SurfacePro + Power Cover = FRUSTRATION!!! :(

[lparsons21]

Got my Power Cover yesterday. Connected it to the SP, nada. Not recognized as being there at all. Not as a keyboard and certainly not as an additional battery.

Did all the things MS suggested to make it work, including virginizing the SP and starting from scratch. Spent an entire day and still zilch, nada, zippo...

Even tried getting the 'driver pack'. Found the right driver attempted to install it and it errored out saying it wasn't compatible.

Grrrrrrrr!!!!

 

[jnjroach]

Use the Hard Reset Boot, power off the device, with the Power Cover attached hold the volume rocker up and press the power button, it will put you in the UEFI Screen, change nothing and exit, let it reboot and see if it detects the Power Cover. If that doesn't work it is possible that you have a bad cover, assuming you've applied all of the Firmware Updates....

 

[lparsons21]

Thanks. Must be a bad PC as that didn't fix it.

I'll make arrangements to get it swapped out.

 

[jetstreamblue]

I had the exact same problem with a Power Cover I picked up off eBay last week. It's a hardware problem, got a brand new one from Microsoft on warranty and it works great. Good luck!

 

[lparsons21]

That's where I got mine. The seller said he would replace it and I've sent the original one back to him. IF the replacement doesn't work then I'll approach MS via the extended warranty to see if they will take care of it.

It didn't occur to me that MS might replace the bad one under a warranty.

 

[lparsons21]

I sent back the power cover to the Ebay seller and they refunded the money as they didn't have any more to send.

Since then, and after reading a few posts here, I've decided to not spend the money on one. I already have 2 of the MS power supplies for the SP, one in the tech/music room and one at my recliner. I tend to use the SP mostly at the recliner so the battery life isn't the issue I thought it was.

So I think I will leave things alone since it isn't big issue and save myself the $200 for a new power cover.

Of course, I'm old and may forget I even thought about it!!

 

[lparsons21]

Well what a difference a day makes! Diddling around on Ebay turned up a Power Cover for less than $100 with free shipping. Took a flyer on it and this one came in and works flawlessly. Charging now and should all be fully charged in about an hour and a half.

Oddly when I plugged it in, it got an update which I assume was the driver, but didn't notify except in the desktop.

 

[derausgewanderte]

if you go to the MS Surface support forum you'll find a number of folks who had problems with the power cover, including myself. It would not charge as advertised. Only after I got a replacement it worked fine and has been since. Seems there is a higher volume of non-working power covers out there. In the same thread somebody else had his replaced three (3!) times to get it to finally work.

good luck

 

[lparsons21]

I have read there and it does seem to be a case of a good one os good, but there are issues with quite a few and the only fix is to replace.