.

About the new device - I've just set up the device with basically no software, but with my account and all the Microsoft updates. I have repeated the steps that reliably crashed my old device in a long sleep. But this thing isn't crashing. I'm going to install all the software that I had in my old device and see if it goes bad. I'll post my results later. If the new device continues to work, there is something to the theory that there was some sort of a hardware change on the SP4 and that's responsible for the difference in behavior.

• Peter

Hi I'm sorry I didn't get back to you with that.  Been busy with other things.  I ran cpuz on my replacement and the results were identical to your flawed machine.  So I'm still inclined towards my original theory that the fault lies with the display manufacturers and possibly faulty power regulation in the devices.

Since getting my replacement a couple of weeks ago, lot 1602, I still have had no sleep crashes yet.  There is also no flicker at low brightness either.  I can only continue to stress to the forum that the differences between the machine I have now and had are in the hardware.  This machine performs flawlessly and is what I expected in the first place.

Really glad to see that some of you are going to the store to exchange.  Theres no reason for anyone to put up with this, and at this point its safe to say, that if your device still crashes after the latest updates, no magic firmware is coming to save the day.