Surface Pro 3 battery degradation

Anonymous
2016-05-11T07:37:37+00:00

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.

Surface | Surface Pro | Power and battery

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Anonymous
2016-07-26T21:31:16+00:00

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. Anonymous
    2016-10-18T20:07:40+00:00

    My SP3 displays this same behavior with the fan...  Also, if I launch a movie or YouTube the device will shut down hard.  Good Luck

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-10-18T19:01:22+00:00

    I have the LGC battery.  I don't have a dock so that doesn't appear to be related.

    The fan ramp up issue is interesting.  I think that it may be related to a faulty temperature sensor where it is compensating for faulty readings.  So in the case of it shutting down while you're using it, it is reading higher than actual.  Similarly to the that, when starting up from hibernation the temp sensor is not reset and is starting at a higher number and the fan starts immediately and when then temp doesn't drop it accelerates until the system decides to shut off for fear of over heating.  Not until the system is hard rebooted or the power removed does the temperate sensor resets.

    Just a wild theory though.

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-10-18T18:46:08+00:00

    Which battery do you have? What about the Dock - this S3P that just died was using a dock - wonder if that could be a common denominator?

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-10-18T18:42:57+00:00

    I also have one other symptom that I have yet to see mentioned so maybe I'm the only one but if the system is being taxed a bit, the fan will ramp up and then eventually shutdown (not gracefully).

    Did you just jinx me? Just now, had the fan ramp up then Surface shutdown as if I had pulled the plug (but hadn't). Now although it's plugged in, it won't start anymore unless I do the volume + power button trick a few times.

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