Wacky battery antics

[be77solo]

Sorry, I can't be of assistance in helping, but just going through all your posts gave me a chuckle... felt like I was right there with you watching the battery...

I rarely drop below 30-40% before charging, up to that point things are always stable on mine. I'll be curious and will pay better attention next time I get around 25%.

 

[eee]

Sorry, I can't be of assistance in helping, but just going through all your posts gave me a chuckle... felt like I was right there with you watching the battery...

I rarely drop below 30-40% before charging, up to that point things are always stable on mine. I'll be curious and will pay better attention next time I get around 25%.

Hehe, yeah, liveblogging my battery depletion..

I tried it again today. Same thing - at 16% it drops down to 4% then keeps going back up and down until depleted. One difference is that the battery meter was telling me 7.30hrs consistently for the first 2 hrs, so somethings changed with the metering due to yesterdays full depletion. And I got a bit longer battery life, slightly above 6hrs on Balanced, 30% display brightness.

 

[petrol]

I don't have this issue, perhaps because I'm not paying attention at 25%. BUT I do have the most annoying battery behavior at below 10% and I'm wondering if you OP has this as well, since you are clearly watching battery like a hawk.

My original SP2 and my current one (returned first one) did this: at below 10%, after the 'low battery' warning, the unit will shut off/stand by spontaneously without warning AND the % left will jump up and down constantly. I'm not talking about at 5% or below, but at 9% or 7% or 6%, the unit will just shut off and I have to power it back up.

And % will jump around from 9% to 4% to 7% while I'm just staring at the desktop, then back to 8% or whatever random % and then the unit will just shut down. Repeat.

the SP2 is updated to the latest firmware and software.

I've never had another laptop do this. It's usually just a straight line % decline, then it'll shut off without warning (as expected) at somewhere below 5% or 3%.

Am I going crazy? Or is this expected behavior?

 

[eee]

I don't have this issue, perhaps because I'm not paying attention at 25%. BUT I do have the most annoying battery behavior at below 10% and I'm wondering if you OP has this as well, since you are clearly watching battery like a hawk.

My original SP2 and my current one (returned first one) did this: at below 10%, after the 'low battery' warning, the unit will shut off/stand by spontaneously without warning AND the % left will jump up and down constantly. I'm not talking about at 5% or below, but at 9% or 7% or 6%, the unit will just shut off and I have to power it back up.

And % will jump around from 9% to 4% to 7% while I'm just staring at the desktop, then back to 8% or whatever random % and then the unit will just shut down. Repeat.

the SP2 is updated to the latest firmware and software.

I've never had another laptop do this. It's usually just a straight line % decline, then it'll shut off without warning (as expected) at somewhere below 5% or 3%.

Am I going crazy? Or is this expected behavior?

Same as mine. It's either the battery or the battery meter thats faulty. Probably hardware? I'll send mine in for exchange.

 

[grumpy]

My original SP2 and my current one (returned first one) did this: at below 10%, after the 'low battery' warning, the unit will shut off/stand by spontaneously without warning AND the % left will jump up and down constantly. I'm not talking about at 5% or below, but at 9% or 7% or 6%, the unit will just shut off and I have to power it back up.

My original SP2 and replacement both started hibernating at about 8% instead of the 5% it was set to hibernate at. The really wacky bouncing battery capacity did not start until the Feb update (no change with the Mar update)

And % will jump around from 9% to 4% to 7% while I'm just staring at the desktop, then back to 8% or whatever random % and then the unit will just shut down. Repeat.

This is similar to my experience, except the capacity starts jumping after it drops to 22% and continues until it dips into the hibernation threshold.

I've never had another laptop do this. It's usually just a straight line % decline, then it'll shut off without warning (as expected) at somewhere below 5% or 3%.

Am I going crazy? Or is this expected behavior?

This not normal and IMO clearly indicative of a hardware problem. After waiting nearly a month for MS to close my last order, I have just placed an order for another replacement.

