Surface Pro 4 battery drain while OFF

Anonymous
2017-07-05T14:02:24+00:00

I have a HUGE battery drain while power off (not hibernating)  at least 5-10 percent per day.   I windows updates done.   I used to think it was because of the keyboard being attached. but I have switched to a Brydge Keyboard.  Does anyone else have this issue or know how to fix?

Thanks!

Surface | Surface Pro | Power and battery

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Anonymous
2017-08-04T04:59:28+00:00

Thanks Victor_S

Another solution I've found is to shut down the computer the old way - regular shutdown instead of hybrid shutdown.

You can use this shortcut:

C:\Windows\System32\shutdown.exe /s /t 3 /c "Full Shutdown"

  • shutdown.exe can execute the various sleed/hibernate commands, including the regular shutdown.
  • /s means "shutdown". If we shutdown the normal way, it is a hybrid shutdown (/hybrid)
  • /t 3 means after 3 seconds. If you skip this it's 30 seconds by default.
  • /c "Full shutdown" is a simple comment that will appear in various places as the reason for your shutdown.

Keep in mind it takes a little longer to shutdown this way, and it takes a little longer to start afterwards, but I think the computer doesn't keep some systems active, thus you should see almost no battery drain, even for prolonged times.

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Anonymous
2017-07-05T14:59:17+00:00

That is a good question because the screen will be off.  Before shutting down and all programs are closed, you can do a CTRL+ALT+DEL and select the task manager and look at the processes that are still running at that moment and you may find 'something' but doubtful.

The power sub-system could also have a defect causing that as well and not actually shutting off the machine when it is supposed to be off.

The task manager may give you a clue when all programs are shut down.  If you can't find anything listed, it is possible you may need to contact customer support to get the machine swapped out.

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  1. Anonymous
    2018-01-08T14:25:44+00:00

    I was wrong about disabling the wifi making a difference.  It didn't.  With the wifi disabled, I put the SP4 in hibernation (clicking the Windows button, then selecting the power icon and then selecting "hibernate") yesterday at 6:02pm, and the battery charge was at 94% at that point without the SP4 being put on the charger.  When turning on the unit this morning at 6:14am (just over 12 hours later), the battery charge was at 89%.  So with the unit in hibernation, there was a 5% discharge in just over a 12 hour period.

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  2. Anonymous
    2018-01-07T22:40:39+00:00

    I don't know whether or not this might be playing a role, but in thinking back, in my case, after powering on the SP4 after a period of time in which it has been off (after having been fully charged at shutdown previously), I might be seeing varying levels of how much of a charge is left in the SP4 depending on whether or not the wifi has been disabled before shutting down the SP4 or whether or not Airplane Mode has been enabled before shutting down the SP4.  I bring this up because sometimes I do disable the wifi before a shutdown, and looking back, I think I might be seeing varying levels of a charge left as it relates to this.  I'll pay closer attention to this over the next several days to see if this might be playing a factor, and I wanted to bring it to others' attention as well in case they might want to keep an eye on this also.

    Hi,

    It would be interesting to check if you do a "real" shutdown.

    To confirm this behaviour, using a shutdown command rather than shutting down with menu option would be better I think.

    Regards

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  3. Anonymous
    2018-01-07T17:09:49+00:00

    To expand on the prior post, the way that I'm going to disable the wifi for testing is by disabling the wifi component in the "Network Devices" section of the Device Manager.  The reason why I'll do this is because I noticed that if you use the taskbar's feature to either disable wifi or to enable Airplane Mode, the wifi component in the Device Manager remains enabled.  So I'll disable it in the Device Manager to ensure that it isn't fully enabled in Windows on the SP4.  I'll see what happens with this.

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