Type Cover firmware failure, any news?

[SantiGG]

The type cover firmware death is a long time known issue, affecting thousands of Surface users. Seems that MS does not care at all about it.
I have a SP3 and a SP4, a type3 cover and a type4 one, there is no way to make them work in any combination.
Tried everything and nothing helps. So it seems that we can only wait for a firmware solution by MS.

Has anyone any news about it?

Thanks to you all.

 

[Turbo4AWD]

The type cover firmware death is a long time known issue, affecting thousands of Surface users. Seems that MS does not care at all about it.
I have a SP3 and a SP4, a type3 cover and a type4 one, there is no way to make them work in any combination.
Tried everything and nothing helps. So it seems that we can only wait for a firmware solution by MS.

Has anyone any news about it?

Thanks to you all.

Interesting, I have two Surface devices and neither have had the "type cover firmware death" issue. At most, it would not respond until I entered bios, then it worked without issue. Firmware update for the Surface 3 came out and fixed the type cover not responding issue from ever coming back.

Tried to search it and the closest thing I got was that after a firmware update to the Surface Pro, you connect your keyboard and it doesn't work, then you must plug in a Type Cover from a different Surface pro generation and it will work again and accept your old type cover too. This was eventually fixed in the Surface Pro 4 in the April 2018 firmware update.

Otherwise, this issue is usually resolved by people uninstalling 3rd party Antivirus, Running disk cleanup and clearing old system files, Reinstalling Windows 10 fresh deleting all files, entering UEFI BIOS on the Surface Pro and verifying the keyboard and mouse works there, etc. For MOST people this resolves the issue as the driver shows up and reinstalls successfully...especially after the April 2018 firmware update. Not sure why people are still experiencing this issue on Surface Pro 4s.

 

[Turbo4AWD]

I kinda want to witness this issue in person because I am quite confident I can fix it.

 

[SantiGG]

Interesting, I have two Surface devices and neither have had the "type cover firmware death" issue. At most, it would not respond until I entered bios, then it worked without issue. Firmware update for the Surface 3 came out and fixed the type cover not responding issue from ever coming back.

Tried to search it and the closest thing I got was that after a firmware update to the Surface Pro, you connect your keyboard and it doesn't work, then you must plug in a Type Cover from a different Surface pro generation and it will work again and accept your old type cover too. This was eventually fixed in the Surface Pro 4 in the April 2018 firmware update.

Otherwise, this issue is usually resolved by people uninstalling 3rd party Antivirus, Running disk cleanup and clearing old system files, Reinstalling Windows 10 fresh deleting all files, entering UEFI BIOS on the Surface Pro and verifying the keyboard and mouse works there, etc. For MOST people this resolves the issue as the driver shows up and reinstalls successfully...especially after the April 2018 firmware update. Not sure why people are still experiencing this issue on Surface Pro 4s.

Thanks for answering.
Unfortunately, I don't think MOST people resolved this issue, as you say. Read for example the 56 pages long thread, spanning two years of frustration, at:

Surface Pro 4 type cover suddenly not working.

I don't know what happened. I turned my Surface Pro 4 on the other day and the type cover is dead. No lights. No response. No indication that it's working at all. I rarely take my surface anywhere.

answers.microsoft.com

It is only a sample. The internet is full of threads like this.

So no, I would not say it is a fixed issue. Microsoft simply does not care that a certain percentage of their products fail, as they expect people to move on and buy the next product after a couple of years.

 

[SantiGG]

I kinda want to witness this issue in person because I am quite confident I can fix it.

Thanks for your offering.

I have been working with computers and MS products for more than 30 years. I believe I know what I am talking about. Me and a few people abandoned to their fate with non working MS computers.

 

[Turbo4AWD]

Thanks for answering.
Unfortunately, I don't think MOST people resolved this issue, as you say. Read for example the 56 pages long thread, spanning two years of frustration, at:

Surface Pro 4 type cover suddenly not working.

