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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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

2016-08-17T04:20:33+00:00

We have probably 60+ users on the surface pro 3 and I have seen this exact issue about 4-5 times in the last year.

That’s a failure rate less than 10%. Nice to have an independent sample. Good to know.
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Anonymous

2016-08-17T04:22:30+00:00

Fellow Microsoft victims:

Jump into the comments on Paul's puff piece of Surface vs iPad Pro. Not enough people are hearing of how we have been ripped off by Microsoft. Admittedly, he is a Microsoft hack, but I know for a fact that people within MSFT read his stuff.

Find it here:

https://www.thurrott.com/hardware/76320/microsoft-starts-hit-back-ipad-pro-new-surface-commercial

I just pitched in (Scooby Doo)
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Anonymous

2016-08-17T05:19:29+00:00

Fellow Microsoft victims:

Jump into the comments on Paul's puff piece of Surface vs iPad Pro. Not enough people are hearing of how we have been ripped off by Microsoft. Admittedly, he is a Microsoft hack, but I know for a fact that people within MSFT read his stuff.

Find it here:

https://www.thurrott.com/hardware/76320/microsoft-starts-hit-back-ipad-pro-new-surface-commercial

I just pitched in (Scooby Doo)

You know, that's a great point. Bad publicity may be our next strategy since we're getting nowhere here by asking nicely. Microsoft can keep ignoring us and pretending that this isn't a major issue because we're trying to get them to acknowledge this on their terms in the random corners of the Internet where nobody is paying attention. It seems to me that nothing get attention faster than bad press. Why don't a few of us get in touch with our local cable news network and try to get some airtime on the topic. I bet some ambitious investigative journalists would absolutely love to pitch a story about tech super giant Microsoft's flagship product failures and customer dismissal/extortion. I'd guess that one national story and they'd be very publically committing to post-warranty battery fixes for all of us the very next day. It would definitely get us up and running far faster than a class action suit. What do you say? Where do we start? Ideas?
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Anonymous

2016-08-17T06:19:33+00:00

@TimBarley stay tuned. We think we got this one but need a little more time to confirm through depth testing. — Brian Hall (@IsForAt) August 16, 2016

A little bit of good news worth sharing although why that information can't be shared here is beyond me. Then again why should I expect the leopard to change it's spots now.

Also something that suddenly occurred to me today, isn't it true that you can't take an electronic device on a plane unless they can turn it on at security (this might be UK airports only)? That means it isn't even possible to take an SP3 on a plane with the intention of using it plugged in at your destination. Just another example of the fiasco that this situation has become.
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