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
    2016-08-04T12:36:27+00:00

    We have 3 Surface 3 Pro here all with Simplo Batteries all bought around the same time. I have checked every one and mine is the only one having the issue. the other two show no signs off it their battery reports show their batteries are preforming a little above spec.

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-08-04T12:13:00+00:00

    Hi, I strapped an icepack to the back of mine - but still could not get more than a few minutes running.

    After the stage where it reboots when running the GPU/FAN it has another stage where it won't get past POST.

    I stuffed mine in the freezer at that point for a few minutes and luckily got it to start up one last time to get the local data off to USB stick - be careful not to run chrome or and app that taxes the CPU.

    I also found I had to unplug the keyboard and Mouse to save their power drain, had the screen on 0% brightness.

    I tried using an external monitor with the tablet monitor off but that didn't help

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-08-04T11:58:14+00:00

    Hi Barb,

    You can add me to the growing list of SP3 owners with a dead Simplo battery.  As with others, it started failed right after the warranty was up and progressed rapidly to turning off immediately when unplugged.  It's an i7.  Here's the part of the battery report showing when the capacity dropped.

    Installed batteries

    Information about each currently installed battery

    NAME X898289
    MANUFACTURER SIMPLO
    SERIAL NUMBER 1163598340
    CHEMISTRY LION
    DESIGN CAPACITY 42,157 mWh
    FULL CHARGE CAPACITY 144 mWh
    CYCLE COUNT 165
    2016-03-27 - 2016-04-03 33,446 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-04-03 - 2016-04-10 28,553 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-04-10 - 2016-04-17 23,690 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-04-17 - 2016-04-24 22,894 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-04-24 - 2016-05-01 18,903 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-05-01 - 2016-05-08 16,380 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-05-08 - 2016-05-15 8,059 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-05-15 - 2016-05-22 6,061 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-05-22 - 2016-05-29 2,878 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-05-29 - 2016-06-05 1,544 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-06-05 - 2016-06-12 263 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-06-12 - 2016-06-19 143 mWh 42,154 mWh
    2016-06-19 - 2016-06-26 144 mWh 42,157 mWh

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-08-04T09:25:04+00:00

    Is yours an i7 or which SKU?

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