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

2016-09-03T11:02:51+00:00

Hi Kevin,

I had the same issue as you during the 1st and 2nd battery cycle, after the update. I do my charging while the SP3 was OFF. When I thought about having to cycle the battery capacity several times for the SP3 to "learn" the capacity, I attempted to charge it while it is ON. I am now on my 3rd cycle and I am "glad" to observe the battery percentages are falling (kind-of) normally. The only thing that still does not work well is the capacity did not reached 100% during charging. I am feeling a little positive and look forward to see what happens after a few more cycles. Not sure if we indeed have the same issue, but that was my encounter. Hope it is useful.

CP
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Anonymous

2016-09-03T17:48:33+00:00

After much irritation and finally being able to boot my bricked SP3 (with a SP4 charger) the upgrade installed and battery capacity now back to 35,910. Surface is once again working and back to loving the product.

It took a while but thanks to Microsoft for finally coming through with the fix.
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Anonymous

2016-09-04T03:34:28+00:00

First, you should be able to power on using the power adapter that came with the

SP3 (but possibly not in the dock).

If the battery is not being detected, you may have a different issue. Can you

power up from AC and run

powercfg /battery report

and post the results here.

Second, at this point, I would not advise applying the battery regedit at all.

Hi Barb,

This Sunday I booted up the SP3 from AC power and tried to install the firmware.

As no battery is detected the firmware won't install.

Can you please ask MS to remove this minimum 40% battery power restriction before any update is installed?

It's a catch 22 situation I need to get out of.

Give me an msi or something that I may run without facing this 40% battery barrier, please.

Here's the battery report you asked for. The rest of the report is just blank and irrelevant.

![](http://fud.community.services.support.microsoft.com/Fud/FileDownloadHandler.ashx?fid=7dca9d7d-689c-4078-9cd4-6aedad3085fe)
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Anonymous

2016-09-04T06:49:20+00:00

First, you should be able to power on using the power adapter that came with the

SP3 (but possibly not in the dock).

If the battery is not being detected, you may have a different issue. Can you

power up from AC and run

powercfg /battery report

and post the results here.

Second, at this point, I would not advise applying the battery regedit at all.

Hi Barb,

This Sunday I booted up the SP3 from AC power and tried to install the firmware.

As no battery is detected the firmware won't install.

Can you please ask MS to remove this minimum 40% battery power restriction before any update is installed?

It's a catch 22 situation I need to get out of.

Give me an msi or something that I may run without facing this 40% battery barrier, please.

Here's the battery report you asked for. The rest of the report is just blank and irrelevant.

![](http://fud.community.services.support.microsoft.com/Fud/FileDownloadHandler.ashx?fid=7dca9d7d-689c-4078-9cd4-6aedad3085fe)

Your issue is not the same as others. Others can actually see the battery and it's capacity. Maybe your battery is actually dead.
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