SP4 and Windows 10 ...MS read and FIX!!

[dman27]

Sounds like you're having hardware issues since I also had some issues at launch but it turns out that was from a faulty unit where the keyboard port died. With my exchange unit, I have had basically zero issues other than the known display driver crash... which hasn't happened to me in at least a week or two now, now that I think about it.

I recommend that you get an exchange done and see how a new unit performs.

This seems like the most reasonable culprit. Is it possible the first few weeks produced bad batches of the unit ? I will have it replaced tomorrow.

 

[robertcan]

I made a huge mistake with my first SP4. I put up with its problems for too long. Countless hours spent with MS Tech Support with no fix. Second SP4 was better but not perfect either. If you own a troublesome machine, return it. You deserve (and paid for) a machine that works right out of the box.

 

[leeshor]

Interesting. Other than installing the same software that was on my SP3, there are no changes other than the windows 10 install.

It makes me want to go back to windows 8.1. Can this be installed on the SP4?

I don't think 8.1 can be installed on the SP4. What's interesting is that since I bought mine in October I had a video driver crash the first day, and a couple weeks ago 2 within 30 minutes, neither of which I actually saw and could only tell from the logs.

But an hour ago I went to see a customer and he had just had one on his desktop. His first and only so far in the 3 weeks he's had the system. That's the only one I've seen on a desktop and I don't understand why. It acted/reacted exactly the same as people are reporting - and recovered gracefully.

 

[dman27]

I don't think 8.1 can be installed on the SP4. What's interesting is that since I bought mine in October I had a video driver crash the first day, and a couple weeks ago 2 within 30 minutes, neither of which I actually saw and could only tell from the logs.

But an hour ago I went to see a customer and he had just had one on his desktop. His first and only so far in the 3 weeks he's had the system. That's the only one I've seen on a desktop and I don't understand why. It acted/reacted exactly the same as people are reporting - and recovered gracefully.

Our organization has 10's of thousands of PC's, mostly laptops. We refused to update to Windows 8 because of certain issues and compatibility problems. I will tell you this, if we were to see these type of problems on our laptops, we would immediately kick off a project to downgrade to get it stable. Fortunately Enterprise level testing would have uncovered these major issues ahead of time.

I made a huge mistake with my first SP4. I put up with its problems for too long. Countless hours spent with MS Tech Support with no fix. Second SP4 was better but not perfect either. If you own a troublesome machine, return it. You deserve (and paid for) a machine that works right out of the box..

I'm starting to feel that I've made that same mistake. I've just spent 6 hours TODAY trying to get the system stable but no luck. Still getting error message: Critical_process_died, Blue screen and then reboot...every 15-20 minutes regardless if anything is open.

 

[Philtastic]

This seems like the most reasonable culprit. Is it possible the first few weeks produced bad batches of the unit ? I will have it replaced tomorrow.

Seriously, this is the best piece of tech I have ever owned and it's been basically hassle-free (after the exchange). Anyone having blue screens and constant crashes either has installed some sketchy stuff or there's something majorly wrong with their unit. It's possible that there were more manufacturing issues with the earliest units, especially since they were rushing to meet the launch date, that probably got corrected later but that's always the risk with being an early adopter.

 

[GreyFox7]

I saw a couple posts on another site where someone installed 8.1. it should show up in a search id assume.

 

[EMINENT]

Love my SP4. No issues other than connected standby.

Seriously, this is the best piece of tech I have ever owned and it's been basically hassle-free (after the exchange). Anyone having blue screens and constant crashes either has installed some sketchy stuff or there's something majorly wrong with their unit. It's possible that there were more manufacturing issues with the earliest units, especially since they were rushing to meet the launch date, that probably got corrected later but that's always the risk with being an early adopter.

Same here. Got it first day at the store. OP definitely has hardware problems or is doing something specific to trigger the blue screens.

Loving mine more every time I use it. Especially Hello on it and my 950xl. No issues now other than connected standby battery they've stated they'd fix. Works great with W10 on both my pc and Surface. Would never go back to 8.1. Only things I miss on 8.1 is flip ahead/back in Modern IE that should come to Edge someday and the swipe in from left to switch apps.

 

[jbowden]

I am on my 3rd SP4 and they all have had issues. My current unit has the wake from sleep, Edge video corruption, Keyboard stops working, Bluescreen Critical Process Died, and other stability issues. The display driver crash appears to be resolved. Microsoft testing should have found most of the user issues and I am sure they wanted to get this product out around the time Apple released iPad pro. Microsoft should give all of us earlier adopters a free pen and set of tips.

 

[smar]

I have had my i5/8gb/256gb since October (UK model). I had one freeze from standby in the first day or so, requiring a hard reboot. At that point, I read up about the standby issues and changed the sleep to hibernate.

Since then, I've also been fortunate not to have had any issues, and certainly never a blue screen/video driver crash (I tend to use an external screen about 70% of my time). From a software perspective, my unit is running Office 365, Adobe CS6 Design and Web Premium, VMWare Workstation 12, Chrome and a few other smaller apps (e.g. Rainmeter, Everything Search etc).

Battery life has ranged from about 5.5 hours to over 8 hours.

 

[chrisabril]

For those having problems, I would highly recommend doing a refresh, I also had a couple of BSOD, but since I did the refresh about 5 days ago, and took my time updating it instead of rushing them, I haven't had any issue. It is VERY important to do the updating in a proper way, as I think this is the main source of problems.

 

[MikemanSP4]

I recently bought my SP4 i7, 8Gb and let me tell you one thing. The version of Windows (10 Pro) that came with the machine was junk. No sooner then I set up my SP4 with all of the user settings, things started to crash and not work properly. Take the SURFACE program which allows the user to adjust the pressure sensitivity of the pen. It would open to the Splash screen and then Crash - I reloaded Windows 10 Pro - of course my Device Manager was full of errors - but once I downloaded the drivers from Download Surface Pro 4 Drivers and Firmware from Official Microsoft Download Center and installed - BAM! My machine started acting like a champ.

 

[MikemanSP4]

This is a RANT, so please don't read below this line if you don't want to hear about issues with the SP4.



With over 20+ years in the IT field, I have NEVER experienced as many problems as I have with the combination of the SP4 and Windows 10 !


With many of us spending $1700+ for the new SP4, it is ridiculous that we have to troubleshoot and put up with VERY frequent Blue screens, all browsers completely locking the SP4 and overall buggy operation.

With so many people having so many problems, it seems as if the Combo (SP4+Win 10) was not tested in even the basic sense.

The media deserves to jump all over this as another Vista fail.

I've had to look up so many different errors shown on the Blue screens that I just want to take this product back. It's embarrassing to try to do work with coworkers or friends and have to tell them to hold on because your system COMPLETELY locked up or a blue screen is rebooting your system.


with system restores, formatting, running updates, reading this forum and others, I'm at my wits end and plain tired trying to use this device for it's intended purpose.

Microsoft, this is YOUR forum ,read some of these comments and put a dedicated team on the problem ASAP.


I recently bought my SP4 i7, 8Gb and let me tell you one thing. The version of Windows (10 Pro) that came with the machine was junk. No sooner then I set up my SP4 with all of the user settings, things started to crash and not work properly. Take the SURFACE program which allows the user to adjust the pressure sensitivity of the pen. It would open to the Splash screen and then Crash - I reloaded Windows 10 Pro - of course my Device Manager was full of errors - but once I downloaded the drivers from Download Surface Pro 4 Drivers and Firmware from Official Microsoft Download Center and installed - BAM! My machine started acting like a champ.
Your loyal customers are getting hammered trying to justify this travesty.