I'm interested to know what other users tend to see when running the "powercfg /sleepstudy" tool on their Surface Pro 3s (as per http://blogs.windows.com/windows/b/windowsexperience/archive/2014/06/26/sleep-study-diagnose-what-s-draining-your-battery-while-the-system-sleeps.aspx ). I'm finding that all my "InstantGo" sessions have a drain rate of between 1200 and 2200mW, which can correspond to between 10% and 20% of the battery drain in the 4 hours before the machine hibernates. Looking at the culprits, almost all the sessions show the following device running for the entire "sleep" period: USB xHCI Compliant Host Controller (\_SB.PCI0.XHC) Fx Device 100% 4:00:00 Is this expected? FWIW, I tend to leave the keyboard cover connected during sleep. Sometimes (when the drain is at the high end of the range), I also see the following: Intel(R) HD Graphics Family (\_SB.PCI0.GFX0) Fx Device 100% 4:00:00 Interestingly, during the first few days I had the SP3, the graphics driver was appearing in every session of the sleep study report. More recently, though, it has stopped appearing. Recently I've been leaving the Surface at the start screen rather than the Desktop, so this may be related - is there a recommendation about coming out of the Desktop before going to "sleep" I also never see anything in the "DRIPS histogram" - should I? What are other people seeing? On a related note, does anyone know if there is a way of changing the time before the machine hibernates? For me, 2 hours (or even 1 hour) would probably be fine - if I'm actively going from one office to another, then the "instant" resume is great, but if I'm at home, leaving the machine for a while, then 4 hours is overkill.

Interesting stuff... I'm don't think desktop Skype can be the only culprit, sadly, as I didn't have it installed until very recently (yet still saw the xHCI controller issue). That said, I do have VoIP phone software installed - I wonder whether there could be some interaction with the camera and/or headset which is causing the problem. I'm wary of going down the refresh route (not least as this is a corporate PC, reinstalled with Windows Enterprise so I'm not even sure if a refresh is possible). It'll be interesting if your probably comes back or goes away, though. FWIW - before I left work on Friday, I rebooted the machine and then put it straight into sleep (after, admittedly, both Skype and my VoIP app had started). I lost only 10% over the weekend (but, again, the culrprit was the xHCI controller running for 100% of the sleep time). I'll try again tonight, but without starting the VoIP app, or Skype.

I might have found the culprit .. it seems like when I have Skype (desktop) running during the connected standbay, it drains a lot of battery with USB xHCI Compliant Host Controller (\_SB.PCI0.XHC) being active 100%. I just closed Skype and put it to sleep, and it was fine. I'm not 100% sure, but I will try several more times and report.

Whatever I tried, I could not fix this so this morning I refreshed my Surface Pro 3. I lost almost all the installed programs, but it seems the battery drain issue during sleep is fixed. It barely loses 1% battery over 1 hour sleep, and USB xHCI Compliant Host Controller (\_SB.PCI0.XHC) is active for 0% of time. Also, I noticed that when not plugged in, Surface Pro 3 started lowering the screen brightness without any input for several minutes. I think it is a normal behavior, but before refreshing, I have never seen it doing it. So my guess is the refreshing fixed something.

I'm not running Cisco AnyConnect, no - we are running Microsoft's DirectAccess on our Enterprise machines, though. I'm not sure what the power settings above are intended to do - I want my SP 3 to hibernate after 4 hours (and it does). Do the settings above change that behaviour? [Actually, I'd probably be happy with hibernation after 2 hours if it saved battery overnight - I reckon 2 hours is enough to cover the case where I leave the machine during a meeting or lunch and want it to be "instant on" again; after 2 hours I'm clearly doing something else (like sleeping) so having to wait the extra 20s for it to come out of hibernate is not a problem.]

Are any of you running Cisco AnyConnect? We see huge battery drains when AnyConnect is installed where after an overnight sleep session, there will be like 35% battery remaining. When it's not installed we still see the battery drain down to about 75%. This is better, but not as good as the retail install on Win8.1 on the SP3. I too was just given the powercfg settings noted above to try as the retail SP3 goes into hibernate after x amount of time (probably 4 hours). We are not setting these settings in our Enterprise image (yet).

What should "sleepstudy" show for a Surface Pro 3

Anonymous

I'm interested to know what other users tend to see when running the "powercfg /sleepstudy" tool on their Surface Pro 3s (as per http://blogs.windows.com/windows/b/windowsexperience/archive/2014/06/26/sleep-study-diagnose-what-s-draining-your-battery-while-the-system-sleeps.aspx).

