Surface Pro 3 Type Cover Not Working, In BIOS/UEFI or Windows 10 after 1803 Update

Microsoft won't acknowledge that this is a product defect and when the agents do

reply, they treat each case as an individual hardware failure. Both SP3 and SP4

are impacted.

Only some have found that when they drain the battery to zero and then plug in,

that the typecover works again (for a while) which suggests a dotted line to a

root cause involving power/current/etc. But not everyone can repro this.

Ms. Bowman.

What do you think the problem is? I see that you have been offering advise in multiple threads and have a handle on what many of us are experiencing.

I am convinced that it is not a hardware problem.

I believe that an update caused the situation of our type covers no longer working.

I think that once this happens that something has been done to our Pro 3s that a subsequent update cannot fix but Microsoft will not admit this. I also think that they pushed out an update to unaffected machines to prevent this occurring on those machines but that they cannot repair the problem once it happens. I don't know enough about how computers work to understand why this may be but that is my best guess.

If this happened to me with an HP, Acer, Asus, or Samsung computer I would simply chalk it up to experience and never buy another one of those brands again. But this is Microsoft. We are invested in the OS and peripherals and it's the cleanest Windows product that we can buy. The first time I bought a Surface (the original Pro) I was happy to see the minimal pre-installed software on it. No bloat. That original Pro is still working well, by the way.

I agree with all of your comments. 

I would rather have the OEM Type Cover. 

However, what I did was purchase a 3rd party Blutooth Type Cover for ~$65.  It works good and makes my Pro 3 fully functional again. 

Being picky the only draw backs are:

I have to manually turn it on and off. 

Charge it every 2.5 - 3 hours of use time with the supplyed USB cable. 

The connection magnetic to the Pro 3 is not as strong as the OEM Type Cover.

I tried this. Got rid of the battery symbol, left it overnight. Attached the type cover. Waited over 15 minutes. Hooked it to power and then booted it up. No luck.

I am currently backing up files and will try a reset. Again. If that does not work I will try to load a fresh copy of Windows 10. I'm not sure if that's any different than simply resetting but I'll try it anyway.

Had also an type cover that did not work anymore.

I tied almost every work-around without having success.

Last try yesterday was draining the battery completely (if the white battery symbol appears continue with pushing the Power Button so often till nothing occures anymore).

I left the type cover seperated for one night from the surface.

On the next day I connected both and waited 15min. After booting the type cover worked again AND a firmware update for the type cover was surpriselingy downloaded!!!!

At the Moment it works properly (also after shutdown).

Okay. I am going to try this. I have powered down previously and then plugged in and started up with no success. But I have never gotten it down that far that the battery symbol did not show up. I have done that now. So tomorrow I will connect the type cover, wait 15 minutes and then boot up. But at what point did you charge the Surface? Did you connect the Surface to power, connect the type cover and then boot up? Or did you charge the Surface for some time before you booted up?

Hi it was 1803, which was loaded at th end of September 2018.