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
    2016-08-03T18:54:13+00:00

    Add me to the list of disgruntled SP3 owners-- barely 1.5 years old and experiencing the same battery degradation as the rest of the folks.  Wondering how Microsoft can honestly say that only an "isolated few" are impacted?  I am by NO means a tech expert-- in fact, I had to search on how to run that battery report -- and what disturbs me is that my battery was actually experiencing issues back in early May (unbeknownst to me b/c I primarily use docking station)! The second I un-docked the SP3...battery drained to 80%.  

    I can understand that a battery will naturally degrade over time; however this situation is completely unacceptable.  Further, the means by which Microsoft is handling the situation is completely unacceptable-- where's the communication?  Simply posting that they "believe" this is a software fix while also not providing a timeline is absolutely ridiculous.  A corporation of this magnitude-- guarantee they have a full time staff monitoring forums and could craft a better response than what they've provided.  I'm sure it has to do with legal... 

    Needless to say, if they do not remedy the situation or provide information soon... they'll lose another loyal customer.

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-08-03T18:49:33+00:00

    Greg,

    I have been reading many different sites and threads with options to try for battery issues but nothing has resolved the problem so far. Reading through some of these posts I have not found the exact same problem I am experiencing but close to it. I have an SP3, i7 running Windows 10. About 2 weeks after the warranty expired on my device I noticed it does not show a battery anymore. It won't turn on unless plugged in but will run for about 5 minutes or so if I unplug it. Over the last 3 months it has shown the batter less than 10 times and below is a battery report I just pulled.

    I've done factory resets 4 times back to 8.1 and nothing has fixed the issue. I've tried removing the device/driver in device manager and again no luck. It would be one thing if this was the type of device end users could just replace the battery on, even if we had to pay for said battery, but that is not the case with this. We all have paid very good money for these devices and the amount of issues that have come with them are disturbing. I personally doubt that a software fix is going to take care of this problem, and knowing MS they will want to charge us for BatteryasaService and charge us monthly to pad their bottom line.

    ![](http://fud.community.services.support.microsoft.com/Fud/FileDownloadHandler.ashx?fid=f605ca04-db94-45da-8b24-c37990201211)

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-08-03T18:08:02+00:00

    thanks

    I tried all the steps  in march and then was told it was a dead battery by microsoft and to pay them £400 for a replacement with a 3 month warranty  

    just as well i never took them up on it as they would probably have sent me a simplo one

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-08-03T17:59:36+00:00

    thanks

     i would only  need a usb to ethernet hub  then as i require hardwired internet  as wifi is no good for me

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