Type Cover not Working but ...

Hi Ricky

Your experience is identical to mine

I would suggest that you repeat the battery draining as before for as many times as you have to to get the cover working (you don't need to let it fully recharge each time, once you've tested it and not worked you can unplug the charger and run it back down). It will work eventually as you have already proven.

Then whilst it is working, before you turn it off, update the firmware again. I also updated all the drivers. This worked for me

I had an interesting experience with mine. The retailer, JBHIFI has an extended warranty policy that covers goods even without buying the official extended warranty with the product. It was suggested I take the Surface back and see if they would cover the repair/replacement. Unfortunately their policy took it to two years for computers and my Surface is three years old. However, they said they would send it for an assessment and cover any costs involved in getting a quote, which can be anything up to $100 from the repairer.

A month later they told me the repairer quoted $765 for which they would replace the Surface. My guess was that they were going to send it to Microsoft for a refurb replacement. I declined that and asked them to return it to me. I can get a refurb myself for $650 from MS.

When I got it home I made sure the battery was exhausted, attacked the Typecover and turned it on. The Typecover lit up and worked!! There was a month of updates to install with firmware updates among them. I thought that with all the new updates it would be OK.

However, restarting the Surface through the update process caused the Typecover to get lost again. I've run the battery down a few times, plugged in the charger, turned it on, no backlights. Run down the battery, etc ... So far, nothing.

I'm stuck with the bluetooth keyboard for a while yet, but seeing the Typecover light up that one time gives me a bit of hope for the future.

Hi Ricky

Your experience is identical to mine

I would suggest that you repeat the battery draining as before for as many times as you have to to get the cover working (you don't need to let it fully recharge each time, once you've tested it and not worked you can unplug the charger and run it back down). It will work eventually as you have already proven.

Then whilst it is working, before you turn it off, update the firmware again. I also updated all the drivers. This worked for me

You are one of the lucky ones in that you know it was the update that caused the problem and the trick is to get the system to know it needs firmware/drivers for the keyboard and which only appears to happen if the keyboard is recognized as being connected when the update is going on

Don't ask me why I am not a geek but use basic common sense. I have not had a working cover for over 6 months and gone through multiple windows 10 updates. Long may it continue

Hi Bryan,

Thks for your share. Can you tell me specifically which files you used to update the firmware & drivers for the Surface Pro 3?

That's great you were able to get resolve your issue! What email address did you use? I have tried one only to get an message that the email address did not exist. 

Thanks!

Hi Ricky

Your experience is identical to mine

I would suggest that you repeat the battery draining as before for as many times as you have to to get the cover working (you don't need to let it fully recharge each time, once you've tested it and not worked you can unplug the charger and run it back down). It will work eventually as you have already proven.

Then whilst it is working, before you turn it off, update the firmware again. I also updated all the drivers. This worked for me

You are one of the lucky ones in that you know it was the update that caused the problem and the trick is to get the system to know it needs firmware/drivers for the keyboard and which only appears to happen if the keyboard is recognized as being connected when the update is going on

Don't ask me why I am not a geek but use basic common sense. I have not had a working cover for over 6 months and gone through multiple windows 10 updates. Long may it continue

I have the same findings with my Surface Pro 3.  After a Windows Update, my cover stopped working.  I reset Windows, flashed the TPM and firmware, downloaded Surface Pro 3 drivers from Microsoft, did the 2 button restart, to no avail.  Microsoft Store in Sydney tells me it is hardware.  I brought it back and left it unplugged for a few days as I went out to get a Bluetooth keyboard and when I plugged it in (battery totally drained by then) and started it up, the keyboard cover works.  Then after shutdown and restart, the keyboard cover disappeared again.

Glad to see I am not alone, but still very frustrated that there is no solution!

Hope Microsoft is following this up and releasing a solution soon.