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
    2016-07-19T22:02:07+00:00

    I have a Surface Pro 3.  Of course it is outside its warranty period.

    I'm having a weird issue with my battery.  It's a Simplo battery.   The battery dies at night.  In the morning it won't even turn on.  It does this every night.   I don't seem to be having the issue that others are having where it won't hold a charge.  It just won't hold a charge at night.   The battery has no issue making it through the day.   I don't usually plug it in at night, but I never have.  Come 7 or 8PM the computer almost never gets turned on.

    I'm assuming something is scheduled to start up at night, but I'm not sure what it could be.  I'm going to try hibernating the computer or turning it off tonight to see if that makes a difference. 

    Any idea on what could be killing the battery so bad, but only at night?

    ![](http://fud.community.services.support.microsoft.com/Fud/FileDownloadHandler.ashx?fid=c9e0b61a-9efb-417a-aa4d-8fa3b7260914)![](http://fud.community.services.support.microsoft.com/Fud/FileDownloadHandler.ashx?fid=7d3be131-646f-442a-9093-5f755c958c0b)

    ![](http://fud.community.services.support.microsoft.com/Fud/FileDownloadHandler.ashx?fid=5cd72934-2dc2-4d16-bef2-10175b4baf24)

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-07-19T21:58:30+00:00

    My SP3 was purchased in late Nov. 2014 and has just started losing battery capacity since the end of May. It has lost 77% battery capacity in the last month and a half  Yesterday it took only 40 min for it to go from a full charge to shutdown doing only very minimal tasks.

    COMPUTER NAME CAROL

    SYSTEM PRODUCT NAME Microsoft Corporation Surface Pro 3

    BIOS 3.11.1150 12/09/2015

    OS BUILD 10586.494.amd64fre.th2_release_sec.160630-1736

    PLATFORM ROLE Slate

    CONNECTED STANDBY Supported

    REPORT TIME 2016-07-18 21:29:22

    Installed batteries

    Information about each currently installed battery

    BATTERY 1

    NAME        X898289

    MANUFACTURER SIMPLO

    SERIAL NUMBER 1161107972

    CHEMISTRY LION

    DESIGN CAPACITY 42,157 mWh

    FULL CHARGE CAPACITY 3,640 mWh

    CYCLE COUNT 218

    Battery capacity history

    Charge capacity history of the system's batteries

    PERIOD     FULL CHARGE CAPACITY DESIGN CAPACITY

    2015-11-14 39,953 mWh 42,157 mWh

    2015-11-15 - 2015-11-22 39,588 mWh 42,157 mWh

    2015-11-22 - 2015-11-29 39,813 mWh 42,157 mWh

    2015-11-29 - 2015-12-06 39,713 mWh 42,157 mWh

    2015-12-06 - 2015-12-13 39,504 mWh 42,157 mWh

    2015-12-13 - 2015-12-20 39,626 mWh 42,157 mWh

    2015-12-20 - 2015-12-27 39,730 mWh 42,157 mWh

    2015-12-27 - 2016-01-03 40,047 mWh 42,157 mWh

    2016-01-03 - 2016-01-10 40,009 mWh 42,157 mWh

    2016-01-10 - 2016-01-17 40,234 mWh 42,157 mWh

    2016-01-17 - 2016-01-24 40,187 mWh 42,157 mWh

    2016-01-24 - 2016-01-31 40,149 mWh 42,157 mWh

    2016-01-31 - 2016-02-07 40,267 mWh 42,157 mWh

    2016-02-07 - 2016-02-14 40,209 mWh 42,157 mWh

    2016-02-14 - 2016-02-21 40,327 mWh 42,157 mWh

    2016-02-21 - 2016-02-28 40,586 mWh 42,157 mWh

    2016-02-28 - 2016-03-06 40,436 mWh 42,157 mWh

    2016-03-06 - 2016-03-13 40,613 mWh 42,157 mWh

    2016-03-13 - 2016-03-20 40,556 mWh 42,157 mWh

    2016-03-20        40,440 mWh 42,157 mWh

    2016-03-20 - 2016-03-27 40,440 mWh 42,157 mWh

    2016-03-27 - 2016-04-03 41,124 mWh 42,157 mWh

    2016-04-03 - 2016-04-10 42,583 mWh 42,157 mWh

    2016-04-10 - 2016-04-17 42,583 mWh 42,157 mWh

    2016-04-17 - 2016-04-24 42,583 mWh 42,157 mWh

    2016-04-24 - 2016-05-02 42,479 mWh 42,157 mWh

    2016-05-02 - 2016-05-08 40,822 mWh 42,157 mWh

    2016-05-08 - 2016-05-15 40,996 mWh 42,157 mWh

    2016-05-15 - 2016-05-22 39,862 mWh 42,157 mWh

    2016-05-22 - 2016-05-29 39,862 mWh 42,157 mWh

    2016-05-29 - 2016-06-05 35,602 mWh 42,157 mWh

    2016-06-05 - 2016-06-12 26,371 mWh 42,157 mWh

    2016-06-12 - 2016-06-19 22,985 mWh 42,157 mWh

    2016-06-19 - 2016-06-26 16,119 mWh 42,157 mWh

    2016-06-26 - 2016-07-03 13,312 mWh 42,157 mWh

    2016-07-03 - 2016-07-10 10,302 mWh 42,157 mWh

    2016-07-11        10,169 mWh 42,157 mWh

    2016-07-12        10,169 mWh 42,157 mWh

    2016-07-13        10,169 mWh 42,157 mWh

    2016-07-14        10,169 mWh 42,157 mWh

    2016-07-15        10,169 mWh 42,157 mWh

    2016-07-16        10,169 mWh 42,157 mWh

    2016-07-17         9,681 mWh 42,157 mWh

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-07-19T21:34:21+00:00

    Mine too!! Battery lasts 25 minutes then starts the shutdown process.  Microsoft needs to fix this!!!

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-07-19T21:07:40+00:00

    Looks like Microsoft are starting to take notice according to this report:

    http://mspoweruser.com/many-surface-pro-3-customers-are-reporting-sudden-degrade-of-battery-life/

    Seems odd that they say to contact support, isn't that what we have been doing here on these forums and others by telephone?  Would have been nice if support had made a connection between all these common calls and escalated it without people being charged unnecessarily.

    Please keep posting your reports here.  The more voices the better as far as I'm concerned.

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