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
    2016-08-30T01:04:20+00:00

    Matthew,

    It just sat on the charger for 1 hour, totally shutdown.

    No difference.  It still will not charge.

    Awaiting your guidance.

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-08-30T01:30:21+00:00

    Another thing to try if that doesn't work is to keep the surface unplugged for a while then continually try starting it while it is not plugged in. Try to start it 5-6 times. You will just get the dead battery screen, but keep doing it. Then plug it back in and start it up. Sometimes this will also trick the firmware into holding enough charge to log in. My surface is the only computer I have and its been dead for a month, so I have had a lot of time to experiment with it and try to get it working.

    @SeanDavis33 this worked for me!  The fiddling with the power cord at startup did not, but this did!  I had to attempt this method twice though.  The first time I tried it I got past the login screen and couldn't believe it.  Then after Windows loaded it cut off (cried).  Then on the second attempt it went all the way through and showed 100% battery, imagine that.  First thing I did was download the new firmware from Windows Update.  It asked me to restart which made me nervous.  Nonetheless, here I am working again with the new firmware.  Thanks for the tip!!  The Microsoft site also said to do a second manual restart to get the full effect of the firmware update.  Here goes...

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-08-30T01:38:42+00:00

    Also, make sure you restart twice after new firmware.  The Microsoft announcement on this page recommends 2 full restarts.  Here are the instructions per the announcement in case it goes away.

    ![](http://fud.community.services.support.microsoft.com/Fud/FileDownloadHandler.ashx?fid=3400007d-81a5-4d94-aebd-8eda48b27bee)

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-08-30T02:12:44+00:00

    Applied new firmware and it fixed it! Typing on battery power now!

    Unfortunately for my budget, I got a Dell XPS15 which is now my main laptop. :)

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