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
    2016-09-29T14:42:32+00:00

    Battery report

    COMPUTER NAME SURFACEPRO
    SYSTEM PRODUCT NAME Microsoft Corporation Surface Pro 3
    BIOS 3.11.1450 05/27/2016
    OS BUILD 14393.0.amd64fre.rs1_release.160715-1616
    PLATFORM ROLE Slate
    CONNECTED STANDBY Supported
    REPORT TIME 2016-09-29 09:33:36

    Installed batteries

    Information about each currently installed battery

    NAME X898289
    MANUFACTURER SIMPLO
    SERIAL NUMBER 1167006212
    CHEMISTRY LION
    DESIGN CAPACITY 42,157 mWh
    FULL CHARGE CAPACITY 42,583 mWh
    CYCLE COUNT 237

    Recent usage

    Power states over the last 3 days

    2016-09-29 08:36:18 Active Battery 72 % 30,613 mWh
    08:38:25 Suspended 70 % 30,020 mWh
    08:39:31 Active Battery 70 % 29,731 mWh
    08:50:28 Connected standby Battery 64 % 27,086 mWh
    09:22:49 Active Battery 61 % 26,182 mWh
    09:30:51 Active AC 59 % 25,072 mWh
    09:32:01 Report generated AC 60 % 25,338 mWh

    Battery usage

    Battery drains over the last 3 days

    2016-09-29 08:36:18 Active 0:02:07 1 % 593 mWh
    08:39:31 Active 0:10:57 6 % 2,645 mWh
    08:50:28 Connected standby 0:32:20 2 % 904 mWh
    09:22:49 Active 0:08:01 3 % 1,110 mWh

    Usage history

    History of system usage on AC and battery

    - - - - -

    Battery capacity history

    Charge capacity history of the system's batteries

    - - -

    Battery life estimates

    Battery life estimates based on observed drains

    - - - - -

    Current estimate of battery life based on all observed drains since OS install

    Since OS install - - - -

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-09-29T10:12:01+00:00

    a fix was made available for Simplo batteries only on 8/29 via a firmware

    update.

    please open an admin cmd prompt and run

    powercfg /batteryreport

    copy and paste the ENTIRE output into a reply

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-09-28T19:19:04+00:00

    Has the SP3 battery fix been made available yet?  If so then how do I get it?  I go from a full charge to zero in just over an hour and I use my SP3 for school (bought in the MS Education Store) so I'm really screwed without the fix!  Please advise!  Thanks.

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-09-24T13:13:44+00:00

    I agree.

    And MS only seem to be acknowledging issues that get exposure in media, otherwise they just stay silent and/or tell us to pay $450-550 for a replacement machine.

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