New SP4 firmware out

[SurfaceGk]

My case is bit strange, I have never had the problem with the sleep since one mounth ago when I bought my surface pro 4, but theese two nights, since the last firmware update, I can not wake up the surface because all batery was drained.
So before the update all works fine for me, but after, the problem has appeared.

Same for me. Happened once yesterday, I pulled the SP4 out of my bag and it was very hot, fan running and battery was down to 20% from 90% a couple hours before.

 

[macmee]

Wow I don't know if I want to gamble on updating after seeing some problems people have had after doing it. Urgh.

 

[dstrauss]

Three days on the update:

1. Sleep has been averaging 1-2% drain per hour, with 4-6% overnight (6-8 hours) - hibernate turned off.
2. First day a couple of times had to hard reset to start (press and hold power button to come out of sleep). Today, like yesterday, starts with tap of power button (1-2 seconds).
3. NO OVERHEATING!
4. Fan is running more than before (seemingly random, and even when Task Manager shows low CPU usage - I WAS WRONG HERE - most of that fan noise is Flash related - turned it off in Chrome forgot to turn it off in Edge - even background windows in Edge may be causing most of the fan noise I'm seeing) but no where near as loud nor constant as my former SP3.
5. First time I plugged back into my dock, I lost the external monitors (two 27" Acer K27HUL native display port), but after one restart have been working just fine.

It is now the stable and solid running computer I experienced after 6 months of SP3 updates - so they are getting a little faster at cleaning up release day messes. That should mean you can time your SP5 purchases for about three months after initial release - assuming it is NOT a whole new design paradigm. For me, I hope the SP5 and SP6 keep the exact same form factor (has worked well for five years for the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro) but give us smart frame screens (for 13" when docked or keyboarded), three Thunderbolt 3 ports (one for charging, two for I/O), better removable storage, even better thermal controls (less fan noise), and MORE BATTERY with faster recharge rates.

 

[wynand32]

Another update. I put my SP4 to sleep at 12:30am this morning at 100%, set to not hibernate. It woke up fine this morning at 11:00am, cool to the touch and with 87% battery life remaining. This was following a factory reset, and so all default settings in place (except for being set not to hibernate). That includes having WiFi turned on while sleeping.

So that's about 1.25%/hour while sleeping. It's not iPad-like sleep performance, but then again it's not an iPad. So that's likely perfectly acceptable performance.

Here are some other things I've experienced since the update:

1. I decided to factory reset mine right after the update, to make testing as legit as possible. Resetting from Setting > Update & Security > Recovery > Reset this PC failed and put the SP4 into an infinite reboot loop. Someone else mentioned this happening, so if you decide to reset, there might be an issue there. I had to create a USB recovery drive and perform the reset that way.
2. I have had some instances of the machine locking up after waking up and needing to be hard reset (two-button shutdown). That seems to clear up a number of issues.
3. Last night, I had an instance of the Windows Module Installer Helper grabbing the CPU and causing the fan to run. Had to shut down to get it to stop. I experienced this on occasion with my SP3, so I don't think this has anything to do with the SP4.
4. I think there might be an issue with waking from hibernation. I'll have to test that out today by turning hibernate back on.
5. Here are the things that were happening prior to the update that are no longer happening:
   1. Type cover stops working when woken from sleep: hasn't happened once.
   2. Black screen when woken from sleep where the internal display is forgotten (resolved by Win-P): hasn't happened once.

So, overall, I think this is a good update that fixes some issues. I never did trust my SP3 to stay asleep when put in a case for traveling, and I don't think I'll trust my SP4 either. I'll hibernate instead. But then again, I don't trust my MacBook Air either, and always shut it down when taking it somewhere--it also had a habit of waking up burning hot. So this is absolutely NOT a problem, IMO, that's limited to the Surface line.

 

[mike_msf]

Can anyone explain to me what's the point of leaving the device turned on in a sleep mode overnight? I mean why don't you just shut it off?

 

[wynand32]

Can anyone explain to me what's the point of leaving the device turned on in a sleep mode overnight? I mean why don't you just shut it off?

It's not really about a device's ability to remain in sleep "overnight." That's just a convenient way to test how well it's sleeping.

Rather, it's about how the machine remains in standby generally and responds immediately throughout the day. If it can't sit there overnight in sleep mode without waking up and burning battery life, then it won't be able to do so throughout a typical workday. For example, if you're in the office and doing other things, then need to grab your SP4 for a quick meeting and start taking notes, it should be ready to go. Needing to wait for it to boot is not the best attribute of such a modern device.

Incidentally, I often wake up in the middle of the night with an idea, for example, and want to jot it down quickly. So, for me personally, remaining in sleep after I go to bed is a value to me. But it's not the real issue, probably, for most people.

Also incidentally, my iPad Air 2 sleeps and wakes up flawlessly, while maintaining literally days worth of standby. Put it to sleep at midnight at 100%, it's at 99% at worst the next morning. I don't expect my SP4 to act like an iPad, but I don't want it to act lika a circa-2005 notebook either. Microsoft wants the SP4 to compete with the iPad (and iPad Pro), and so how well it sleeps and wakes up is a real issue for the machine's success.

