Battery Drains While Shutdown

Thank for the tip on 'limit battery mode' Jay.

I have tried every solution on this and other sites,to no avail.

I live on a sailing boat so use of electricity is important ... ever volt counts. So charging my Surface 4 and then having it drop 15 to 20 percent every 4 hours was painful. At least now if I forget and leave it plugged in it will only charge to 50% - been very useful.  

I was going to ask if there is a way to limit the battery to 20% or anyway to purely run of the mains and not charge the battery at all, anyone know if this is possible? 

Also has anyone tried a different OS (other than W10)  after the problem occurs would be interesting to hear the results. I downloaded Windows 7 but haven't tried installing it. Tooo risky at the moment as this is now my only computer for my business. 

Let me know you thoughts people and thank you.

PS Sort it out Microsoft  (angry face emoji)

Thanks, Mark.

I suppose it is still possible that your new battery was defective, but your experience unconvinced me that this is a hardware problem.

In my case, I noticed the problem as a minor drain that became, as you now report, a 10 percent drain overnight with everything done that a user can do to make sure the device is completely powered off.  That got steadily worse over a few months until the battery completely failed and would not charge.  So I replaced the machine with a Pro 6.  Battery drain on it overnight is about 3 percent when shut down.  That's with Windows fast startup enabled.  I disabled it just now to see tomorrow what the battery drain is.

By the way, to prolong the life of my new Surface, I keep it in battery limit mode when I expect to be where AC power is readily available.

Hello Jay,

Thank you for your interest. Yes, I had read many articles and can confirm that I had taken the necessary actions to ensure that the SP4 was truly/fully powered down. It did/does not drain fully overnight, but from 100% charge it would lose between 20% and 30% overnight. I would log on the next day just to confirm the battery charge percentage and then fully power down again - the result being another 20% - 30% being 'discharged' overnight.

When the SP4 is being used on battery the battery life is good.

There must be a solution to this. Apart from this fault I love my SP4 - but it really is a big usability issue. Are there any reports such as Battery or Other that you would like me to make available to you? If you want to arrange the courier I would be willing to hand over the SP4 for a period of time to help identify the issue...

Regards,

Mark

Thanks, MarkPalmerUK.  I have no help to offer.  But I would like to know more about your experience for future troubleshooting.  Was Windows shut down when the new battery drained over night?  Did it drain completely?  Did you have Windows options set so that automatic operations were not enabled when shut down?  I had come to think that the reports of battery draining were the result of older batteries that were nearing end of life, but your report makes me question that. --Jay

I did have the battery replaced with a new one only about 3 months ago because the original battery no longer would charge. The new battery will charge, BUT will also drain over night in full power off. So yes I would agree that this is a software issue. Having read many discussions on the issue I had upgraded the firmware to the latest version, but was not willing to attempt a BIOS upgrade.

How disappointing that Microsoft are unwilling to participate in resolving this problem for all of us. Very damaging when it comes to deciding on which comanies to invest future IT spend.