Surface Pro 3 battery degradation

Anonymous

I've been using Microsoft Surface Pro 3 for a year, and shortly after the warranty expired I noticed my Surface Pro 3 can only last about 1-2 hours after a full charge. At first I thought this was a problem with background process draining the battery so I disabled everything running in the background. It didn't helped. Then I found out about the powercfg utility and run powercfg /batteryreport on it, and this was the result:

A full charge capacity has degraded by over 80% in just few weeks and continue degrading. I tried to "recalibrate" the battery by doing full charge then full drain multiple times, and it didn't helped. Talk with Microsoft via chat support and they insist this was a software problem and reinstalled the driver and asked me to wait few days to see if things improve. Not only it didn't improved, but now my Surface can only last 30 minutes.

Few days after chat (today), I called Microsoft support and they were being extremely unhelpful. Insist that this was a software problem (which the chat support person already did) and it's "perfectly normal" for battery capacity to degrade. I insist that I've already done the software "fixes" and it didn't work and tell them this is definitely hardware problem, but the person on the phone tell me there's nothing I could do except to order the out of warranty exchange (which cost about $560 in my local currency).

Is there anything else I should do? My country has no Microsoft Store which I could take the machine for them to take a look. Phone/online support were the only option, and none of them could understand the issue.

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Answer accepted by question author

Anonymous

Hello everyone,

Thanks for your continued patience here. We have now completed our testing of the update and it has passed our quality assurance process.

The update, “System Firmware Update - 8/29/2016”, is now available to install from Windows Update.

Before installing this update, ensure that your Surface Pro 3 is plugged directly in to AC power using the standard AC power adapter (do not use the Surface Docking Station), disconnect any USB devices or external monitors, and check that Windows shows a 40% charge or greater when you hover over the icon in the taskbar before you begin.

Once you install the update, please select Restart now (do not shutdown). After your Surface restarts, please manually restart it a second time to complete the process. For more information, please see our Surface Pro 3 Battery FAQ article.

If you’re having trouble charging your Surface, you get a low-battery error, or your Surface turns off when you unplug it, the steps in our Surface battery won’t charge article can help you pinpoint the problem. Should you need any further assistance, please contact us.

Thanks again.

Greg

Updated 8/29/16.

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1,459 additional answers

Anonymous

2016-10-17T17:19:48+00:00

My small company has purchased at least 10 Surfaces since they came out (mix of original, SurfaceBooks, 2, 3, all PRO). At least three of the most recent batch of S3Ps have had significant battery issues. No problems with the other versions.

One user had it get so hot it almost burned her hand, wouldn't shut down, had to hold power button.

Another user has had to use the power + volume up buttons trick to get it to start several times.

One user has the same "Plugged In, Not Charging" shuts off immediately when unplugged battery problem.

We have followed all the recommended, updates, firmware, Restart now, do they hokey pokey . . . still having problems with batteries.

These should be recalled.
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Anonymous

2016-10-16T23:57:27+00:00

My cycle count has been going up by 7 and the battery has been losing capacity.

I purchased my Surface Pro 3 in January 2015 with the extended warranty. It has a SIMPLO battery. I've always questioned the battery capacity and sometimes during charging it would just stop somewhere at 90-99% and just sit there "not charging". I would have to disconnect and reconnect to power to get it to charge again. I mostly use it on my desktop with it plugged into the original Surface Pro 3 docking station and my battery appeared to be degrade but not as bad as many reported here (probably because of me using it on power most of the time) After the battery fix firmware of 09/30/16 was applied, i noticed that my cycle count is rising rapidly. I had about 75 cycles from January 2015-August 2016..now i have about 150 and it has doubled less than 2 months.

My Surface Pro 3 also has the "20% cpu" systems & interrupts problem related to the Realtek HD audio drivers. When in the docking station at boot, it uses 20% cpu all the time. I have to reboot to clear that problem.

Really sorry I invested $1500 or so in this machine.
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Anonymous

cycle count went up after it was shut off for awhile

COMPUTER NAME	DESKTOP-CB9PEME
SYSTEM PRODUCT NAME	Microsoft Corporation Surface Pro 3
BIOS	3.11.1550 06/30/2016
OS BUILD	10586.633.amd64fre.th2_release.161004-1602
PLATFORM ROLE	Slate
CONNECTED STANDBY	Supported
REPORT TIME	2016-10-14 10:31:38

Installed batteries

Information about each currently installed battery

NAME	X898289
MANUFACTURER	SIMPLO
SERIAL NUMBER	1166416388
CHEMISTRY	LION
DESIGN CAPACITY	42,157 mWh
FULL CHARGE CAPACITY	33,752 mWh
CYCLE COUNT	93

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