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
    2016-08-08T16:59:09+00:00

    Strange how they can assign resource to moderating unfavourable reviews but not to keeping existing customers with faulty equipment informed of progress.

    Commercial suicide.

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-08-08T16:57:59+00:00

    So I've been using the process outlined by juanmac way back on page 15 (running the battery to almost dead and then recharging), and I have seen my battery recover quite a bit since then. I haven't been able to do this every day, but I do it as much as I can.

    Back then my battery was somewhere around 18,500 mWh, and now it is at 27,672 mWh. I plan on keeping doing this as much as I can to see if I can get it right back to 42,157 mWh.

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-08-08T16:47:11+00:00

    I reached out to the law firm. They replied asking basic info like when and where I purchased it, how much, the state I lived in when purchasing it and now, and my phone number.

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-08-08T16:38:29+00:00

    To the person who was able to receive store credit from Best Buy for their out of warranty SP3, would you mind sharing the BB store location?

    My friend and I went to a local BB store here in Northern California and they had no clue but did ask which BB store had this "recall" going. They wanted to call for more information.

    If we can get some more information on this BB recall, that would be great.

    Thank you.

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