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
    2016-08-01T21:48:47+00:00

    Turned on my Surface pro 3 after a week of not using it and the battery is all screwed up. My surface basically turns off if I unplug it now. Awesome!

    Hope this gets fixed really soon.

    NAME X898289
    MANUFACTURER SIMPLO
    SERIAL NUMBER
    CHEMISTRY LION
    DESIGN CAPACITY 42,157 mWh
    FULL CHARGE CAPACITY 600 mWh
    CYCLE COUNT 48
    2016-04-24 - 2016-05-02 42,583 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-05-02 - 2016-05-09 42,583 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-05-09 - 2016-05-15 42,583 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-05-15 - 2016-05-25 41,816 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-05-25 - 2016-05-29 35,485 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-05-29 - 2016-06-05 30,240 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-06-05 - 2016-06-12 27,587 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-06-12 - 2016-06-19 22,871 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-06-19 - 2016-06-26 18,841 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-06-26 - 2016-07-03 15,234 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-07-03 - 2016-07-10 12,050 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-07-10 - 2016-07-17 7,487 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-07-17 - 2016-07-24 4,726 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-07-25 3,610 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-07-26 3,610 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-07-27 3,610 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-07-28 3,610 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-07-29 3,610 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-07-30 3,610 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-07-31 3,610 mWh 42,157 mWh

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-08-01T20:54:34+00:00

    Good thoughtful summary Circusfreak... Some updates from MSFT will go a long way in showing us that they care for the user community. For me personally, the first time I noticed that something was horribly wrong was wen my SP3 went dead in the middle of presenting to client's executive leadership. So that hurt. A LOT!

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-08-01T19:53:06+00:00

    Same issue here.

    Contacted support today. Good news is they appear to have gotten the message regarding the product defect. The bad news is when you mention this issue, the phone call gets really weird (very evasive) and ultimately still not helpful.

    Support seemed to be under the impression that this issue started with an update that came out in the last couple weeks. So when I mentioned that my battery had been losing capacity since may, they felt like my issue did not match the problem statement for the corrective update they were going to push - which concerns me.

    Basically they said:

             1. They cannot help me because I’m out of warranty (2 months, nothing strange there)

             2. -IF- I am impacted by this issue, then the solution will be in a forthcoming update, no ETA or details on said update. So… it’s cross your fingers??

    I appreciate the support forum moderator acknowledging the issue and communicating some initial status. I would encourage continued transparency and updates on the progress to it's customers. A great start would be providing a time frame for the update.

    Installed batteries

    Information about each currently installed battery

    NAME X898289
    MANUFACTURER SIMPLO
    SERIAL NUMBER 1165695492
    CHEMISTRY LION
    DESIGN CAPACITY 42,157 mWh
    FULL CHARGE CAPACITY 3,162 mWh
    CYCLE COUNT 208

    Battery capacity history

    Charge capacity history of the system's batteries

    2016-04-17 - 2016-04-24 42,225 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-04-24 - 2016-05-01 42,358 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-05-01 - 2016-05-08 41,656 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-05-08 - 2016-05-15 37,318 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-05-15 - 2016-05-22 33,273 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-05-22 - 2016-05-29 29,292 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-05-29 - 2016-06-05 28,981 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-06-05 - 2016-06-12 31,031 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-06-12 - 2016-06-19 28,572 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-06-19 - 2016-06-26 24,907 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-06-26 - 2016-07-03 20,600 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-07-03 - 2016-07-10 16,386 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-07-10 - 2016-07-17 11,801 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-07-18 9,288 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-07-19 8,589 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-07-20 8,168 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-07-21 7,755 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-07-22 7,030 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-07-23 6,574 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-07-24 6,574 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-07-25 5,969 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-07-26 4,993 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-07-27 4,993 mWh 42,157 mWh
    2016-07-28 4,589 mWh 42,157 mWh

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-08-01T19:29:06+00:00

    Just to keep things in perspective here, I know we are all waiting very anxiously to get this issue fixed and get our Surfaces back to good working condition. But, I think we need to assume MSFT is going to get it taken care of, and 

    keep the anger and accusations to a minimum. 

    • It's been 6 days since we heard that they know about the issue and are going to fix it. 
    • Random support people and staff at MS stores might not know much if anything about the issue yet, which is why people are continuing to get the "canned responses" about "here's how to maximize battery life, etc."
    • There is 0% chance this is a "planned obsolescence" move by MS, as bricking devices this early into their life would effectively decimate their ability to keep their hardware in the market in the future.
    • Since Greg said they are working on it, there has been no communication to the contrary saying we are indeed all going to be out of luck and have to pay for replacement.
    • We don't know the complexity of the fix. These things don't roll out overnight.

    So, I am playing devil's advocate here, mostly because I love my SP3 so much, and I am hoping MS hooks us up. I wish there would be more frequent communication from the official MS reps, but I have no reason at this point to think it won't get resolved. But it would be very nice if some more details would be shared about an ETA or at least a status of where they are in the investigation process. 

    MS, let's hear some chatter here PLEASE! You have a stack of unhappy SP3 users and a little communication will go a LONG way in this case!

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