Do I keep my new SP2 or return it... Problems --- Could be drivers

[godson594]

Damn I can't believe i'm thinking of returning this device. I have been waiting forever for the SP2 and now that I finally have it I must admit I'm not 100% happy so far...

Quick background on what I have now and wanted to replace... I have a beastly Windows 8 Desktop for gaming, I have a Macmini that runs all my music creation software/hardware. I have a Macbook air mid 2012 version (non haswell with 4gb ram) a Wacom tablet and an iPad 4....

I wanted the SP2 to replace my Macbook, Wacom and iPad.... (Hell I have an XboxOne pre ordered to replace my AppleTV3)

I also work in the Bay Area in the consumer electronics industry

Cons

Anyways... The reason I need windows is for Soldiworks and i'm stunned to see that my SP2 (which Microsoft said was faster than 95% of laptops out now) is actually running solid works much slower than my Macbook air with lower specs and less ram....

My screen has a flicker - (I have changed all the autodim and autocontrast and it didn't help) when I say flicker imagine you have a dark background and open a brighter page, well it adjusts thru like 4 minor shades to reach the correct brightness and its driving me crazy...

I bought the Surface edition arc mouse and it can't even track on my couch where every single mouse I have owned has worked perfectly (Go Bluetrack!)

I bought the Type2 Keyboard which to me is okay - I don't like the trackpad at all on it and the cloth like material to me doesn't feel good.

My WiFi has dropped 3 times on my 5GHZ band - Zero on my 2.4GHZ - None of my other devices have EVER had a problem...

----
Pros

I LOVE the digitizer - Being able to slap stuff down on screen is one of the main reason I purchased this.

It loads webpages faster than any device I own

----

I only have 14 days to return it to Microsoft -

I don't know if I can gamble it being just a driver update to fix this stuff... It seems like an intel hd4000 driver update could fix my flicker and possibly my performance in Solidworks

Maybe I should ride it out to the last minute.

I cant find any other windows machine that has a decent digitizer

what do you think?

 

[Gah]

flicker is not a bug see other thread uou need to download the intel drivers and turn off power saving

to fix wifi you need to disable usb selective suspend and keep wifi on maximum performance in power options its an intel usb 3.0 problem because wifi card is on the usb bus. they have not fixed the issue. you'll lose mall amount of bettery life and usb device will disconnect on sleep.

your alternative would be lenovo helix, but its not haswell and more expensive

 

[Timmy bolt]

Damn I can't believe i'm thinking of returning this device. I have been waiting forever for the SP2 and now that I finally have it I must admit I'm not 100% happy so far...

Quick background on what I have now and wanted to replace... I have a beastly Windows 8 Desktop for gaming, I have a Macmini that runs all my music creation software/hardware. I have a Macbook air mid 2012 version (non haswell with 4gb ram) a Wacom tablet and an iPad 4....

I wanted the SP2 to replace my Macbook, Wacom and iPad.... (Hell I have an XboxOne pre ordered to replace my AppleTV3)

I also work in the Bay Area in the consumer electronics industry

Cons

Anyways... The reason I need windows is for Soldiworks and i'm stunned to see that my SP2 (which Microsoft said was faster than 95% of laptops out now) is actually running solid works much slower than my Macbook air with lower specs and less ram....

My screen has a flicker - (I have changed all the autodim and autocontrast and it didn't help) when I say flicker imagine you have a dark background and open a brighter page, well it adjusts thru like 4 minor shades to reach the correct brightness and its driving me crazy...

I bought the Surface edition arc mouse and it can't even track on my couch where every single mouse I have owned has worked perfectly (Go Bluetrack!)

I bought the Type2 Keyboard which to me is okay - I don't like the trackpad at all on it and the cloth like material to me doesn't feel good.

My WiFi has dropped 3 times on my 5GHZ band - Zero on my 2.4GHZ - None of my other devices have EVER had a problem...

----
Pros

I LOVE the digitizer - Being able to slap stuff down on screen is one of the main reason I purchased this.

It loads webpages faster than any device I own

----

I only have 14 days to return it to Microsoft -

I don't know if I can gamble it being just a driver update to fix this stuff... It seems like an intel hd4000 driver update could fix my flicker and possibly my performance in Solidworks

Maybe I should ride it out to the last minute.

I cant find any other windows machine that has a decent digitizer

what do you think?

The arc mouse is rubbish, i've returned mine already. Got a Logitech MX Anywhere...much better.

Surprised about solidworks, but i'm not an expert, so can't advise.

 

[Elusive]

As far as a mouse is concerned, the Microsoft Sculpt Bluetooth mouse looks like a nice replacement for the Surface mouse of which I couldn't see myself buying... the folding flat feature is nice, but, besides that...

But, I digress: Amazon.com: Microsoft Sculpt Comfort Mouse (H3S-00003): Computers & Accessories

 

[oion]

Damn I can't believe i'm thinking of returning this device. I have been waiting forever for the SP2 and now that I finally have it I must admit I'm not 100% happy so far...

Quick background on what I have now and wanted to replace... I have a beastly Windows 8 Desktop for gaming, I have a Macmini that runs all my music creation software/hardware. I have a Macbook air mid 2012 version (non haswell with 4gb ram) a Wacom tablet and an iPad 4....