 

[davieboy]

There is definitely some type of firmware or hardware issue regarding battery on SP2. I just posted on the help section about my experiences with this product. Mine is stuck now and not charging at all. Shows 33% battery level, plugged in not charging. If i remove the power chord the unit instantly dies which indicates no power. Was working fine for a few weeks. My retailer said they are having lots of returns with similar issues. I wonder will we see more issues coming to light soon. I would have expected this on first gen product but its not really acceptable on a second gen product. Lets see if microsoft can pull something out of the bag on this.

 

[jchercon]

My original SP2 and replacement both started hibernating at about 8% instead of the 5% it was set to hibernate at. The really wacky bouncing battery capacity did not start until the Feb update (no change with the Mar update)

This is similar to my experience, except the capacity starts jumping after it drops to 22% and continues until it dips into the hibernation threshold.



This not normal and IMO clearly indicative of a hardware problem. After waiting nearly a month for MS to close my last order, I have just placed an order for another replacement.

My surface pro 2 256gb 4200u is having the same problem. But I don't know what to do, I had to wait for two months before receiving mine and I'm using it a lot at work. Has anyone sent his surface to Microsoft and received another one not suffering this battery issue?
Sorry for my English, I'm Spanish.
Thanks a lot!

 

[javispedro]

This is clearly a firmware issue (ie they need to increase the number of voltage samples they take by an order of magnitude before reporting on remaining capacity).

From a hardware point of view, I'm not surprised there's such a huge drop considering the small battery and that load can quickly change from 2W to 20W by just starting to transfer a file via Wi-Fi.

Take into account allowing this to happen is said to be damaging to the long-term life of the battery.

 

[petrol]

My original SP2 and replacement both started hibernating at about 8% instead of the 5% it was set to hibernate at. The really wacky bouncing battery capacity did not start until the Feb update (no change with the Mar update)

That's very interesting and helpful that you didn't experience this until the last two updates. A firmware issue would seem to explain this, and that both of my brand new units experience the exact same behavior as each other. Let's hope another fix is in order soon.

I think I'll start a separate thread on this to see how many folks like you didn't have the issue until recent firmware updates. If this turns out to be the case, then I will probably not return my unit, hoping for a fix.

 

[grumpy]

That's very interesting and helpful that you didn't experience this until the last two updates. A firmware issue would seem to explain this, and that both of my brand new units experience the exact same behavior as each other. Let's hope another fix is in order soon.

I think I'll start a separate thread on this to see how many folks like you didn't have the issue until recent firmware updates. If this turns out to be the case, then I will probably not return my unit, hoping for a fix.

Personally, I think that the various battery issues are the result of widespread hardware issues that MS is desperately trying patch around. My last two SP2s always exhibited the 3% drop at 25% as well as premature forced hibernation at 8% (instead of 5%). My first SP2 was returned primarily due to the battery capacity constantly resetting to 100% and a badly creaking screen. Neither the Dec nor the Jan solved resetting capacity issue (I never tried the Feb update on that SP2 since I had received my replacement by that time). It seems that one patch will fix things for one group of users, but breaks things for another group. This seems to imply manufacturing issues where the batteries are not behaving in a uniform manner.

I am hoping the third time is the charm..

 

[jchercon]

Finally, after contacting microsoft support service, I'm sending my surface pro 2 256gb to the technical service.
Before doing that I followed their instructions. I reinstalled the system and all the updates, but the battery issues did not disappear. So they told me it had to be a hardware problem.
I hope the replacement unit works perfectly (I'm crossing my fingers)

 

[RevengerPT]

Hi guys!

I bought a SP2 last week and have the same problem described in this thread. After 25%, the battery level starts going up and down like crazy, which is really annoying. I know this thread is a little bit old, but I would like to ask if anyone found a workaround or if any of your more recent replacement units still exhibit the same problem.

I really like the SP2, but this problem is a deal breaker.

Thank you in advance.