What's a normal brand new Battery Test Report?

[sbc5ha9iro]

Hi All,

I tried searching but didn't find exactly what I was looking for. So I had to return my surface pro 4 that I bought on Feb. 6th yesterday(Feb. 21st) and exchange it for a new unit. Original unit was from lot 1547 and the exchange unit was lot 1602. I took it home to see if the issues from before(light bleed, fan during charging, terrible battery) would be gone or still there. When I opened the box I noticed that the seal looked like it had been reapplied and there was dust and other particles on the screen. Right away when I turned it on and opened task manager, the disk was at 98%. I'm an artist and not really computer savvy but that still didn't seem right. For some reason this unit seemed like it might have actually been opened before so I decided to run a battery health report.

There were no noted charge cycles. I will post the report later when I'm off work but what seemed off was that the battery had activity sometime in January(34 seconds) and again in early feb(over a minute). Like I mentioned before, the unit was first powered on by me on the 21st.

So what I want to know is that if this is normal? Does Microsoft power on the unit multiple times before boxing and shipping? Sorry if this is in the wrong area. Thanks everyone!

 

[Empyre]

This response is purely opinion based because I have absolutely no idea what they actually do but I would imagine that the unit is charged multiple times and booted before being packaged and shipped especially for installing the OS and also for quality control? Again, I have no idea what goes into making and shipping these things but you must power on the unit for quality control I would imagine and they have to power on the device to get the OS on there at least I would think so. Anyone else can maybe give you a definite answer there.



Also, do you mean disk activity? I thought that's what the task manager monitors.

 

[sbc5ha9iro]

Thank you, Empyre. Yes, the disk activity is what I meant. It was lit up red and that didn't look right at all. I found some workarounds and dropped it down to 0-1% while no other program is running.

That makes sense about them having to power it on multiple times but it just didn't make sense that the report showed that it was powered on weeks twice and weeks apart. I'm also probably just being paranoid since I read about a guy receiving a replacement unit that had 7 charge cycles already on the battery.

 

[Yillbs]

Thank you, Empyre. Yes, the disk activity is what I meant. It was lit up red and that didn't look right at all. I found some workarounds and dropped it down to 0-1% while no other program is running.

That makes sense about them having to power it on multiple times but it just didn't make sense that the report showed that it was powered on weeks twice and weeks apart. I'm also probably just being paranoid since I read about a guy receiving a replacement unit that had 7 charge cycles already on the battery.

This is completely normal. In fact, im suprised you didnt' have more. Some of the units that have those charge cycles were likely because QA units got put back into the batch, unintentional, but happens. Additionally, battery life cycles count in DAYS the battery hasn't been charged. So if you have 100% on day 1, use 50%, then use it again on day 2, you should have 1 cycle on the battery, even if you only charged it half way, or a fraction of the way.

 

[lmcguire656]

I've been very disappointed the battery usage on my new sp4. I'm using a reading app (Freda) and have the unit settings a the darker option and the battery saver on with the reading app light setting at about 50% and can only read for 3 to 4 hours before the unit needs to be recharged. I talked with tech support and the decided to send me a new unit but this one is no better on battery drain than the first. I was really hoping for a 9 to 10 charge at the very least. Guess I'm sending the whole works back and keep using my asus tablet with a 12 hour battery span.

 

[hughlle]

I've been very disappointed the battery usage on my new sp4. I'm using a reading app (Freda) and have the unit settings a the darker option and the battery saver on with the reading app light setting at about 50% and can only read for 3 to 4 hours before the unit needs to be recharged. I talked with tech support and the decided to send me a new unit but this one is no better on battery drain than the first. I was really hoping for a 9 to 10 charge at the very least. Guess I'm sending the whole works back and keep using my asus tablet with a 12 hour battery span.

While everyones mileage may vary, if there is nothing going on in the background such as updating etc (remember that battery life will generally suck for the first few days while the machine does its stuff) then 3-4 hours is not right. I happily get 9 hours with onenote and drawfboard pdf when i've airplane mode and battery saver enabled and using the suggested brightness level.

 

[jnjroach]

I've been very disappointed the battery usage on my new sp4. I'm using a reading app (Freda) and have the unit settings a the darker option and the battery saver on with the reading app light setting at about 50% and can only read for 3 to 4 hours before the unit needs to be recharged. I talked with tech support and the decided to send me a new unit but this one is no better on battery drain than the first. I was really hoping for a 9 to 10 charge at the very least. Guess I'm sending the whole works back and keep using my asus tablet with a 12 hour battery span.

As Hugh says above, during the first 48-72 hours of a fresh install/new machine Windows is indexing, syncing and otherwise optimizing the install to your profile. This can impact battery life depending on how much data is being sync'd and indexed through OneDrive and your local profile. Also, this is when all of the updates to the OS and UWA are applied, mostly in the background.