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
    2016-08-24T05:59:55+00:00

    My frustration with Microsoft over this wasn't that there was an issue, it was that they weren't communicating to us effectively on the issue. Requiring us to pay $99 to talk to them was even more frustrating, and I eventually filed a report through my state's Consumer Protection Division.  NC has a pretty strong one and they tend to go to bat pretty quickly.

    I was contacted by Global Escalation services last week, who has been working on my case.  I am not going to post the exact contents of the email as I am not sure how much he was supposed to tell me, but here are the things I learned.

    1. This is a software issue (we have been told this)
    2. The patch is in final QA, and is expected within one week
    3. Because the issue has been positively identified as software, the new guidance is to NOT do out of warranty replacements anymore. This guidance has been passed down to the Microsoft Stores. (I assume the previous guidance as to allow out of warranty replacements for very frustrated customers... because this was what the escalation team thought they could do)
    4. He freely admitted frustration with how Microsoft was handling this situation, and that effective communication would have likely gotten in front of this issue. He made it sound like they knew earlier, but couldn't publicly comment on the issue.

    I have agreed to let my case pause for a week to give them time to get the firmware fix out and see if that resolves my issue.

    Hello guys

    I do believe this is a Firmware problem reporting to the OS wrng capacity.

    https://www.microsoft.com/surface/en-us/support/install-update-activate/pro-3-update-history?os=windows-10&=undefined

    The update from System Firmware Update – 7/21/2016 touches the battery firmware and my battery report points that starting there, precisely there, the capacity starts to drop and now I cant keep the device unplugged for more than 5m. I have the surface pro 3, i7 8gb, 256ssd and yes I have the old dock (not this new small box one that was released with surface pro 4).

    Since this is a firmware update there no way to revert it (at least not us) and Microsoft CAN and SHOULD fix it with another firmware update. I saw that there is one released August 1st but that doesn't made any difference. Again, unless you really know it is a battery dead issue, it MUST be fixed by Microsoft with another firmware updare and since its a firmware, you can't uninstall it and doesn't matter if you reset to factory setting(or format it). If there was a driver problem, remove and install an old version would work but that is not the case.

    For the MSFT, Blue Badge and Vendors here specially from the product or the support engineering teams, when are we going to have a formal position about it?

    Its a premium product that cost a lot for most of people and not to mention the marketing made by comparing to macbooks... At least Apple when has a problem with the hardware they exchange in-store for a new not a refurbished even out of warranty if there is a defect on the product without charge!

    I hope this "fix" comes... otherwise more one will be have to sue MS, again...

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-08-24T05:52:50+00:00

    HelloKridsada Thanabulpong,

    Thank you for reaching out to the Surface community. Sorry to hear you are having issues with your battery. If you do in fact have a hardware issue it would be a Warranty/Service related issue that you would have to contact Assisted Support to resolve if you do not have a Microsoft Store in your country. However, to try to determine what is going on with your Surface's battery please follow the troubleshooting steps in this link.

    Please reply with what steps you've tried and what the results were.

    Best Regards

    Really? The support barely know their names and where the start button is...

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-08-24T03:53:33+00:00

    I'd be interested to find out how they expect some of us to apply a fix (should one come) to a machine that won't boot up, due to lack of battery power?

    There are some posts earlier in this thread that suggest a SP4 charger with its higher wattage output can resuscitate bricked SP3s, but that hasn't been verified.  If it doesn't work, an SP4 charger would be an expensive, useless accessory.

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-08-24T03:51:08+00:00

    Don't think so. I'd expect that to have a firmware update part to it, too.

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