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

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments
Answer accepted by question author
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.

Was this answer helpful?

100+ people found this answer helpful.
0 comments

1,459 additional answers

Sort by: Newest
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2016-07-27T09:18:37+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.

    Thank you for the update, although I would like to know why it took this long to acknowledge the problem here, and really hope this can be resolved through a software update.

    While not affected I would hope Microsoft will be compensating all those who paid the $99 for support and in particular anyone who has paid $450 to get the issue fixed.

    Look forward to the "fix" which hopefully arrives soon.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2016-07-27T01:44:30+00:00

    Hi, The model of the battery is behind the stand... see below.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2016-07-26T23:38:36+00:00

    Why would the SIMPLO batteries have this problem and need a software fix but not the LG ones?

    That's the part that I am having a tough time figuring out myself. 

    Granted, I don't know a lot about the intricacies of battery charging circuitry/software, but the sloping decline rather than immediate dropoff sounds more like a battery chemistry issue than a software/firmware issue. I guess it is possible the SIMPLO batteries give a false-positive voltage leveling off that the LGs do not? Who knows.

    But I shall stay tuned to find out where this goes.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2016-07-26T23:01:01+00:00

    Why would the SIMPLO batteries have this problem and need a software fix but not the LG ones?

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments