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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Answer accepted by question author

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

2016-07-31T17:52:54+00:00

Add me to the list. My battery is effectively dead. Charge time is 2 minutes from 0% - 100% and removing the tablet from the dock or from the power cable will instantly power it off.

Only Microsoft could manage to transfer the issues they bring with their software (namely, inexplicable problems only Microsoft products suffer from), to a hardware platform.
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Anonymous

2016-07-31T18:47:19+00:00

They want 99.00 just to talk, is there anywhere else I can report the problem with the battery? I am only 5 months out off warranty and the surface says it is 100% charged until I remove it from the charger. I have tried all the help pages and suggestion listed in the community but nothing is working. Thank You
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Anonymous

2016-07-31T23:13:32+00:00

I'm not about to argue with Microsoft, but I personally think that the claim that it's SOFTWARE related is bogus, and Microsoft just trying to get out of a costly recall.

If this really was SOFTWARE related, then it should affect Windows 10 users, as that appears to be when the issue cropped up, and didn't show up on Windows 8 or 8.1.

However, I was having some issues, in addition to the battery, and did a full factory reset of my Surface Pro 3, and guess what? I have extremely low battery capacity on Windows 8.1:

Installed batteries

Information about each currently installed battery

BATTERY 1

NAME X898289

MANUFACTURER SIMPLO

SERIAL NUMBER 1163532804

CHEMISTRY LION

DESIGN CAPACITY 42,157 mWh

FULL CHARGE CAPACITY 1,832 mWh

CYCLE COUNT 286

At this point I'm extremely glad that I paid for an extended warranty on my Surface, have already requested warranty service, and have already received my shipping package and return information. I am going to keep monitoring this situation, but at this point I'm going to be extremely hesitant in wanting to get another Surface until Microsoft actually owns up to the issue (I still think that the Surface is the best portable all in one available).
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Anonymous

Same problem here, Greg. Glad to know you guys are on it. In looking at the date the degradation started - late May, seems to coincide with latest BIOS update-- perhaps that's the cause?

Information about each currently installed battery

NAME	X898289
MANUFACTURER	SIMPLO
SERIAL NUMBER	1161042436
CHEMISTRY	LION
DESIGN CAPACITY	42,157 mWh
FULL CHARGE CAPACITY	7,706 mWh
CYCLE COUNT	81

SYSTEM PRODUCT NAME	Microsoft Corporation Surface Pro 3
BIOS	3.11.1450 05/27/2016
OS BUILD	10586.494.amd64fre.th2_release_sec.160630-1736
PLATFORM ROLE	Slate
CONNECTED STANDBY	Supported
REPORT TIME	2016-07-3119:52:48

Battery capacity history

Charge capacity history of the system's batteries

2015-12-20 - 2015-12-27	42,303 mWh	42,157 mWh
2015-12-27 - 2016-01-03	42,331 mWh	42,157 mWh
2016-01-03 - 2016-01-10	42,348 mWh	42,157 mWh
2016-01-10 - 2016-01-17	41,998 mWh	42,157 mWh
2016-01-17 - 2016-01-24	41,807 mWh	42,157 mWh
2016-01-24 - 2016-01-31	41,887 mWh	42,157 mWh
2016-01-31 - 2016-02-07	41,889 mWh	42,157 mWh
2016-02-07 - 2016-02-14	41,955 mWh	42,157 mWh
2016-02-14 - 2016-02-21	42,059 mWh	42,157 mWh
2016-02-21 - 2016-02-28	42,195 mWh	42,157 mWh
2016-02-28 - 2016-03-13	42,290 mWh	42,157 mWh
2016-03-13 - 2016-03-20	42,263 mWh	42,157 mWh
2016-03-20 - 2016-03-27	42,280 mWh	42,157 mWh
2016-03-27 - 2016-04-03	42,253 mWh	42,157 mWh
2016-04-03 - 2016-04-10	42,210 mWh	42,157 mWh
2016-04-10 - 2016-04-17	42,182 mWh	42,157 mWh
2016-04-17 - 2016-04-24	42,173 mWh	42,157 mWh
2016-04-24 - 2016-05-01	42,112 mWh	42,157 mWh
2016-05-01 - 2016-05-08	42,112 mWh	42,157 mWh
2016-05-08 - 2016-05-15	42,423 mWh	42,157 mWh
2016-05-15 - 2016-05-22	42,502 mWh	42,157 mWh
2016-05-22 - 2016-05-29	42,206 mWh	42,157 mWh
2016-05-29 - 2016-06-05	37,603 mWh	42,157 mWh
2016-06-05 - 2016-06-12	34,123 mWh	42,157 mWh
2016-06-12 - 2016-06-19	30,421 mWh	42,157 mWh
2016-06-19 - 2016-06-26	26,354 mWh	42,157 mWh
2016-06-26 - 2016-07-03	22,837 mWh	42,157 mWh
2016-07-03 - 2016-07-10	18,386 mWh	42,157 mWh
2016-07-10 - 2016-07-17	14,290 mWh	42,157 mWh
2016-07-18	11,803 mWh	42,157 mWh
2016-07-19	11,803 mWh	42,157 mWh
2016-07-20	11,601 mWh	42,157 mWh
2016-07-21	10,269 mWh	42,157 mWh
2016-07-22	9,857 mWh	42,157 mWh
2016-07-23	9,733 mWh	42,157 mWh
2016-07-24	8,907 mWh	42,157 mWh
2016-07-25	8,907 mWh	42,157 mWh
2016-07-26	8,907 mWh	42,157 mWh
2016-07-27	8,907 mWh	42,157 mWh
2016-07-28	8,907 mWh	42,157 mWh
2016-07-29	8,028 mWh	42,157 mWh
2016-07-30	7,706 mWh	42,157 mWh

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