There are signs that the ongoing major battery problems with the Surface Pro 3 could be coming to an end. The issue is with SIMPLO batteries in some Surface Pro 3 devices that the capacity drops from 42,000 mWh right down to around 200 mWh which gives the poor Surface owner a battery life less than 10 minutes and in some cases seconds. The thread on Microsoft’s forums is now over 112 pages long with just two comments from Microsoft.
Today Microsoft released a new firmware update for the Surface Pro 3 that could be a fix for the battery issues. A few Surface Pro 3 users are reporting that the since the firmware update the reported battery capacity has actually gone up, in a couple of cases back up to 35,000 mWh.
Just got the update.. Rebooted and meter says 50%, unplugged it and 10 minutes later I’m still at 50%. Used to die in 5 seconds after unplugging. So, it appears that MS did something – amazing that it took this long. For me the jury is still out as I need to see where I actually get to after full charge. Worried that my battery got fired with the bad firmware.
Hopefully this is a permeant fix, the problem some Surface owners have is that installing the firmware on a device with low battery capacity can be very difficult in fact my podcast co-host Jason says he can’t even get this device to stay on long enough to install the update.
UPDATE: Microsoft have published a FAQ which confirms that the update does fix the battery problem:
Resolution
An update is now available to correct this issue. This update corrects the logic in the firmware component that functions as the “fuel gauge” for the Surface Pro 3 battery, so that the actual battery capacity on devices with this particular part is accurately reported. This allows the Surface to once again leverage the maximum charge capacity of the battery.
Once this fix is applied to a Surface Pro 3, the reported full charge capacity will self-correct over the next several charge and discharge cycles. Surface Pro 3 devices that previously experienced the problem can now operate on battery power, and the issue won’t occur on devices that haven’t experienced the issue.
3 thoughts on “Microsoft publish new Surface Pro 3 firmware that could be fixing the battery issue (Update: yes it is)”
Why did this take over a year??!?!?!?!?!?!?!??? I went from 10 hours of moderate use on 8.1 to under 2 hours of IDLE time in Windows 10, so did millions of others and it took over a year to fix.
Other than the horrible anniversary update freezing on many computers (which only have one drive as well so they clearly misidentified and may also take a year to fix), there have largely been few major issues with Windows 10 or the SP3, but the battery life was a pretty major issue which they just ignored. Sadly, it took a lawsuit for them to care.
The battery life problem started with Windows 10. Maybe the lawsuit was filed in May, or maybe what they’re fixing isn’t a software issue at all, especially if it started in May when the SP3’s were aging.
Like I said, I went from at least 10 hours of moderate use, at least playing videos to under 2 hours of idle time in Windows 10, immediately. Something isn’t right there. Yes I did a fresh install several times.
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Why did this take over a year??!?!?!?!?!?!?!??? I went from 10 hours of moderate use on 8.1 to under 2 hours of IDLE time in Windows 10, so did millions of others and it took over a year to fix.
Other than the horrible anniversary update freezing on many computers (which only have one drive as well so they clearly misidentified and may also take a year to fix), there have largely been few major issues with Windows 10 or the SP3, but the battery life was a pretty major issue which they just ignored. Sadly, it took a lawsuit for them to care.
The specific problem started in May but you are right it has took a long time to get fixed
The battery life problem started with Windows 10. Maybe the lawsuit was filed in May, or maybe what they’re fixing isn’t a software issue at all, especially if it started in May when the SP3’s were aging.
Like I said, I went from at least 10 hours of moderate use, at least playing videos to under 2 hours of idle time in Windows 10, immediately. Something isn’t right there. Yes I did a fresh install several times.