Microsoft issues firmware fix for major Surface Pro 3 battery problem

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I have one of the Surface Pro 3 and had some overheating issues as well as much less battery run times than I expected from new. A month or so ago I got a firmware update that eliminated the overheating on charge and some activities.

 

But I never had the issues some were reporting. My goodness they were replacing Surfaces for it! I almost called them but then mine were fixed with last month's firmware update.

 

Today I read that Microsoft just last night released a firmware update to fix the battery charge issues. ????

 

http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/microsoft-issues-firmware-fix-for-major-surface-pro-3-battery-problem/

 

OK once I got into it it turned out that there were two brands of batteries used in the Pro 3s. The LG which mine has, and it had few issues other than heat and shorter run times.

 

The really serious issues were with the Pro 3s that had the Simplo brand battery. Man they were not even charging and had to be run with the Pro 3s plugged in! Dang!!

 

Well they had these screen shots of battery reports. Battery reports?? Thank goodness another had already asked the question and the answer was given.

 

Here is the link to get that report. http://www.windowscentral.com/generate-battery-report-windows-10 It is really simple but when you hit enter in CMD (Admin) it will appear nothing happened from that screen. Close it, then open file explorer, and then double click on "C" drive, and at the very bottom you will see battery report. Double click it and it pops up.

 

OK if you have the LG you aren't having the issues the Simplo batteries have given. But the firmware is still for us too.

 

The new driver version is 38.10.90.0.

 

How to check both are covered in these articles:

 

https://www.microsoft.com/surface/en-us/support/pro-3-battery-faq?os=windows-10&=undefined

 

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/forum/surfpro3-surfhardware/surface-pro-3-battery-degradation/783f6a00-19ba-4dcf-a828-0ad87751e15a?page=114&msgId=2c34b554-21a1-46ec-8ad8-6cc6fbd074fb&tduid=(e50b3e2fd9a8d6643c0b346492316156)(256380)(2459594)(9e1vMmumXG0-8itIMb7LALlrjPSClLVCQg)()

 

If you have the Surface Pro 3 the above links give you excellent tools to proceed with some insight. In any event I am about to download and install the firmware update from today. I tried earlier and it failed because the battery must be above 40% and also plugged in.

 

Be patient! I just checked and my battery was at 56% and I ran it. Even though my battery is not the Simplo, the previous update doubled my runtimes. This firmware update should push that even further. It took 5 minutes to find the update and download it. The actual firmware update took a long time, about 15 minutes with the blue screen saying it was getting things ready. Then it went to black and came on and black a few times with the Surface logo word, then one with a gauge. Once it went to black it took only about 30 seconds flashing on and off to complete the update.

 

The battery report is great regardless of having issues or not. Another must have tool. Remember it must be generated each time and delete the previous one