Jul 23, 2016 10 min read tech

Surface Pro 3 SIMPLO battery degradation

Update 3 July 26, 2016: The techs were able to confirm the issue and offered me a same-device refurb replacement. The replacement is a newer-revision SP3 with an LGC-LGC battery
and came with Windows 10 build 1511 pre-installed. I'm a happy camper. Thanks for (finally) doing the right thing, Microsoft.

Update 2 July 25, 2016: Came back to the Microsoft Store after they told me they didn't find anything wrong after charging it and leaving it unplugged for 6 hours. Yeah, well, it might help to disable sleep mode if you're going to perform a battery rundown test (facepalm!) And apparently, powercfg is a new thing for the monkeys at the Microsoft Store. Anyhow, after showing the tech all that and also making him witness my Surface losing 10% of its battery in about as many minutes, he finally agreed that something was wrong. Long story short, the last thing they want to do before replacing my device is a wipe and factory reset to rule out any software cause. (To me it's more likely that Microsoft themselves pushed out a bad firmware update with faulty power management...) Fingers crossed...

Update 1 July 23, 2016: Brought my Surface to the local Microsoft store. My device is technically a few days out of warranty but they were willing to work with me. I handed it over to them so they could "run diagnostics". Told to check back in 1-3 days. There's the possibility I'll be able to exchange my Surface if the diagnostic comes back faulty.

After seeing articles like this in my news feed, I ran powercfg /batteryreport on my Surface Pro 3 to check if I might be affected. Unfortunately, the answer is yes, to say the least...

To be honest I haven't really been noticing as my Surface has mostly been sitting at home connected to an AC adapter, but when school starts up this is going to be a major pain in the ass. I'm typing this while on battery and I can see the battery life percentage decreasing almost in real time. In less than half an hour it's gone down from 100% to 67%.

I'm debating whether or not a trip to the local Microsoft Store is worth it. Surface phone support seems to be useless - if you're no longer under warranty they want $450 from you to do a replacement. I wonder if the support techs simply aren't aware of this being a widespread issue, or if Microsoft just doesn't care...either way, there's probably going to be a lot of pissed-off SP3 users soon.

Here you can see the battery capacity history from powercfg /batteryreport. How suspiciously convenient that the degradation starts occurring close to the 1-year mark, when most owners are going to be out of warranty...

