Battery Drains While Shutdown

I'm curious as to if there is less drain if you use a cdm line shutdown from an administrative cmd prompt: -    shutdown /s /f  /t 0

Hello again thread.

I thought I'd share an update. 

I already did a full PC format via  USB Recovery Drive but saw there was a new large windows update out (1603 to 1703) so I did a brand new Full Boot-Recovery. 

Annnnd. .. it didn't work.

I'm going to try one more time to try and find a way to disable the 'connected standard by'. Then I'm going to try something different. 

Jay's last comment made me think.

Has anyone tried binning Windows? 

It would give you 100% clarification on the 'is it Windows' or 'is it the battery' issue.

I'm going to try a Linux OS and I'll give you an update on how things go.

Might be a few days as I'm busy at the moment. 

Let me know if anyone has tried a Linux OS on a Surface

Hi, WilliamJohnson_Lex.  I could be wrong, but I think you'd have the same experience with a cheap computer.  While there very well might be something wrong with your computer, the Windows OS, since Windows 8, has been designed to do a lot of housekeeping while the computer is "shut down".  That's actually a nice feature for most people most of the time.  And will be even more valuable in the future as people expect devices to be instant-on and always connected.  However it's a shame Microsoft has not provided and documented a way to disable all that wonderful housekeeping.  If it had, it would be easy for you to find out whether or not you have a hardware problem.  It would also be helpful to those few people who know they will need to use a computer powered by a battery that hasn't been charged for a few days.

By the way, there is a more current thread about this problem at https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/forum/all/battery-drains-while-shutdown/66fb1116-ba1b-428d-97fd-af8b335d1115.

Hi, Tim.

For your information, my Surface Pro 4 consumes from 0.5 percent to 2.5 percent per hour of total battery capacity.  That's about 630 to 3150 joules per hour or 0.175 to 0.875 Watts while shut down.  The average is about 1 percent or 1260 joules per hour or 0.35 Watts.  In other words, my experience is that my Surface Pro 4 drains the battery at about half the rate you report on average when shutdown.

Several possibilities could be contributing to the drain you observe.  One is that Microsoft designed Windows, starting with Windows 8, to do housekeeping while the computer is shutdown and while hibernating and while sleeping.  As far as I know, there is no way around that.

I hope someone will tell me I'm wrong, but I don't think there is a way to disable this housekeeping. In other words, your ability to troubleshoot this problem is hopeless.

The housekeeping while the computer is inactive is a great feature for most users most of the time.  That includes me most of the time. And it is necessary to keep Windows in the market of instant-on always-connected devices that are the future.

But it is unfair of Microsoft to implement these features without providing and documenting an option to disable them.  Aside from making it difficult for you to troubleshoot possible battery problems, there are more than a few people (like me) who sometimes need to use a Windows computer powered by a battery that has not been charged for a few days and cannot be easily recharged.  I don't know whether Microsoft is cutting us loose or doesn't think we exist.

I'll keep following this thread in case some user more clever than me figures out a way to make Windows 10 do what all pre-Windows-8 PCs used to do.  Namely, turn off.

Yes.  I've installed all updates and spent 2 hours replacing the battery with a new one.  

Still experiencing battery drain when the computer is supposedly shut down.

Frustrating to have such an expensive computer that can't hold a charge for more than a couple of days when it's not connected to a charger.