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
    2016-08-23T14:53:31+00:00

    I used to be Microsoft and Windows fan, in fact, I even worked for MSFT as an engineer in the past... Last year in March I bought top of the line SP3 for 1.7k $. I thought that thing will last 4-6 years and will be properly supported by MS.

    My battery capacity today is 7,820 mWh, and it halved in two days. It was at 42,583 mWh just a few weeks ago. I hope it doesn't reach the point where I cannot boot it up.

    I also hope Microsoft finally fixes the issue (just 4 months or so after it was reported) and the battery does work again as expected (Li-ion ones degrade only 5-10% per year). I would be beyond angry if my 1.7k$ purchase will be worthless 18 months later.

    This was my last Windows related purchase, all my future computers will be Macs (majority of my computers at home are Macs anyway, just wanted to give the last chance to MS/Windows team/Panos/etc. with my SP3 purchase).

    Windows is so clunky in 2016 compared to everything else - try pairing a bluetooth mouse, merge all 'networks' the OS creates for no good reason to make them 'private' or figuring out why suddenly you can't connect to RDP from work (hint, Windows probably decided that your home network is suddenly a 'new' network and made it 'Public'.. and oh dear, of course you can't connect to RDP port in public because... the protocol, encryption and authentication is... ****?)

    Anyway... so long Microsoft.

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-08-23T13:49:47+00:00

    Someone should write this up and publish on Linkedin, now that MSFT has taken them over...

    Don't know which word describes Miscrosoft's actions better: shady, unprofessional, amateur, dishonest, simply incompetent or what?

    Think I'll just stick with DISGUSTING and will highlight that in my product reviews and personal recommendations.

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-08-23T13:43:53+00:00

    Wow, the iFixit teardown looks painful.  Thanks for pointing me to the site.  I hope the fix by MS does not require a battery change...  :). 

    I have a very old hard drive (40MB) without a cover, from the early years of computers on display in my bookshelf, so worse case, the SP3 will be a paper weight next to the hard drive.  I will include the price so my grandchildren can have a laugh...

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-08-23T13:00:06+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.

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