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
    2016-07-22T11:33:15+00:00

    Hi Robert, I noticed many people have started having this problem in March and April. I wonder if it's cause by the firmware update in January that relates to the battery driver (

    • Microsoft Surface ACPI-Compliant Control Method Battery driver update (v1.2.0.2) ensures correct surface driver is installed.)

    Maybe your hasn't been updated....just guessing out loud?

    How to check firmware updates

    http://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/5472-windows-update-history-view-windows-10-a.html

    Firmware updates

    http://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/5472-windows-update-history-view-windows-10-a.html

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-07-22T10:59:30+00:00

    Microsoft told the press that folks won't be charged $99 for this battery issue.

    Dispute the charge with your credit card company.

    __________________________________________________________________________________________________

    Barb

    MVP-Windows and Devices for IT

    My Blog - http://digitalmediaphile.com/

    Please mark as answered if this answers your question

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-07-22T10:51:14+00:00

    Does everyone have similar items shown in Device Manager under Batteries (you need to open the View menu and select "Show hidden devices").  The middle device below wasn't showing correctly (showed as "Unknown device") until I removed it and then checked for updates.  This is after installing the firmware released overnight.

    ![](http://fud.community.services.support.microsoft.com/Fud/FileDownloadHandler.ashx?fid=03525fd7-6a7e-4be2-b11c-4b020d105d17)

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-07-22T10:11:10+00:00

    Adding to juanmaq's observation, about a month ago I was able to get my Surface to last more than the estimated hours, as in it could last about ~3 hours despite the full charge capacity was around ~700 mWh at 80% charged. That was after I leave my Surface Pro unplugged for few weeks while I'm out of the country. I saw this behavior only once, and after that it start going back to the "normal" behavior. I've been trying to reproduce it, but no luck so far. I think and juanmaq's experience might suggest that this is more of a battery firmware's problem than a permanent damage (hopefully).

    Still, I really wish someone from Microsoft would at least come here and say "we're looking into it." They way they keep quiet about the problem only make sure everyone who is affected will never buy their products again. Which is a shame, because Surface hardware is quite nice.

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