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
    2016-08-03T01:53:23+00:00

    Microsoft fixing the problem or not, this will be my last MS branded PC and my last tablet whoever the vendor is. I thought this would be a capable device judging from the specs, but you never know that such ridiculous problems can happen.

    What's worse, I purchased the surface for it's mobility because I travel overseas quite often to provide support to our clients - only to find that the device cannot see WiFi channels beyond 11 - so it is basically limited to use within the US. I had to plug-in a USB wifi dongle to the only usb port the device has to use the internet while overseas. Within 5 days my battery will die and I will need an external battery pack as well. This is much more hassle than using a proper laptop.

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-08-03T00:37:32+00:00

    Yes at last, someone that see this problem as I do. The surface pro 3 uses more power than the charger can supply so it becomes a brick.

    Cant use it however it is pluged in to the mains.

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-08-02T23:28:09+00:00

    It's interesting your battery report shows 32k mWh capacity yet the device turns off immediately upon unplugging. Makes wonder if the "recovery" reported by other users were for real or just the system reporting a fake number.

    I can confirm that the "plugged in not charging" problem, which is not new, is related to the battery degradation. 

    So yesterday after the firmware update, I used the battery to 86% (from 16,621 mWh down to 14,303 mWh), then plugged in to charge it. Encountered the classic "95%, plugged in not charging" problem, where the battery capacity stuck at 15,793 mWh.

    Upon rebooting, the system reports 15,793 mWh as 100%.

    I am guessing that Microsoft faked a fix for the "plugged in not charging" problem by changing the algorithm so that at whatever level the battery refuses to take any more charge, call it 100% charged. The "software issue" that Greg mentioned could be because he knows about that. (Sorry Greg, if Microsoft doesn't want to communicate with the community effectively, all we can do is guessing the cause).

    10:15:01 Active Battery 100 % 16,621 mWh
    10:20:49 Active AC 86 % 14,303 mWh
    10:50:19 Active Battery 95 % 15,793 mWh
    10:50:27 Active AC 95 % 15,793 mWh
    10:58:13 Active Battery 95 % 15,793 mWh
    10:59:21 Suspended 95 % 15,793 mWh
    11:05:20 Active AC 100 % 15,793 mWh

    I also noticed that when I manipulate some 3D CAD models, the battery will drain even the computer is plugged in. Seems the charger cannot keep up with the demand from the CPU and GPU.

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-08-02T21:58:02+00:00

    Hi,

    I'm having issues with my Surface Pro 3 not running unless plugged in. If I unplug the power cord, the Surface dies immediately... no shutdown process, nothing. It's like yanking the cord from the system. My power icon shows "99% (plugged in, not charging)". When going through the troubleshooting steps, one time, my power icon showed "No battery detected". But after another restart, it started showing "99% (plugged in, not charging)" again. I have the LGC-LGC battery. I recently installed Windows 10. I'm recently out of warranty as well.

    I realize that I do not have a SIMPLO battery. However, the issue may apply to other SP3 batteries as well. I'm throwing my data into the pile to allow MSFT to fix the bugs better.

    It seems like a lot of people are waiting for MSFT to release some updates to the SP firmware and Win10 OS. This includes me. I'll be going into the MSFT Store tomorrow morning. I'll update, if I hear any enlightening news. Please don't make us hold our breaths too long MSFT!!

    Thank you in advance for any help provided!!

    Please see my powercfg battery report below (removed some rows in the middle when it seems like everything was working fine... otherwise, this post would be too large):

    Installed batteries

    Information about each currently installed battery

    NAME X883815
    MANUFACTURER LGC-LGC
    SERIAL NUMBER 1157110020
    CHEMISTRY LION
    DESIGN CAPACITY 42,157 mWh
    FULL CHARGE CAPACITY 32,026 mWh
    CYCLE COUNT 330

    Usage history

    History of system usage on AC and battery

    2014-09-28 - 2014-10-06 24:13:53 32:19:22 21:17:04 30:58:49
    2014-10-06 - 2014-10-12 12:26:07 15:39:10 42:53:30 28:06:32
    2014-10-12 - 2014-10-19 9:00:08 24:14:24 46:34:42 44:24:39
    2014-10-19 - 2014-10-26 21:17:48 53:09:19 57:14:40 57:01:37
    ... then recently...<br><br><br>2016-05-30 - 2016-06-06 5:43:00 16:02:09 2:51:48 2:29:06
    2016-06-06 - 2016-06-13 7:47:44 24:13:13 4:24:37 9:16:35
    2016-06-13 - 2016-06-20 9:55:51 22:53:19 5:55:19 54:41:36
    2016-06-20 - 2016-06-27 6:57:14 41:16:23 8:45:08 16:17:18
    2016-06-27 - 2016-07-04 6:20:31 15:21:38 4:48:43 38:07:35
    2016-07-04 - 2016-07-11 4:36:15 22:38:46 5:01:20 75:01:28
    2016-07-11 - 2016-07-18 5:57:55 21:56:19 8:52:34 65:54:56
    2016-07-18 - 2016-07-25 4:48:25 4:50:28 3:10:55 74:36:39
    2016-07-26 - - 23:51:44 0:04:46
    2016-07-27 - - 11:43:50 12:05:49
    2016-07-28 - - 21:57:32 0:02:25
    2016-07-29 - - 22:22:40 -
    2016-07-30 - - 16:34:49 4:20:47
    2016-07-31 - - - -
    2016-08-01 - - 4:04:05 -

    Battery capacity history

    Charge capacity history of the system's batteries

    2014-09-28 - 2014-10-06 42,261 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2014-10-06 - 2014-10-12 42,580 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2014-10-12 - 2014-10-19 42,766 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2014-10-19 - 2014-10-26 42,726 mWh 42,157 mWh
    <br>... then recently...<br><br><br>2016-05-30 - 2016-06-06 32,026 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-06-06 - 2016-06-13 32,026 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-06-13 - 2016-06-20 32,026 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-06-20 - 2016-06-27 32,026 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-06-27 - 2016-07-04 32,026 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-07-04 - 2016-07-11 32,026 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-07-11 - 2016-07-18 32,026 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-07-18 - 2016-07-25 32,026 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-07-26 32,026 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-07-27 32,026 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-07-28 32,026 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-07-29 32,026 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-07-30 32,026 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-07-31 32,026 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-08-01 32,026 mWh 42,157 mWh

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