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
    2016-08-03T06:14:12+00:00

    I couldn't agree more with your sentiments. It's meeting frustrating to get stuck a response which clearly shows ignorance and a lack of caring to even have a small idea or understanding of what it's being discussed and what the actual issue it's... One that obviously has no chance to correct very much not limited issue. It makes me wonder if Microsoft has any effective level of internal communication for a support agent to respond in sick an sounds way. How can anyone with MS support not be aware of this issue at this point!

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-08-03T05:46:40+00:00

    And just an FYI: After installing these two updates (and I'm not sure which one did it) but I can no longer see my past battery history when I run the powercfg /batteryreport; so backup your reports if you want them for reference.

    I noticed this happening too after updating. Something to keep in mind in case people want to preserve some evidence of this rapid degradation.

    As for the other posters noting that the surface pro 3 is using more power than the charger can supply, I've had a hunch that was happening too. It seems worse with the dock so I've been using the regular power cord. Unfortunate to see that I can't even use my dock anymore since it literally shuts down after logging in while docked.

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-08-03T03:28:31+00:00

    HelloKridsada Thanabulpong,

    Thank you for reaching out to the Surface community. Sorry to hear you are having issues with your battery. If you do in fact have a hardware issue it would be a Warranty/Service related issue that you would have to contact Assisted Support to resolve if you do not have a Microsoft Store in your country. However, to try to determine what is going on with your Surface's battery please follow the troubleshooting steps in this link.

    Please reply with what steps you've tried and what the results were.

    Best Regards

    If you're going to bother to reply, please don't patronize us with the standard response to the useless links that just waste our time and resolve nothing and to suggest a warranty fix that out of warranty devices would require payment for, when the issue is a defect that should require a bugfix or recall, not a warranty.

    What people want to know is: -

    1. Is this something Microsoft can fix with a firmware or software upgrade?
    2. How could we possibly apply an upgrade when a charged battery is required?
    3. Are Microsoft going to continue to play dumb on this issue, or are they in the process of coding a fix?
    4. Will the batteries ever recover?
    5. Is Microsoft simply going to weigh the cost of a fix, against the cost of the bad reputation this will forever plague the surface brand with and against the cost of an inevitable class action lawsuit?
    6. Should we wait for Microsoft to actually do something, or should we all just register our surface pros with the lawyers that are preparing litigation, like the one below, mentioned on this thread, several times?

    http://www.classlawdc.com/2016/07/26/migliaccio-rathod-llp-investigates-microsoft-surface-pro-3-battery-failures/

    Unless you intend to actually answer a legitimate question instead of blowing smoke up our collective a$$e$, please refrain from further patronizing some very pissed off customers!!!

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-08-03T02:08:31+00:00

    I'm in the same boat. Shuts off the second I remove power. In the docking station it will not keep up with the power demand. I have to keep the screen brightness on 0% or else it will randomly shut off when the power demand gets to be more than the docking station is capable of.

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