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
    2016-08-02T12:54:58+00:00

    top of page 2

    AN

    AndyD311 replied on

    I bought my pro 3  from PC world in  sept 2014 ,i rarely used it only when away from home

    Feb  this year i had the not charging  90% battery but every time i took the charger off it died 

    went through all the steps with the support and was told it was battery failure and would have to have it replaced out of warranty  for £260

    they then told me I should  take it back to the shop under EU legislation it should be guaranteed for at least 2 years under faulty goods act

    i went into PC world who fobbed me off and told me i had to contact head office about out of warranty

    I contacted PC world by phone and they got back to me an hour later and told me they do not repair tablets and i had to take it to a shop for repair and they would pay the bill 

    I contacted a computer shop and was told its a sealed unit and they would not  attempt to replace the battery 

    I phoned PC world the next day and got a different person in the dept who told me he has had a few problems with them and yes its a sealed unit and can only be fixed properly by replacing the unit , he then told me his manager was out and would speak to him about making me an  offer 

    he phoned back 15 mins later and offered me £532  as i had already had 18 months usage from it 

    I took their offer  

     I still have the pro3 but when i contacted microsoft about a replacment  the price had gone up to £400  only a week later and its only 3 month warranty with the replacement  

    same thing could happen in 6 months time  as i had very little usage on it maybe 3 or 4 times for about 3 weeks at a time   

    I can still use it when its plugged in so have not replaced it yet

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-08-02T12:49:44+00:00

    To save some people a little time in reading the 40 previous pages, I think we can sum up the thread thus far as :

    "More Bricks, No Fix"

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-08-02T12:42:59+00:00

    First off - an apology as I haven't managed read through the whole 40+ pages on here but I can see that there is still no resolution to the issue.  I have just logged a support ticket SRX1349598529ID with Anna from the online support team via the link from UK support. Is there a list of incidents numbers that can be collated into a problem case?

    Anna's only suggestion to my problem (full battery shows ~10Wh and is clearly still declining) is a warranty replacement at GBP333.33.

    Given my device is ~15 months old and is effectively  no longer fit for purpose, I would expect it to be covered by the Sale of Goods Act in the UK that specifically states that goods should last a 'reasonable time' from purchase. This will mean finding the retailer who sold the device to me and pressing them for a replacement. Obviously this will just go back to Microsoft so it is in their interest to take a view on this, either to fix the problem with the batteries or to sort an appropriate replacement.

    Has anyone on this forum  had the experience of doing this in the UK?

    Also, the customer service rep, clearly following the options laid out for her sent me an email to raise a complaint to the legal department that means I need to write an actual physical letter to Microsoft. In order to speed my complaint, it would be useful to have an email address - does anyone have an email address for Microsoft's legal, marketing or PR departments in the UK or do I just have to email Satya?

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-08-02T12:38:17+00:00

    This was a promising fix, but it did not help my Surface recover.  I'm down to 144mWh Full Charge Capacity.

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