Surface Pro 3 battery degradation

Anonymous

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.

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Anonymous

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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1,459 additional answers

Anonymous

2016-07-26T02:49:03+00:00

Honestly my usage was fine for a year, even with Windows 10. The system ran fine.. then over the period of about a month battery life plummeted... to the point now that the device doesn't work unless on AC power.

I am beyond frustrated with Microsoft's lack of communication on this.
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Anonymous

2016-07-26T02:19:21+00:00

I'll add my surface to the pool of bad batteries as well. I write this from my "fully charged" SP3 which has been on for 10 minutes. I now have 69% battery left, and it estimates my remaining time at 20 minutes. Let's hope MS can do something about this, as I have been nothing but happy with the functionality of this excellent machine overall. But this is just ridiculous.

Here is my battery capacity report:

![](http://fud.community.services.support.microsoft.com/Fud/FileDownloadHandler.ashx?fid=754d66e8-7e1c-48e1-b0e1-97f38315950b)
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Anonymous

2016-07-26T00:38:52+00:00

I'll add my voice as well. Just recently started seeing rapid discharge of battery. I ran the battery command, and sure enough I have the simplo battery as well. I find it unacceptable that Microsoft would charge to fix a massive battery issue they are facing. I hope that they will rectify this shortly, as now I will not be encouraging others to purchase a Microsoft product.

I've already gone to Amazon and rewrote my review on the MS Surface Pro 3 telling people NOT TO BUY THEM due to this battery issues and MS's inability to respond to this issue. They've had plenty of time to address this. Time to start spreading the news!

Couldn't agree more. This thread is well over two months old, time to start tightening the screws. I've put up with enough BS from a $1000+ tablet, whether it be a curving body, yellowing screen stripe, or stylus jitters, and I've been pleasant about it. Enough is enough.
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Anonymous

2016-07-25T23:37:43+00:00

I'll add my voice as well. Just recently started seeing rapid discharge of battery. I ran the battery command, and sure enough I have the simplo battery as well. I find it unacceptable that Microsoft would charge to fix a massive battery issue they are facing. I hope that they will rectify this shortly, as now I will not be encouraging others to purchase a Microsoft product.

I've already gone to Amazon and rewrote my review on the MS Surface Pro 3 telling people NOT TO BUY THEM due to this battery issues and MS's inability to respond to this issue. They've had plenty of time to address this. Time to start spreading the news!
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