 

[mike_msf]

It's not really about a device's ability to remain in sleep "overnight." That's just a convenient way to test how well it's sleeping.

Rather, it's about how the machine remains in standby generally and responds immediately throughout the day. If it can't sit there overnight in sleep mode without waking up and burning battery life, then it won't be able to do so throughout a typical workday. For example, if you're in the office and doing other things, then need to grab your SP4 for a quick meeting and start taking notes, it should be ready to go. Needing to wait for it to boot is not the best attribute of such a modern device.

Incidentally, I often wake up in the middle of the night with an idea, for example, and want to jot it down quickly. So, for me personally, remaining in sleep after I go to bed is a value to me. But it's not the real issue, probably, for most people.

Also incidentally, my iPad Air 2 sleeps and wakes up flawlessly, while maintaining literally days worth of standby. Put it to sleep at midnight at 100%, it's at 99% at worst the next morning. I don't expect my SP4 to act like an iPad, but I don't want it to act lika a circa-2005 notebook either. Microsoft wants the SP4 to compete with the iPad (and iPad Pro), and so how well it sleeps and wakes up is a real issue for the machine's success.

Thanks, that makes sense!

 

[emeritus]

Sleep state unreliable, showing often only black screen when trying to wake up. Face recognition stuck a couple of times, keeps on glowing red but nothing else happens on screen. I returned to using hibernation only.

 

[dmillerc5]

This is my initial post as I just picked up my i7/16GB/512 device yesterday mid afternoon. After applying all updates, which took approximately 2 ½ hours, and after verifying all updates were successful proceeded to install a few applications such as Office/Outlook, DropBox, VMware12. All is good and the fan only kicked in for about 10 minutes during the latter part of the update process. I have kept all defaults for now (i.e. including hibernate on battery after sleep at 120 minutes) but here is why I am very excited.

I closed the cover at ~12:30am this morning with 33% battery left, and reopened at 8:30am. The first and only glitch so far was that Hello was trying to start the camera and it appeared this was not going to complete. Therefore, I simply selected the PIN alternate sign-on and was back online.

The battery was at 32% (only 1% loss over 8 hours). This is what I had been waiting for.

I will mention, a secondary goal for my surface is to potentially replace my work laptop for travel (currently at DELL i7 quad, very nice machine albeit very bulky of course). The reason a proper sleep (and/or hibernate) is so important to me is that I typically do not shut down my running vmware image(s). In this way, I always have my image ready to go on demand. If I had to shut down my device or if it crashed, my vmware would have to obviously be reloaded, items cached, etc. which is not ideal. Note: I use vmware images frequently for demonstration purposes.

I just ordered a dock plus a mDP VGA/HDMI adapter so I have not yet tested driving my external monitors or a projector. Keep in mind, I’ve had this excellent device for less than one day and so far it is meeting my expectations.

Thanks everyone for all the sharing on this forum. The information and experiences continue to be extremely valuable and helpful to this community.

 

[MikemanSP4]

This is my initial post as I just picked up my i7/16GB/512 device yesterday mid afternoon. After applying all updates, which took approximately 2 ½ hours, and after verifying all updates were successful proceeded to install a few applications such as Office/Outlook, DropBox, VMware12. All is good and the fan only kicked in for about 10 minutes during the latter part of the update process. I have kept all defaults for now (i.e. including hibernate on battery after sleep at 120 minutes) but here is why I am very excited.

I closed the cover at ~12:30am this morning with 33% battery left, and reopened at 8:30am. The first and only glitch so far was that Hello was trying to start the camera and it appeared this was not going to complete. Therefore, I simply selected the PIN alternate sign-on and was back online.

The battery was at 32% (only 1% loss over 8 hours). This is what I had been waiting for.

I will mention, a secondary goal for my surface is to potentially replace my work laptop for travel (currently at DELL i7 quad, very nice machine albeit very bulky of course). The reason a proper sleep (and/or hibernate) is so important to me is that I typically do not shut down my running vmware image(s). In this way, I always have my image ready to go on demand. If I had to shut down my device or if it crashed, my vmware would have to obviously be reloaded, items cached, etc. which is not ideal. Note: I use vmware images frequently for demonstration purposes.

I just ordered a dock plus a mDP VGA/HDMI adapter so I have not yet tested driving my external monitors or a projector. Keep in mind, I’ve had this excellent device for less than one day and so far it is meeting my expectations.

Thanks everyone for all the sharing on this forum. The information and experiences continue to be extremely valuable and helpful to this community.

I too have had an excellent experience with zero glitches. It's an excellent device and performs phenomenally. I7 Beast.

 

[Kevin Cossaboon]

Thank you all for posting current stability. I jumped into the SB pool in November, and then got back out in Jan frustrated. I am waiting for 'stability' to jump back in with a SP4.

Amazed at all the issues after having a great SP and SP3 it was so disappointing to be frustrated with SB.

P.s. Anyone know where all the returned units are going? I do not see any 'refurbished' units around.

 

[monkeh]

Am I the only person who has not had the update offered through windows update? I have downloaded the manual update files but these are not designed for anyone to apply to a current install from what i can see.