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
    2016-08-02T09:22:30+00:00

    I wanted to add my experience to the growing list of victims in this mess. I don't like going on about negative things but this has been a bad enough experience, and a common one for others too it seems, that I feel the need to be vocal about it.

    I've had my SP3 for a year and a couple of months and the battery's been on a steep decline since May. I would barely get 30-40 minutes of use out of it disconnected, but now it shuts down immediately after I unplug the power even when the charge reads 100%. Plugging it back in shows that the battery's charge is at 0%.

    I've mainly had my SP3 in a docking station since the battery degradation became too great to use without being plugged in, but even then it's prone to shutting off with the slightest bit of mildly strenuous activity. When it's really bad my SP3 shuts down without the slightest warning while doing the simplest of things such as checking for updates. These outages while it's plugged in and supposedly charging are erratic. The only certainty is that it's getting worse. A battery report shows me that the full charge capacity is down to 1,968 mWh, a small fraction of the designed capacity of 42,157 mWh. Unsurprisingly it seems to be continuing its decline. At this rate I'll have a very expensive paperweight soon.

    This fiasco has been a complete and utter disappointment. I've been trying to be patient, but the continued decline in my SP3's battery is making it extremely difficult to get any work done. Cutting my losses and jumping ship sounds a lot more appealing with every passing day I have to spend wondering if my non-portable SP3's going to shut down in the middle of something important.

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-08-02T09:18:10+00:00

    I found fix for this problem.

    http://forums.windowscentral.com/microsoft-surface-pro-3/433863-surface-pro-3-battery-degradation-fix.html

    """**How to FIX:**For Two weeks use your surface only on charger. If you run your surface on battery, don't drain the battery under 85-90%! After two weeks you should see increase of your battery capacity.

    That's all :-)

    I'll hope you will be lucky as me, and you get your normal battery capacity back :-)

    Good luck!!"""

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-08-02T08:08:28+00:00

    When I first came across this discussion a couple of weeks back, I checked my battery status, and saw the decline setting in. The battery capacity was going down day by day over a month, until it hit something around 30,000 mWh.

    However, over the past five days, weirdly enough, the battery capacity seems to be going up! It is now at 35,386 mWh. Has anyone else experienced this too with the SIMPLO battery? I have 5 days left on my warranty, and am unsure if I should go and ask for a trade-in/replacement.

    Here are the relevant parts of the batteryreports generated:

    ![](http://fud.community.services.support.microsoft.com/Fud/FileDownloadHandler.ashx?fid=5ff61fbd-4dd9-4a95-ab16-296f3e2ec887)![](http://fud.community.services.support.microsoft.com/Fud/FileDownloadHandler.ashx?fid=1ed72df9-3414-4e74-a9d4-47a284e5b335)

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-08-02T07:44:36+00:00

    Based on our investigations we can confirm that it is not an issue with the battery cells, and we believe this is something that can be addressed via software.

    We’re working through the details of how we deliver that.

    Greg,

    I'm sure you are working on this so it would be nice if you could respond here each time new Surface Pro 3 firmware is released to clarify if this is the "fix" that we're all waiting for.  I don't feel that is asking much especially as each time we have to try and discover this on our own it results in even further degradation.

    Please, Greg, do not return to the wall of silence. All we ask is to be kept up to date on progress.

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