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

2016-08-08T16:28:21+00:00

Mine is at least not totally dead yet but same result. August 1 update does nothing for my simplo battery that is now reported at 380mwh. What a nightmare.
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Anonymous

2016-08-08T16:06:29+00:00

I just wanted to send you an update concerning my Surface Pro 3. It had been running at 144 mWh at full charge. The other day I upgraded the OS to the latest version on the Insider Fast Track. All went well, but the firmware update (8/1/2016) failed due to battery being at less than 40% charge. I tried again and the second time the firmware updated successfully. During the entire upgrade process the SP3 was connected to the stand alone charger since the docking station charger is too unpredictable. I continued working on the SP3 for 2 hours and then left it running. The next morning when I went to the SP3 it was off and refused to start. The detachable keyboard would not light up. It did not respond to the power button or the power button with the up volume held down. I have tried each day to get the SP3 to work, but it is now completely dead. I know Microsoft believes the problem to be a software issue, but at this point there is no way to boot the SP3. The cord of the standalone charger does light up when attached to the SP3 and when the power button of the SP3 is pushed the light will blink once 30 seconds later. Hopefully Microsoft has a plan for rebooting the effected computers that are now completely dead in order to install the new software.

I suspect we have already seen the response we are going to get....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOXtWxhlsUg
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Anonymous

2016-08-08T16:00:50+00:00

Yes you're right. I did see my review getting published online after an email confirmation, but looks like it got taken down. They aren't censoring 1 star reviews in general, just only 1 starred reviews with battery issues. I did see a 2 star review that points to this link.
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Anonymous

2016-08-08T15:57:39+00:00

At least MacBooks last that long! Tweet him with #BatteryGate & maybe he'll do something (I don't hold out much hope though)
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