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
    2016-06-06T15:52:28+00:00

    In my country (Thailand) there is an Office of Consumer Protection Board, that I will try to contact, but I doubt they will be any help. My charging cycle is now at 80. It was around 73 before this happens. There's no way a battery could degrade this much to the point it's no longer hold any power in just 80 cycles.

    To be honest, I don't mind paying for a battery replacement, but paying for a refurbished machine without someone taking a look at it for what seemed to be a defect is simply too much for me. What's more annoying is, I just found out it's cheaper in the US. Sigh.

    There is simply no equivalent of "Have you tried reinstalling Windows?" equivalent for hardware.

    Speaking of Reddit, I wonder what happened to the $200 battery replacement promise?

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-06-06T20:14:36+00:00

    I bought my pro 3  from PC world in  sept 2014 ,i rarely used it only when away from home

    Feb  this year i had the not charging  90% battery but every time i took the charger off it died 

    went through all the steps with the support and was told it was battery failure and would have to have it replaced out of warranty  for £260

    they then told me I should  take it back to the shop under EU legislation it should be guaranteed for at least 2 years under faulty goods act

    i went into PC world who fobbed me off and told me i had to contact head office about out of warranty

    I contacted PC world by phone and they got back to me an hour later and told me they do not repair tablets and i had to take it to a shop for repair and they would pay the bill 

    I contacted a computer shop and was told its a sealed unit and they would not  attempt to replace the battery 

    I phoned PC world the next day and got a different person in the dept who told me he has had a few problems with them and yes its a sealed unit and can only be fixed properly by replacing the unit , he then told me his manager was out and would speak to him about making me an  offer 

    he phoned back 15 mins later and offered me £532  as i had already had 18 months usage from it 

    I took their offer  

     I still have the pro3 but when i contacted microsoft about a replacment  the price had gone up to £400  only a week later and its only 3 month warranty with the replacement  

    same thing could happen in 6 months time  as i had very little usage on it maybe 3 or 4 times for about 3 weeks at a time   

    I can still use it when its plugged in so have not replaced it yet

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-06-07T22:26:44+00:00

    I feel quite let down by microsoft on this, posted on Reddit and on Spiceworks as well as this site, I think the only hope is to get as much noise about this issue on the forums that it starts to threaten future sales of the surface pro series, as I think there will be some kind of reasonably priced option. Nobody wants to buy this product knowing that that stand a 10% chance of total loss after just 13 months.

    I think there will be many thousand devices affected - just need to find the owners and get them to post about the issue.

    I was wondering if anybody could find that AMA microsoft did which quoted the $200 dollars.

    Surface Pro 3

    SurfacePro3

    SIMPLO

    Battery_report

    capacity

    powercfg

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-06-17T12:52:15+00:00

    I am seeing the same issue.  I really starting noticing this after the System Hardware Update - ‎1/‎19/‎2016.  I am not sure it is related, but I noticed this issue and the random reboots/freezes when the system goes into hibernation.  I held off removing the update because I wasn't sure they were related however the more I think about it that update has definitely made things worse.

    Justan Welch

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