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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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

2016-08-11T09:21:51+00:00

I have the same problem on my Surface Pro 3 with an LGC-LGC battery. Degradation started in June 2016. The full charge capacity is now 14,387 mWh against ~41,000 mWh in early June and ~22,000 mWh a week ago.
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Anonymous

2016-08-11T06:41:04+00:00

okay. so does this means that the reported over 40,000 mWh doesn't really mean anything since it's just a number and it won't last long as well? that will worry us even more. but in some SIMPLO batteries it's probably just an indicative as some when it goes down to 400 mWh only, it just can last few minutes which some users reported that happen.

73 cycles are really pretty bad to get such a low usage....

Well I think it's all about business for them only, after get the profit, then say goodbye and launch even newer product if they have.

so i think LGC batteries are similarly affected as well, and the battery will run down fully after sometime...

i tried the ways that some users have used in this thread to get back the design capacity, but i don't seem able to get back, everytime i used the battery and charge it back, the full charged capacity seems to be keep dropping and dropping and dropping. it's just a matter of time before it goes down to the minimum
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Anonymous

2016-08-11T06:34:52+00:00

My LGC LGC reports over 40000 mWh after 73 cycles. However in practice it works only for 1.5 - 2 hours, while I only use a spreadsheet and some Internet. That is pretty bad because I didn't use the Surface often. That is the reason I searched Internet and found this forum.

From this forum and other forums in the Microsoft community (for instance Regedit crashing, Windows live mail not supporting Hotmail any longer!) it is clear that MS doesn't care about their customers at all. Also the battery issue seems related to software, which is Microsofts core business! They should take pride in solving software issues promptly and delighting their customers who pay their salaries, rather than have this arrogant attitude.
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Anonymous

2016-08-11T06:06:29+00:00

anyone with LGC LGC batteries facing the same issues???

There are some owners reporting this with LGC batteries but the majority are Simplo batteries. We don't know how many SP3's have been sold or what the ratio of LGC to Simplo batteries are so it's possible these few LGC batteries are just random failures rather than directly related to the battery degradation.

Wouldn't it be great if Microsoft were actively responding to people asking these questions?

I emailed Satya Nadella yesterday so maybe that will get some attention even if I don't receive a direct response. People in the Surface division should be getting fired over these multiple generations of Surface issues.
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