I wanted the SP2 to replace my Macbook, Wacom and iPad.... (Hell I have an XboxOne pre ordered to replace my AppleTV3)

I also work in the Bay Area in the consumer electronics industry

Cons

(1) Anyways... The reason I need windows is for Soldiworks and i'm stunned to see that my SP2 (which Microsoft said was faster than 95% of laptops out now) is actually running solid works much slower than my Macbook air with lower specs and less ram....

(2) My screen has a flicker - (I have changed all the autodim and autocontrast and it didn't help) when I say flicker imagine you have a dark background and open a brighter page, well it adjusts thru like 4 minor shades to reach the correct brightness and its driving me crazy...

(3) I bought the Surface edition arc mouse and it can't even track on my couch where every single mouse I have owned has worked perfectly (Go Bluetrack!)

(4) I bought the Type2 Keyboard which to me is okay - I don't like the trackpad at all on it and the cloth like material to me doesn't feel good.

(5) My WiFi has dropped 3 times on my 5GHZ band - Zero on my 2.4GHZ - None of my other devices have EVER had a problem...

(1) No idea. There is a Solidworks thread for the Surface Pro 1, though, wonder how it performs for them.

(2) This could either be hardware (maybe the sensor broke) or software (drivers, bug, etc.). So locking screen brightness doesn't work at all? Under "Change advanced power settings," you can set the exact percentages for--display brightness battery/plugged, dimmed brightness battery/plug, enable adaptive (should be disabled for exact percents--guessing you tried that). Flicker would drive me nuts, though.

(3-4) These points aren't about the Surface itself, though. You can easily just return the Arc mouse and the Type cover since both are just accessories and try other things. Oh, one of the tips about wifi is turning off bluetooth and surrounding bluetooth devices, though I have no idea how that stuff works.

(5) Yeah, you're one of the unlucky ones with the wifi. There are several threads already about different ways to troubleshoot it, but I can only wish you luck.

I would personally wait until the 13-day mark (is that calendar or business day?) and continue to check for patches to see if there's a resolution, otherwise--I don't know about other Windows tablets with active digitizers, sorry. A Google/Bing search would probably work best for that.

 

[Krooked]

Damn I can't believe i'm thinking of returning this device. I have been waiting forever for the SP2 and now that I finally have it I must admit I'm not 100% happy so far...

Quick background on what I have now and wanted to replace... I have a beastly Windows 8 Desktop for gaming, I have a Macmini that runs all my music creation software/hardware. I have a Macbook air mid 2012 version (non haswell with 4gb ram) a Wacom tablet and an iPad 4....

I wanted the SP2 to replace my Macbook, Wacom and iPad.... (Hell I have an XboxOne pre ordered to replace my AppleTV3)

I also work in the Bay Area in the consumer electronics industry

Cons

Anyways... The reason I need windows is for Soldiworks and i'm stunned to see that my SP2 (which Microsoft said was faster than 95% of laptops out now) is actually running solid works much slower than my Macbook air with lower specs and less ram....

My screen has a flicker - (I have changed all the autodim and autocontrast and it didn't help) when I say flicker imagine you have a dark background and open a brighter page, well it adjusts thru like 4 minor shades to reach the correct brightness and its driving me crazy...

I bought the Surface edition arc mouse and it can't even track on my couch where every single mouse I have owned has worked perfectly (Go Bluetrack!)

I bought the Type2 Keyboard which to me is okay - I don't like the trackpad at all on it and the cloth like material to me doesn't feel good.

My WiFi has dropped 3 times on my 5GHZ band - Zero on my 2.4GHZ - None of my other devices have EVER had a problem...

----
Pros

I LOVE the digitizer - Being able to slap stuff down on screen is one of the main reason I purchased this.

It loads webpages faster than any device I own

----

I only have 14 days to return it to Microsoft -

I don't know if I can gamble it being just a driver update to fix this stuff... It seems like an intel hd4000 driver update could fix my flicker and possibly my performance in Solidworks

Maybe I should ride it out to the last minute.

I cant find any other windows machine that has a decent digitizer

what do you think?

For Solidworks, lower the screen resolution (I have 3 user accounts with different resolution settings to accommodate certain productivity tools, gaming, and entertainment).

The Macbook Air has a lower resolution than the native Surface Pro and this will greatly increase the speed of any 3D application that is graphics intensive. If you want the same speed (or faster) set the resolution to something comparable to the Macbook Air's.

Other power configuration settings can greatly effect performance as well.

 

[godson594]

flicker is not a bug see other thread uou need to download the intel drivers and turn off power saving

to fix wifi you need to disable usb selective suspend and keep wifi on maximum performance in power options its an intel usb 3.0 problem because wifi card is on the usb bus. they have not fixed the issue. you'll lose mall amount of bettery life and usb device will disconnect on sleep.

your alternative would be lenovo helix, but its not haswell and more expensive

Thanks for this - I just installed the drivers and disabled power saving... I'll report back later its hard for me to test when I'm at work. I hope this fixes my issues - i'll buy ya a beer

 

[godson594]

For Solidworks, lower the screen resolution (I have 3 user accounts with different resolution settings to accommodate certain productivity tools, gaming, and entertainment).

The Macbook Air has a lower resolution than the native Surface Pro and this will greatly increase the speed of any 3D application that is graphics intensive. If you want the same speed (or faster) set the resolution to something comparable to the Macbook Air's.

Other power configuration settings can greatly effect performance as well.

I didn't even think of the resolution - i'll try tonight... I was so (disappointed) my head was spinning... Thanks for the tip/reminder!!!