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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Answer accepted by question author

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

2016-08-15T16:25:35+00:00

I've UNmarked it. I have no idea why this was marked as an Answer. I'm well

aware that customers posting here have had no updates since that was posted 7/26

and that there are more and more folks unable to turn their SP3's on even when

plugged in.

I'm also unable to get any information from Microsoft on the status of this

issue.
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Anonymous

2016-08-15T17:11:13+00:00

Thanks for unmarking that message, as it is not an answer.

(Edit 8/16: The rest of this message describes a problem with unrelated messages appearing in this forum. That problem has since been corrected.)

Separately, to a Microsoft forum moderator:

Today the messages in this thread appear merged with messages from other threads. Is this a bug, or was it done intentionally? The first message in this thread is dated May 11, 2016, and that is the message that has anchored this thread all along.

New today: the first reply in this thread is a message from whady dated July 1, 2014 (msgid=b0a64059-95d7-48ce-9de7-4ba6c962053b), which logically makes no sense.

It appears that the first reply actually originating on this thread is from Brian_D16 on page 12 (msgid=2bf842ba-6e5e-4bb5-9388-848d6f220203).
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Anonymous

2016-08-15T17:23:27+00:00

I've UNmarked it. I have no idea why this was marked as an Answer. I'm well

aware that customers posting here have had no updates since that was posted 7/26

and that there are more and more folks unable to turn their SP3's on even when

plugged in.

I'm also unable to get any information from Microsoft on the status of this

issue.

Barb, Greg, Satya Nadella, Ferris Bueller, anybody, is there still any reason to be hopeful about a software fix to this issue?

My SP3's battery life is about 30 minutes at this point and degrading fast. I checked the battery report, it's a SIMPLO of course. The silence is really the worst part about all of this. As far as I know, Greg's post was the last comment on the record from anyone at Microsoft. Did the lawyers gag everyone or does the silence mean there is no fix coming and I should go ahead and drive 1 1/2 hours to the nearest Microsoft store and hope that they'll swap my Surface out for a refurbished one?

I really love my SP3, but the way the SIMPLO battery problem is being handled really makes me think twice about ever buying another computer from Microsoft.

Please, Microsoft, at least say something! I don't even care if it's bad news, any news would be appreciated.
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Anonymous

2016-08-15T17:49:15+00:00

I sent THAT issue in yesterday to the folks that run the Community Moderator

program. It's easy to merge thread, but hard to split them back up. I have no

idea why the paid staff took the old threads that weren't related and merged

them. I checked on the issue today and was told it was escalated.

>>Today the messages in this thread appear merged with messages from other threads. Is this a bug, or was it done intentionally? The first message in this thread is dated May 11, 2016, and that is the message that has anchored this thread all along.
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