I don't know what happened. I turned my Surface Pro 4 on the other day and the type cover is dead. No lights. No response. No indication that it's working at all. I rarely take my surface anywhere.

answers.microsoft.com

It is only a sample. The internet is full of threads like this.

So no, I would not say it is a fixed issue. Microsoft simply does not care that a certain percentage of their products fail, as they expect people to move on and buy the next product after a couple of years.

Unfortunately, a LOT of people have access to the internet can post and create multiple posts about an issue. What is usually never reported is when something is working just fine. This is why the many pages of this issue being reported on the internet is held with a grain of salt out of experience with end users not actually trying to resolve the issue or just giving up. After having experienced the issue on my Surface 3 and finding a solution after several months of personally troubleshooting the issue and not giving up, I do feel strongly that Surface Pro 4 user's Type Cover issues CAN be resolved and I believe THIS is why Microsoft doesn't do much about it although they should STILL at least help the customer better since it is their customer.

 

[SantiGG]

Your words: "after several months of personally troubleshooting the issue and not giving up " say it all.

An issue which needs several months (several months i have been losing my time, tried everything) of troubleshooting is a serious bug nobody should be experiencing after paying the good money we paid for this "premium" product.

Trying to minimize the problem does not seem the best way to go, neither seems any kind of help. Just blaming users.

 

[Sandswimmer]

I agree with the original post. I have the same problem, namely surface cover for my pro 4 which stopped working one week ago for no apparent reason. The driver for the keyboard have disappeared from the Device Manager and the keyboard is no longer detected. Unfortunately I don't know anyone else who has a SurfacePro 4 so the only solution left is to order a new expensive keyboard and see if this fixes the problem. Needless to say I am deeply unhappy about it and Microsoft has been seriously unhelpful.

 

[AMS]

I agree with the original post. I have the same problem, namely surface cover for my pro 4 which stopped working one week ago for no apparent reason. The driver for the keyboard have disappeared from the Device Manager and the keyboard is no longer detected. Unfortunately I don't know anyone else who has a SurfacePro 4 so the only solution left is to order a new expensive keyboard and see if this fixes the problem. Needless to say I am deeply unhappy about it and Microsoft has been seriously unhelpful.

Ah, Surface problems. My wife has a Surface Pro 3 on which the keyboard vanished. Her typecover works with my SP3, my typecover doesn't work with her machine. Can't even use the keyboard in BIOS. What to do?

I just bought an Arteck bluetooth type cover for her machine, and swapped her my machine (since she preferred the Microsoft typecover. The Arteck seems to work pretty well, but I'll know more after a few months.

 

[Jack Tong]

I purchased 2 used SP4 for online classes. One SP4 is working fine with the type cover. However, the other SP4 doesn't work with the same type cover at all.
The Type cover driver shows and Type cover even shows under Devices > Bluetooth and other devices. But it just won't light up and work.

If anyone has any idea, please kindly share. thank you!

 

[Turbo4AWD]

Coming up on year 3 with this Surface Pro 6 and the original alcantara type cover is still going strong. Surface Pro 6 recognizes it everytime. I also finally lost that weird bug where the Surface Pro 6 would stop responding to input for 30 seconds to 1 minute before responding again. I think this was due to several firmware updates that my Surface Pro 6 got through the years.

I still find it odd that multiple random Surface Pros are experiencing this issue. My Surface 3 (Non Pro) type cover still works on the Surface 3.

 

[avxflyer]

I kinda want to witness this issue in person because I am quite confident I can fix it.

I have two SP3's and two type covers. One SP3 has a bad touch screen, but both keyboards work on it. My other SP3 has a perfect screen and neither keyboard works on it. It's not the keyboard. I'd be happy to let you spend time figuring it out. I've tried every thread I can find and have completely wiped the computer and started from scratch. It's a failure.