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
    2016-08-27T08:11:53+00:00

    Sounds like Microsoft are getting themselves in a deserved legal mess here.

    If it is hardware failure then they have mis-sold a product with false claims for the quality of batteries used.

    If it is a software issue then they have extorted money from users by charging them an excessive replacement fee when a replacement is not required.

    In either scenario they have demonstrated big company arrogance and a disregard for their customers. Why should it matter if this issue affects a large or small number of customers? Every customer has the same right to purchase a product which is fit for its advertised purpose and which will last a reasonable period of time.

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-08-27T08:45:35+00:00

    What I missed all along these lines:

    If its a software issue, as Microsoft suggest - does this mean, that the faulty firmware caused the batteries to physically degrade much quicker than anticipated - and destroyed batteries will not revive after applying the promised patch? Or is it rather a mere issue with battery reporting and the patch will reset all batteries to their current physical state according to actual wear levels?

    Any insights in this department?

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-08-27T08:56:22+00:00

    Using juanmaq's method he described in 28th page of this thread, I was able to recover my reported battery capacity twice today.

    ![](http://fud.community.services.support.microsoft.com/Fud/FileDownloadHandler.ashx?fid=70a9a2d1-a3b0-4671-9d7b-ae339a2776ae)

    ![](http://fud.community.services.support.microsoft.com/Fud/FileDownloadHandler.ashx?fid=304e733a-36ae-4a15-bdc8-d175f3f2eae7)

    ![](http://fud.community.services.support.microsoft.com/Fud/FileDownloadHandler.ashx?fid=b81da128-5b51-4e21-b45e-d446bf1ada41)

    I noticed my battery starting to degrade about a week ago. I kept the AC power attached for several days, however the battery level shown by the icon in the system tray drops almost once every day, from 100% to 98%, to 95%, to 90% and then to 88%, while the icon was always saying "not charging". As I have kept an eye on the degradation problem that many encountered, I knew that was the same thing that happened to me. I didn't restart my surface during the several days, because I knew if I restart it, the reported full battery capacity value will probably drop right upon the restart. However as the battery level at which the surface stopped to charge kept dropping, I decided to try juanmaq's method, who reportedly recovered the battery capacity to full design capacity after obvious degradation.

    In the last picture it doesn't show the recovery, because it only show the history until yesterday. I have observed the reported full charge capacity in the 2nd picture risen from 35796mWh to 37582mWh and then to 37848mWh, both happened today.

    What I did:

    1. I disabled the driver of Microsoft Surface ACPI-Compliant Control Method Battery in Device Manager, so the entry and the battery icon in system tray disappeared. then I restarted windows.
    2. Uninstalled the driver of that same entry (I think at that moment it was hidden and need to be forced showing up). Restarted. After restart, the entry was back there as if being re-enabled automatically.
    3. I waited for a few days not knowing what to do about the battery, during which time the battery didn't degrade further.
    4. I shut down surface, then unplugged AC power.
    5. I waited for some minutes and then turned on surface without AC power.
    6. I use the surface for some minutes, until the battery level dropped to about 90%.
    7. I attached AC power to the surface and wait for it to charge to 100% and wait for some more minutes.
    8. I restarted the system. After restart, the reported full charge capacity changed from 35796mWh to 37582mWh.
    9. I had a feeling that I got the right thing to do, so I repeated step 4 to step 8. Again, the reported full charge capacity risen from 37582mWh to 37848mWh. I am pretty sure what I described above as step 4 to step 8 was what I did the second time, as I purposely did it for testing.

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-08-27T10:14:37+00:00
    1. are you in a dock? I was told that if you don't dock and use your original

    power cord it should boot.

    1. do you have access to the more powerful power supply for a Surface Book?
    2. if you are near a physical retail Microsoft Store, when the fix is available,

    they have the more powerful adapters and they will apply the fix for you.

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