PERIOD

        FULL CHARGE CAPACITY

      </td><td class="centered">

        DESIGN CAPACITY

      </td></tr></thead><tr class="even  1"><td class="dateTime">2015-11-15

  - 2015-11-23</td><td class="mw">41,239 mWh

    </td><td class="mw">42,157 mWh

    </td></tr><tr class="odd  2"><td class="dateTime">2015-11-23

  - 2015-11-29</td><td class="mw">41,105 mWh

    </td><td class="mw">42,157 mWh

    </td></tr><tr class="even  3"><td class="dateTime">2015-11-29

  - 2015-12-06</td><td class="mw">40,587 mWh

    </td><td class="mw">42,157 mWh

    </td></tr><tr class="odd  4"><td class="dateTime">2015-12-06

  - 2015-12-13</td><td class="mw">40,885 mWh

    </td><td class="mw">42,157 mWh

    </td></tr><tr class="even  5"><td class="dateTime">2015-12-13

  - 2015-12-21</td><td class="mw">40,838 mWh

    </td><td class="mw">42,157 mWh

    </td></tr><tr class="odd  6"><td class="dateTime">2015-12-21

  - 2015-12-29</td><td class="mw">40,876 mWh

    </td><td class="mw">42,157 mWh

    </td></tr><tr class="even  7"><td class="dateTime">2015-12-29

  - 2016-01-03</td><td class="mw">40,576 mWh

    </td><td class="mw">42,157 mWh

    </td></tr><tr class="odd  8"><td class="dateTime">2016-01-03

  - 2016-01-11</td><td class="mw">40,824 mWh

    </td><td class="mw">42,157 mWh

    </td></tr><tr class="even  9"><td class="dateTime">2016-01-11

  - 2016-01-18</td><td class="mw">41,131 mWh

    </td><td class="mw">42,157 mWh

    </td></tr><tr class="odd  10"><td class="dateTime">2016-01-18

  - 2016-01-25</td><td class="mw">41,299 mWh

    </td><td class="mw">42,157 mWh

    </td></tr><tr class="even  11"><td class="dateTime">2016-01-25

  - 2016-02-07</td><td class="mw">41,268 mWh

    </td><td class="mw">42,157 mWh

    </td></tr><tr class="odd  12"><td class="dateTime">2016-02-07

  - 2016-02-14</td><td class="mw">41,201 mWh

    </td><td class="mw">42,157 mWh

    </td></tr><tr class="even  13"><td class="dateTime">2016-02-14

  - 2016-02-22</td><td class="mw">41,683 mWh

    </td><td class="mw">42,157 mWh

    </td></tr><tr class="odd  14"><td class="dateTime">2016-02-22

  - 2016-03-06</td><td class="mw">41,256 mWh

    </td><td class="mw">42,157 mWh

    </td></tr><tr class="even  15"><td class="dateTime">2016-03-06

  - 2016-03-14</td><td class="mw">41,070 mWh

    </td><td class="mw">42,157 mWh

    </td></tr><tr class="odd  16"><td class="dateTime">2016-03-14

  - 2016-03-21</td><td class="mw">40,945 mWh

    </td><td class="mw">42,157 mWh

    </td></tr><tr class="even  17"><td class="dateTime">2016-03-21

  - 2016-03-28</td><td class="mw">40,494 mWh

    </td><td class="mw">42,157 mWh

    </td></tr><tr class="odd  18"><td class="dateTime">2016-03-28

  - 2016-04-04</td><td class="mw">40,061 mWh

    </td><td class="mw">42,157 mWh

    </td></tr><tr class="even  19"><td class="dateTime">2016-04-04

  - 2016-04-13</td><td class="mw">38,910 mWh

    </td><td class="mw">42,157 mWh

    </td></tr><tr class="odd  20"><td class="dateTime">2016-04-13

  - 2016-04-18</td><td class="mw">38,258 mWh

    </td><td class="mw">42,157 mWh

    </td></tr><tr class="even  21"><td class="dateTime">2016-04-18

  - 2016-04-25</td><td class="mw">38,197 mWh

    </td><td class="mw">42,157 mWh

    </td></tr><tr class="odd  22"><td class="dateTime">2016-04-25

  - 2016-05-01</td><td class="mw">38,349 mWh

    </td><td class="mw">42,157 mWh

    </td></tr><tr class="even  23"><td class="dateTime">2016-05-01

  - 2016-05-09</td><td class="mw">37,741 mWh

    </td><td class="mw">42,157 mWh

    </td></tr><tr class="odd  24"><td class="dateTime">2016-05-09

  - 2016-05-15</td><td class="mw">38,124 mWh

    </td><td class="mw">42,157 mWh

    </td></tr><tr class="even  25"><td class="dateTime">2016-05-15

  - 2016-05-22</td><td class="mw">38,173 mWh

    </td><td class="mw">42,157 mWh

    </td></tr><tr class="odd  26"><td class="dateTime">2016-05-22

  - 2016-05-29</td><td class="mw">39,119 mWh

    </td><td class="mw">42,157 mWh

    </td></tr><tr class="even  27"><td class="dateTime">2016-05-29

  - 2016-06-05</td><td class="mw">41,869 mWh

    </td><td class="mw">42,157 mWh

    </td></tr><tr class="odd  28"><td class="dateTime">2016-06-05

  - 2016-06-12</td><td class="mw">42,583 mWh

    </td><td class="mw">42,157 mWh

    </td></tr><tr class="even  29"><td class="dateTime">2016-06-12

  - 2016-06-19</td><td class="mw">39,968 mWh

    </td><td class="mw">42,157 mWh

    </td></tr><tr class="odd  30"><td class="dateTime">2016-06-19

  - 2016-06-26</td><td class="mw">33,398 mWh

    </td><td class="mw">42,157 mWh

    </td></tr><tr class="even  31"><td class="dateTime">2016-06-26

  - 2016-07-03</td><td class="mw">32,490 mWh

    </td><td class="mw">42,157 mWh

    </td></tr><tr class="odd  32"><td class="dateTime">2016-07-03

  - 2016-07-10</td><td class="mw">26,051 mWh

    </td><td class="mw">42,157 mWh

    </td></tr><tr class="even  33"><td class="dateTime">2016-07-11</td><td class="mw">23,682 mWh

    </td><td class="mw">42,157 mWh

    </td></tr><tr class="odd  34"><td class="dateTime">2016-07-12</td><td class="mw">23,682 mWh

    </td><td class="mw">42,157 mWh

    </td></tr><tr class="even  35"><td class="dateTime">2016-07-13</td><td class="mw">21,530 mWh

    </td><td class="mw">42,157 mWh

    </td></tr><tr class="odd  36"><td class="dateTime">2016-07-14</td><td class="mw">18,453 mWh

    </td><td class="mw">42,157 mWh

    </td></tr><tr class="even  37"><td class="dateTime">2016-07-15</td><td class="mw">18,453 mWh

    </td><td class="mw">42,157 mWh

    </td></tr><tr class="odd  38"><td class="dateTime">2016-07-16</td><td class="mw">18,453 mWh

    </td><td class="mw">42,157 mWh

    </td></tr><tr class="even  39"><td class="dateTime">2016-07-17</td><td class="mw">18,453 mWh

    </td><td class="mw">42,157 mWh

    </td></tr><tr class="odd  40"><td class="dateTime">2016-07-18</td><td class="mw">18,453 mWh

    </td><td class="mw">42,157 mWh

    </td></tr><tr class="even  41"><td class="dateTime">2016-07-19</td><td class="mw">18,453 mWh

    </td><td class="mw">42,157 mWh

    </td></tr><tr class="odd  42"><td class="dateTime">2016-07-20</td><td class="mw">18,453 mWh

    </td><td class="mw">42,157 mWh

    </td></tr><tr class="even  43"><td class="dateTime">2016-07-21</td><td class="mw">18,453 mWh

    </td><td class="mw">42,157 mWh

    </td></tr><tr class="odd  44"><td class="dateTime">2016-07-22</td><td class="mw">18,453 mWh

    </td><td class="mw">42,157 mWh

    </td></tr></table>

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