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
    2016-08-17T10:13:54+00:00

    Symptoms:

    A: On Boot a 1cm square appears near the top right hand corner. Swiping up across it removes it.

    B: Reported Battery capacity drops every day. (PowerCFG)

    C: Battery life estimates are now at 4 hours (PowerCFG) but usage 2-3 hours; when until recently I had 7 - 9 hours consistent real world usage

    D: Taskbar battery life estimates are erratic, fluctuating wildly.

    E: Touch screen is intermittently responsive. I have a 'gut feel' there is a pattern but can't confirm a repeatable one. eg Detaching the keyboard has 50% consistent problem to screen touch.

    F: Device heats up while type cover is closed (Standby activity - despite OS settings)

    System State

    • Clean install of Windows 10 Anniversary Edition
    • Subsequent updates all applied successfully
    • Software installed MS Office Suite, Visio and Project. Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop
    • Onedrive sync paused
    • Background apps disabled
    • Startup apps disabled
    • MS Scheduler all at default (ie not touched)
    • Screen touch calibrated, but not pen calibrated (need batteries replaced)

    Usage

    • Surface only charged after the battery is drained and then only while being used.
    • Once a full charge is reached and I'm not using the device, the surface is shut down (not standby) and disconnected from power - A few posts reported this as a fix, sadly it isn't for this device.

    Observations

    • Symptoms appeared together 3-4 months ago. At the time I thought it was a 'tired' OS that needed a clean install, so I waited for the Anniversary Edition of Windows 10 to be released to do this.
    • While I have seen all these symptoms reported in the same time frame, I haven't seen any posts that describe them concurrently.
    • I don't believe this is a hardware issue as the issues appear intermittent but have regular patterns to them, (no I can't describe them in a repeatable way)

    Request

    • Microsoft, you have noted that there is a battery problem, but can you link these other symptoms?
    • Microsoft, can you put a timeline on a published fix?

    Personal Comments

    • Please, Microsoft fix this. My SP3 is my daily driver at work and home.

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-08-17T10:57:11+00:00

    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 think if people put their reviews, experiences and other comments on AMAZON's Surface Pro 3 review page they will have more impact than limiting them to Microsoft's site.  You don't have to have purchased your device there to review it there.

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-08-17T13:49:04+00:00

    I have a SP3, bought in Feb 2015. Over the past 12 days the same symptoms have been seen, with battery capacity dropping by ~1000mWh a day. Currently around 30,000, but based on what I've read here, it will keep dropping till it is unusable.

    Based on this I called MS Support (UK) - the device was bought directly from the MS online store.

    The engineer I spoke to acknowlegded that it is an known issue and asked me to provided proof of purchase and an up to date battery support. He advsied that they were 'hopeful' that a fix (ie: windows/firmware update) woudl be available soon. I pressed him as on the fact that I have a device which, based on others experiences will be useless in about 3 weeks time. he then spoke to a supervisor and advsied that if there was no fix next week, they woudl look to replace my device (no detail on what for - I assume reconditioned but the same spec??).

    I will have to wait and see if that actually happens, but he didn't seem to push back too much.

    BTW - my warranty expired at the end of May, but he said that they would make an exception as it was 'a known issue'......very interesting to hear that based on the mixed expeirences others have had here wiht MS Support on this matter.

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-08-17T13:55:19+00:00

    This is very good news indeed. I wonder if this mean a fix will bring our batteries back to a higher capacity or just stop the degradation.

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