I'm finding that all my "InstantGo" sessions have a drain rate of between 1200 and 2200mW, which can correspond to between 10% and 20% of the battery drain in the 4 hours before the machine hibernates.

Looking at the culprits, almost all the sessions show the following device running for the entire "sleep" period:

USB xHCI Compliant Host Controller (\_SB.PCI0.XHC)	Fx Device	100%	4:00:00

Is this expected? FWIW, I tend to leave the keyboard cover connected during sleep.

Sometimes (when the drain is at the high end of the range), I also see the following:

Intel(R) HD Graphics Family (\_SB.PCI0.GFX0)	Fx Device	100%	4:00:00

Interestingly, during the first few days I had the SP3, the graphics driver was appearing in every session of the sleep study report. More recently, though, it has stopped appearing. Recently I've been leaving the Surface at the start screen rather than the Desktop, so this may be related - is there a recommendation about coming out of the Desktop before going to "sleep"

I also never see anything in the "DRIPS histogram" - should I?

What are other people seeing?

On a related note, does anyone know if there is a way of changing the time before the machine hibernates? For me, 2 hours (or even 1 hour) would probably be fine - if I'm actively going from one office to another, then the "instant" resume is great, but if I'm at home, leaving the machine for a while, then 4 hours is overkill.

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82 answers

Anonymous

2014-10-06T07:54:11+00:00

Interesting stuff...

I'm don't think desktop Skype can be the only culprit, sadly, as I didn't have it installed until very recently (yet still saw the xHCI controller issue). That said, I do have VoIP phone software installed - I wonder whether there could be some interaction with the camera and/or headset which is causing the problem.

I'm wary of going down the refresh route (not least as this is a corporate PC, reinstalled with Windows Enterprise so I'm not even sure if a refresh is possible). It'll be interesting if your probably comes back or goes away, though.

FWIW - before I left work on Friday, I rebooted the machine and then put it straight into sleep (after, admittedly, both Skype and my VoIP app had started). I lost only 10% over the weekend (but, again, the culrprit was the xHCI controller running for 100% of the sleep time).

I'll try again tonight, but without starting the VoIP app, or Skype.
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Anonymous

2014-10-05T19:07:55+00:00

I might have found the culprit .. it seems like when I have Skype (desktop) running during the connected standbay, it drains a lot of battery with USB xHCI Compliant Host Controller (\_SB.PCI0.XHC) being active 100%. I just closed Skype and put it to sleep, and it was fine. I'm not 100% sure, but I will try several more times and report.
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Anonymous

2014-10-02T23:57:56+00:00

Whatever I tried, I could not fix this so this morning I refreshed my Surface Pro 3. I lost almost all the installed programs, but it seems the battery drain issue during sleep is fixed. It barely loses 1% battery over 1 hour sleep, and USB xHCI Compliant Host Controller (\_SB.PCI0.XHC) is active for 0% of time.

Also, I noticed that when not plugged in, Surface Pro 3 started lowering the screen brightness without any input for several minutes. I think it is a normal behavior, but before refreshing, I have never seen it doing it. So my guess is the refreshing fixed something.
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Anonymous

2014-10-02T08:12:02+00:00

I'm not running Cisco AnyConnect, no - we are running Microsoft's DirectAccess on our Enterprise machines, though.

I'm not sure what the power settings above are intended to do - I want my SP 3 to hibernate after 4 hours (and it does). Do the settings above change that behaviour?

[Actually, I'd probably be happy with hibernation after 2 hours if it saved battery overnight - I reckon 2 hours is enough to cover the case where I leave the machine during a meeting or lunch and want it to be "instant on" again; after 2 hours I'm clearly doing something else (like sleeping) so having to wait the extra 20s for it to come out of hibernate is not a problem.]
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Anonymous

2014-10-02T01:03:47+00:00

Are any of you running Cisco AnyConnect? We see huge battery drains when AnyConnect is installed where after an overnight sleep session, there will be like 35% battery remaining. When it's not installed we still see the battery drain down to about 75%. This is better, but not as good as the retail install on Win8.1 on the SP3. I too was just given the powercfg settings noted above to try as the retail SP3 goes into hibernate after x amount of time (probably 4 hours). We are not setting these settings in our Enterprise image (yet).
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