Surface Pro 2 / Windows 8.1 - Strange Charging Issue

I purchased the Surface Pro 2 a few days ago (release day) and it has been running great, but over the last 3 days I have encountered a weird charging issue.

I like to drain my battery down to near 8% range before I charge it, and sometimes it will go to sleep or hibernate before I get a chance to plug it in.

This issue has happened to me 3 times this far over the last 3 days.

When at 8% battery, I plug in my device.

The first two times, the battery icon would display plugged in, not charging, and the 8% would continue to drop to 0%, still saying plugged in, not charging. When it happened just now, the icon displayed plugged in, charging, but continued to drop to 0%.

The first time I figured this was just an issue where I was drawing too much current for it to be powered on, and charge at the same time.

When in this state, I accidentally removed the charger, and the device powered down, power loss, as expected, however, when the device booted back up, it showed that it was plugged in, and charging, and that my battery was at 100% (it had been on the charger for a while), as it should be... This was a genuine 100% charge, as the battery lasted its full life after being unplugged at this point.

The second and third time this happened I paid more close attention to it, and the same thing happened. If I reboot, it becomes fixed, but still, if the charger is disconnected, loss of power, device force powers down, but if I initiate a shutdown / reboot, everything is back to normal..

Has anybody else encountered this issue? Is it something with Windows8? Is it a known issue with the Surface Pro 2? Do I have a hardware issue?

Answer
Answer

DigitalJustin,


This is something we are investigating over the holidays. You are correct, this is related to part of the firmware update that went out in December for Surface Pro 2. The behavior appears to be limited to the battery level reporting mechanism (battery gas gauge) in that the battery will continue to charge and discharge properly. The error is in the reporting of the remaining charge level and having that accurately reflected in the UI.


We will resolve this behavior with a future firmware update that will be coming soon.


Thank you,


Tim

Microsoft Surface Team

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I don't know what other peoples' issues are with their Surface is but mine is running just fine.  I have updated each time they've pushed the update and did the hibernate work-around for two months while waiting for the full firmware fix.  I would take the reply about five months of not working as over exaggerated as the Surface Pro 2 was only released at the end of October....this means that on 22 February 2014, the Surface Pro 2 will only be FOUR months old.  Post ALL updates, including February firmware, the only problems I am experiencing is a nuissance OSK issue and problems getting the OS to update the daily keyboard input updates.

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Last updated April 5, 2021 Views 7,052 Applies to: