Surface 3 Charging

[Surfacemike]

FWIW - If I plug in my Surface 3 to a USB3 port on my (work) Lenovo I get an error message saying a spike has overloaded the port.

I have found that the USB charger that ships with the iPad Air does charge the Surface 3. This works well for me given the ease of changing out the different country adaptors.

Still feel that there is sufficient chatter on charging issues not meeting (implied) advertised capability that Microsoft should be communicating?

 

[netuser]

I have not tried as many USB cables, trying to keep the variables down. I have used the flimsy cables that came with s couple battery packs and they worked fine, although kinda short.

Two I did use were Anker cables, both 6 footers.

Anker 6ft/1.8m Nylon Braided Tangle-Free

Anker 6ft / 1.8m Extra Long Premium Micro USB

OTHER Brands NOT TESTED, I generally have had good luck with are AmazonBasics and Cable Matters.

These are also very nice Micro USB cables:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00RVYJHD4

 

[Pippin96]

Wonder if a Kindle Fire charger would work well with Surface 3? There are lots of them on sale on ebay for $5 or $6 bucks.

 

[GreyFox7]

Wonder if a Kindle Fire charger would work well with Surface 3? There are lots of them on sale on ebay for $5 or $6 bucks.

I doubt it. The High Capacity PowerFast charger was 9W/1.8A others were lower powered. it would not fit my definition of "work well".

 

[bmack]

for a while I was having a problem with my surface pro 3 not charging when gaming when connected to oem charger. whenever the cpu came under a certain load with would stop charging and you would see the battery life of drain. not sure if its windows 10 or if there has been some kind of update to the firmware to fix it but I no longer have the issue it seems.

 

[DarthMengon]

I habe read now this whole thread, but dont anyone of you have the original docking Station? Because i have it, and with this charging is MUCH faster. So, is this not proof that technically more is possible wich another Micro USB Charter?

 

[GreyFox7]

Tried to charge overnight using a 2.1A output battery pack with BatteryBar Pro installed and logging enabled.
Note: Logging appears to prevent entering sleep.

Plugged in the battery pack at 9:23 PM with 29.8% Battery.
I pressed the power button to put the system in standby.
The number after the percentage is charge rate in mw, a negative number indicates discharging by that amount.
I removed fields after that for formatting.
"5/19/2015 9:23:27 PM","512055935SMPP11G8M","Discharging","8330","29.8%","-2421"
"5/19/2015 9:23:32 PM","512055935SMPP11G8M","Discharging","8326","29.8%","-2322"
"5/19/2015 9:23:37 PM","512055935SMPP11G8M","Online","8326","29.8%","-2383"
"5/19/2015 9:23:37 PM","512055935SMPP11G8M","Online","8326","29.8%","-2383"
"5/19/2015 9:23:37 PM","512055935SMPP11G8M","Online","8326","29.8%","-2383"
"5/19/2015 9:23:38 PM","512055935SMPP11G8M","Online, Charging","8322","29.8%","2364"
"5/19/2015 9:23:38 PM","512055935SMPP11G8M","Online, Charging","8322","29.8%","2364"
"5/19/2015 9:23:42 PM","512055935SMPP11G8M","Online, Charging","8326","29.8%","6319"
"5/19/2015 9:23:47 PM","512055935SMPP11G8M","Online, Charging","8337","29.9%","6338"
"5/19/2015 9:23:52 PM","512055935SMPP11G8M","Online, Charging","8345","29.9%","6091"

"5/19/2015 9:38:40 PM","512055935SMPP11G8M","Online, Charging","9922","35.5%","8455"

We see it switch from discharging to charging and throttle up to over 6000 mw (1.2A) charge rate.
It continued at that rate for a few minutes at 9:38:40 it throttled up to over 8000 mw (1.6A)
Keep in mind the system will use at least .2A in standby and charging is not 100% efficient, more like 80%. If we multiply 1.6 times 1.2 to account for 20% efficiency loss and add the .2A used by the system in standby the total power draw is estimated at 2.12A ( 1.6 * 1.2 + .2 ) or more.

It continued charging and peaked at 8550 mw (1.71A) charge rate.
"5/19/2015 9:52:53 PM","512055935SMPP11G8M","Online, Charging","11924","42.7%","8550"

At 10:00:20 PM the Battery pack appears to shutdown.
"5/19/2015 10:00:17 PM","512055935SMPP11G8M","Online, Charging","12962","46.4%","8447"
"5/19/2015 10:00:20 PM","512055935SMPP11G8M","Discharging","12969","46.5%","-5803"
"5/19/2015 10:00:20 PM","512055935SMPP11G8M","Discharging","12969","46.5%","-5803"
"5/19/2015 10:00:22 PM","512055935SMPP11G8M","Discharging","12969","46.5%","-5803"
"5/19/2015 10:00:27 PM","512055935SMPP11G8M","Discharging","12966","46.5%","-2953"
"5/19/2015 10:00:33 PM","512055935SMPP11G8M","Discharging","12962","46.4%","0"
"5/19/2015 10:01:03 PM","512055935SMPP11G8M","Discharging","12962","46.4%","0"
"5/19/2015 10:01:34 PM","512055935SMPP11G8M","Discharging","12962","46.4%","0"

"5/19/2015 10:04:42 PM","512055935SMPP11G8M","Discharging","12958","46.4%","0"
"5/19/2015 10:04:42 PM","512055935SMPP11G8M","Online, Charging","12958","46.4%","0"
"5/19/2015 10:04:43 PM","512055935SMPP11G8M","Online, Charging","12958","46.4%","0"
"5/19/2015 10:04:47 PM","512055935SMPP11G8M","Online, Charging","12962","46.4%","3367"
"5/19/2015 10:04:52 PM","512055935SMPP11G8M","Online, Charging","12973","46.5%","7752"
"5/19/2015 10:04:57 PM","512055935SMPP11G8M","Online, Charging","12981","46.5%","7782"

After a few minutes it appears the battery pack is back online and charging at a little lower rate.~ 77xx mw and continues at that rate until 10:42 PM where it throttles back to 931 mw (0.186A).
"5/19/2015 10:42:51 PM","512055935SMPP11G8M","Online, Charging","17864","64.0%","7737"
"5/19/2015 10:42:57 PM","512055935SMPP11G8M","Online, Charging","17868","64.0%","1322"
"5/19/2015 10:43:02 PM","512055935SMPP11G8M","Online, Charging","17871","64.0%","1330"
"5/19/2015 10:43:07 PM","512055935SMPP11G8M","Online, Charging","17875","64.0%","1729"
"5/19/2015 10:43:12 PM","512055935SMPP11G8M","Online, Charging","17875","64.0%","1729"
"5/19/2015 10:43:17 PM","512055935SMPP11G8M","Online, Charging","17875","64.0%","1729"
"5/19/2015 10:43:22 PM","512055935SMPP11G8M","Online, Charging","17879","64.1%","931"
"5/19/2015 10:43:27 PM","512055935SMPP11G8M","Online, Charging","17879","64.1%","931"

It stays at about that level the rest of the night
"5/20/2015 12:30:03 AM","512055935SMPP11G8M","Online, Charging","19448","69.7%","927"

"5/20/2015 2:30:21 AM","512055935SMPP11G8M","Online, Charging","21253","76.1%","901"

"5/20/2015 4:30:24 AM","512055935SMPP11G8M","Online, Charging","23024","82.5%","893"

Until I turn the system on at 5:15 AM
"5/20/2015 5:14:51 AM","512055935SMPP11G8M","Online, Charging","23674","84.8%","885"
"5/20/2015 5:14:56 AM","512055935SMPP11G8M","Online, Charging","23678","84.8%","889"
"5/20/2015 5:15:01 AM","512055935SMPP11G8M","Online, Charging","23678","84.8%","889"
"5/20/2015 5:15:06 AM","512055935SMPP11G8M","Online","23670","84.8%","-3504"
"5/20/2015 5:15:06 AM","512055935SMPP11G8M","Online","23670","84.8%","-3504"
"5/20/2015 5:15:06 AM","512055935SMPP11G8M","Online","23670","84.8%","-3504"

It achieved a peak of 84.8% Charged from 9:23 to 5:15 (8 hours) having started at 29.8 or 55%.

"5/20/2015 5:28:36 AM","512055935SMPP11G8M","Online","23229","83.2%","-4507"
But it's now discharging. Status shows Connected Discharging and that continues ...
as of now we are at 71.5% still connected discharging.
This is not going to recover unless I disconnect the battery and reconnect.
"5/20/2015 6:51:21 AM","512055935SMPP11G8M","Online","19946","71.5%","-1566"

IMO The result is: FAILED.

 

[TPadden]

Tried to charge overnight using a 2.1A output battery pack with BatteryBar Pro installed and logging enabled.
Note: Logging appears to prevent entering sleep.

Plugged in the battery pack at 9:23 PM with 29.8% Battery.
....... The result is: FAILED.

IMO your opinion only demonstrates different expectations and real world use of an external battery with a computer/tablet. I only would use an A/C source to recharge completely overnight but desire to be able to use my computer/tablet for hours and hours after it has reached 30% or less charge when away from that A/C source. When not in actual use, other than short periods of charge, the computer would be powered off and removed from the external battery. External battery works when A/C is not available to greatly extend use time.
........ The result for me is: PASSED.

That said I greatly appreciate your testing and data reporting.

 

[mtalinm]

I learned to stop worrying and love the microUSB.

First I realized that ANY device is going to need a charger, and that it is not a great burden to carry one around.

Now I just view being able to trickle-charge with other microUSBs as a bonus, if a small one.

Also, with an adapter it can become a second USB port.

Will admit I kind wish they had made the jump to usb-c and also made the device thinner. Surface 4, I suppose...

 

[GreyFox7]

IMO your opinion only demonstrates different expectations and real world use of an external battery with a computer/tablet. I only would use an A/C source to recharge completely overnight but desire to be able to use my computer/tablet for hours and hours after it has reached 30% or less charge when away from that A/C source. When not in actual use, other than short periods of charge, the computer would be powered off and removed from the external battery. External battery works when A/C is not available to greatly extend use time.
........ The result for me is: PASSED.

Well it already failed to charge while the Surface was in use so that option was out.

The point of the exercise was to determine the efficacy of charging and to show what is happening while charging or connected and not charging.

I don't feel it's an unreasonable expectation of a battery pack with stated 2.1A charging rate and more than enough total capacity to deliver a full charge to actually do that. If it will only last 40 minutes without shutting down or dropping back to trickle charge then it should state those limitations. At face value the only difference between this battery pack and the Anker batteries that did the job to completion successfully is 2.1A rate vs. 3A. The average user that just expected to charge wouldn't have a clue why the Surface is not charged overnight or not charging at any given moment when connected.

In addition some of the 2A and lessor Chargers behaved exactly the same way.

 

[TPadden]

Well it already failed to charge while the Surface was in use so that option was out.

The point of the exercise was to determine the efficacy of charging and to show what is happening while charging or connected and not charging. .....
In addition some of the 2A and lessor Chargers behaved exactly the same way.

Sorry I misunderstood your post and since you didn't mention specific battery packs assumed you were talking about battery packs in general as FAILED. I have and use 2 different Anker battery packs .......

 

[DarthMengon]

Nobody read my information about much faster charging with the docking station? I still don't understand why this is so much faster than the micro USB charger alone...