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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  2. Anonymous
    2016-08-15T22:22:55+00:00

    Does this mean that Microsoft is no longer working on a potential solution?

    No. It means they are working on a solution that best suits Microsoft. If it were a driver or firmware issue, they could have provided an option to roll back to a previous version that didn't cause the problem, but haven't.

    They either cannot roll back to a battery friendly version because their upgrade plan isn't fault tolerant, there is no fix, so they are stalling in the hope that time will make the problem go away, as users will buy replacement devices, or they have concluded it is a hardware issue that would be more expensive to recall, than to reach a financial settlement in a class action law suit.

    By the time a law suit is settled, most SP3 users will have moved on from their, by then, expensive paper weight.

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-08-15T22:43:01+00:00

    I bought the new 65w power brick (the one that came with the pro 3 is around 30W), and the new one does seem to keep my surface pro 3 up even under high load.

    I order it from Amazon (If you buy from Amazon make sure the seller is Amazon; from the comments it looks like there's some 3rd party parts listed under same ASIN by other sellers).

    It's listed as

    "Microsoft Surface Power Supply 65W V4"

    Item model number: Q4Q-00001

    ASIN: B01698T1TC

    Does anyone have the new dock? I'm wondering if that puts out the same 65W.

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-08-15T23:04:59+00:00

    same issue...just posting to be counted.  11 minutes of battery life - frustrated beyond belief. 

    Battery life estimates

    Battery life estimates based on observed drains

    2016-08-10 0:15:18 16:01:24<br><br>100 % / 16 h 2:30:04 157:05:40<br><br>10 % / 16 h
    2016-08-11 - - - -
    2016-08-12 0:09:17 0:35:25<br><br>2711 % / 16 h 1:40:19 6:22:42<br><br>251 % / 16 h
    2016-08-13 - - - -
    2016-08-14 0:29:11 - 5:43:36 -

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

    Since OS install 0:11:49 4:10:56<br><br>383 % / 16 h 2:30:48 53:19:53<br><br>30 % / 16 h

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