Using a remote session, a Microsoft tech support representative was able to fix the failure to resume from sleep problem on my Surface 3.
By James Kendrick for Mobile News | September 21, 2015 -- 11:03 GMT (04:03 PDT)
When my Surface 3 started having trouble resuming from sleep properly I was frustrated. The Surface 3 system is one of the best I've used and I was not happy when I had to set it aside due to this problem which I detailed in a recent article on ZDNet.
See related:Troubleshooting and repairing Windows 10 problems
In spite of my lack of desire to spend time troubleshooting the intermittent problem, Microsoft reached out to me and talked me into letting them have a shot at addressing the issue.
The tech support rep called me at the appointed time and led me through the process to allow him to remotely access the Surface 3. Once in, he spent over an hour going through the Windows 10 event viewer to try to determine what caused the system to go from a perfectly running PC to one with the problems I was having.
He did this without needing any participation on my part and I was able to work on another system while he did his thing. After a thorough examination, he wasn't able to pinpoint anything specific that caused the Surface 3 to go off the tracks. He made several tweaks to things that he felt would make things better and we left it at that. He would come back into the PC in the future should I continue to have problems resuming properly from a sleep state.
I've only been using the Surface 3 for a few days so it's early, but I'm happy to report that so far the system has not failed to wake up from a sleep state. It was doing that frequently before he made the tweaks so it is promising that it has yet to fail.
While this is a major improvement, the Edge browser is still unusable after the Surface 3 resumes from sleep. Upon opening the lid of the PC and waking up, the Edge app is totally locked up every time. I can close Edge and immediately rerun it and it works fine. This was happening before so it's not new.
Rather than deal with this I have stopped using Edge altogether and use Google Chrome instead. This is working well as Chrome runs very fast on the Surface 3 and even touch operation is good.
Occasionally other Microsoft apps fail to work properly after the system resumes from sleep, most notably the Mail app. Closing it and rerunning it eliminates the bad behavior.
I will continue to use the Surface 3 daily to see if the primary problem is fixed for good. I love the Surface 3 and am glad to be using it again, but my concern is that it will start having the same trouble in the future. You must be able to trust that a mobile system will work remotely without issue, and I admit I am tentative to give it my full trust.
Kudos to Microsoft for jumping in and working with me to work things out. It was apparent in the conversation with them that they didn't just want to help me, they wanted to make the Surface and Windows 10 the best they can for everyone.
It's worth noting that any Microsoft customer having system trouble as I did can take it to a Microsoft Store where the techs will work on fixing the problem for free.
By James Kendrick for Mobile News | September 21, 2015 -- 11:03 GMT (04:03 PDT)
When my Surface 3 started having trouble resuming from sleep properly I was frustrated. The Surface 3 system is one of the best I've used and I was not happy when I had to set it aside due to this problem which I detailed in a recent article on ZDNet.
See related:Troubleshooting and repairing Windows 10 problems
In spite of my lack of desire to spend time troubleshooting the intermittent problem, Microsoft reached out to me and talked me into letting them have a shot at addressing the issue.
The tech support rep called me at the appointed time and led me through the process to allow him to remotely access the Surface 3. Once in, he spent over an hour going through the Windows 10 event viewer to try to determine what caused the system to go from a perfectly running PC to one with the problems I was having.
He did this without needing any participation on my part and I was able to work on another system while he did his thing. After a thorough examination, he wasn't able to pinpoint anything specific that caused the Surface 3 to go off the tracks. He made several tweaks to things that he felt would make things better and we left it at that. He would come back into the PC in the future should I continue to have problems resuming properly from a sleep state.
I've only been using the Surface 3 for a few days so it's early, but I'm happy to report that so far the system has not failed to wake up from a sleep state. It was doing that frequently before he made the tweaks so it is promising that it has yet to fail.
While this is a major improvement, the Edge browser is still unusable after the Surface 3 resumes from sleep. Upon opening the lid of the PC and waking up, the Edge app is totally locked up every time. I can close Edge and immediately rerun it and it works fine. This was happening before so it's not new.
Rather than deal with this I have stopped using Edge altogether and use Google Chrome instead. This is working well as Chrome runs very fast on the Surface 3 and even touch operation is good.
Occasionally other Microsoft apps fail to work properly after the system resumes from sleep, most notably the Mail app. Closing it and rerunning it eliminates the bad behavior.
I will continue to use the Surface 3 daily to see if the primary problem is fixed for good. I love the Surface 3 and am glad to be using it again, but my concern is that it will start having the same trouble in the future. You must be able to trust that a mobile system will work remotely without issue, and I admit I am tentative to give it my full trust.
Kudos to Microsoft for jumping in and working with me to work things out. It was apparent in the conversation with them that they didn't just want to help me, they wanted to make the Surface and Windows 10 the best they can for everyone.
It's worth noting that any Microsoft customer having system trouble as I did can take it to a Microsoft Store where the techs will work on fixing the problem for free.
