Surface Book Taskbar Previews close too quickly (when battery status updates)

Anonymous
2016-02-02T02:09:06+00:00

Sometimes when I hover over a Taskbar Preview of an open window, it stays visible until I click it or move the cursor somewhere else. Sometimes it just disappears almost instantly, while I'm still trying to see what it shows. I've discovered what triggers the sudden closing:

As you can see in one of the lower reports, my charger is active. But every few seconds, the top line changes to "Not charging", one of the batteries changes to "in use", and then the top line says "Calculating", and then finally they all agree both batteries are charging. Every cycle of this closes any open Taskbar Previews!

It happens most frequently when the batteries are almost fully charged. Sometimes, probably depending on the CPU load, it keeps happening for hours when the batteries should be fully charged. Unplug the charger and it never happens (that I've noticed).

There are several threads, going back to Win7, describing similar issues with power management and Taskbar Preview. Like:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows\_7-desktop/taskbar-thumbnail-preview-disappear-too-quickly-to/b0aeb6e1-ba60-4caa-a09a-19ce4d3b3dc8

But those are with third-party power managers for other brands of notebook, with control settings I don't have. I have Microsoft's own flagship Surface Book - how can it be that this relatively ancient problem plagues the interaction between Microsoft hardware and software?

Has anyone found a solution other than running on battery?

Surface | Surface Book | Power and battery

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  1. Anonymous
    2016-11-08T00:11:20+00:00

    My replacement SP4 does not have this issue -  either the update fix it or the newer devices do not have the problem.

    My old SP4 before the replacement had the issue before,  but was fixed after a recent update. So I think this could be fixed by software - apparently this has not worked for everybody. If you guys still have the problem, maybe a replacement would be your best fix.

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-11-08T07:57:40+00:00

    Just curious - are they shipping the 15 Volt power supplies with the SP4's now? (You have to read the barely visible fine print on the back to tell...) I think the Surface Book always got the 15 Volt brick, but it uses more power and needs it. For a long time the SP models got a 12V supply which was much more likely to trigger the problem.

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-11-08T13:21:19+00:00

    Microsoft,

    Is replacement an option?  I would like to start a warranty replacement of my Surface Book if you have figured out some hardware issue and resolved the issue.  It's so frustrating to spend this much money and have to quickly click through preview windows to get to the one you want.

    Thanks to everyone for keeping on top of this.

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-11-08T14:00:34+00:00

    As the problem is still unsolved after months I’ve posted the issue (again?) in the feedback hub. Please upvote the feedback if this problem bothers you too: feedback-hub:?contextid=215&feedbackid=d15edd5b-0bb2-4f3f-a8b1-f4497979ad2c&form=1&src=2

    In case there are already other feedbacks on the same topic I suggest to upvote them too (and to post a link in this forum). I think a problem of the feedback hub is that you can only see the feedback in your (language) region.

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  5. Anonymous
    2016-11-08T14:15:48+00:00

    I have the same exact problem (Surface Pro 4).  I have followed this thread and followed all of the advice.  I have all the available updates applied and still have the issue (as of 11/8/2016). 

    When my SP4 is in the dock, this problem occurs.  If I remove the SP from the dock (and it's running on battery alone), the problem goes away.  It's obviously related to being in the dock and power. 

    It looks like this problem is not isolated to just the SP4 but also the SB. 

    Is there a software fix coming for this?  Now I'm seeing discussion about getting replacement hardware?  Is that really necessary? 

    I can't understand why this isn't a problem that everyone is seeing (and all of the Microsoft people using SP4s and SBs with a dock must see it too)?

    Bill W.

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