Hi Johnny,
thanks a ton again for this manual. I played around with all the settings and also with Microsoft Surface support and want to share here the experience - so others with the same problem know whats up:
- the instruction here in DOES solve the problem of battery drain while on and off with the SP4 (at least with mine and I tried all the other hacks before) - I run latests Win 10 (slow insider ring just to get away from the awful 1903 verison
and am on 1909 now which per se had not solves the issue)
- What else have I done in orde to get my 3h+ battery runtime
back!!! ?
- clean install of windows 1909 (yes, it's pain....)
- finished all updates
before installing/doing something else
- ran ALL the steps in Johnny's instruction exactly as told!
- disable connected standby (regedit -> Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power ---- and there go to "CSenabled" and set the value to "0" (instead of "1") - this stopped my drain while off
- Disable windows hello - no face no fingerprint recognition - also had in impact on drain while off
- I played with SMT on/off and different power plan settings -> sad result -> SMT ON - battery time less than 1,5h -> SMT OFF battery time over 3h (close to 4 even)
- Just for reference my battery health:
-
| NAME |
X910527 |
| MANUFACTURER |
SMP |
| SERIAL NUMBER |
62167 |
| CHEMISTRY |
LION |
| DESIGN CAPACITY |
38.152 mWh |
| FULL CHARGE CAPACITY |
31.987 mWh |
| CYCLE COUNT |
400 |
- and now for the best part - the entertainment with Microsoft support (which was in German, but here is my summary for you folks) -
get the popcorn:
- Support ran Surface tool on my machine, although I told them all steps I already have done...ok -> finds nothing (surprise)
- Support generates battery and energy report, which I have already done for them and tries to tell me that it's
OBVIOUSLY a hardware issue and that my Surface is out of warranty and I should basically go **** myself for spending 1,7k€ just over 2,5 years ago.
- Me being relaxed -> tell him to talk to his boss and to tell him that its
OBVIOUSLY cannot be a hardware issue, as the SP4 runs 3h+ with SMT OFF and I have the battery report to prove it and rus 1,5h with SMT on and thats its their failed build 1903 and what his real suggestions might be on a solution
- Support takes a loooooong time and comes back with the grand solution to clean install windows with a USB to version 1903 (we note that this was the version causing the issues). I tell him that this is not the smartest thing off his cheat-sheat and whether
he can provide me with an image of a build BEFORE 1903 which I would even be ready to install. ......guess.......?! of course this is NOT possible.
- Me telling him to find a better solution with his boss -> looooong wait -> next proposal: I can get a refurbished SP5 for 650€! Which is a joke basically as the SP5 with my config is trading for 500€ on ebay in good shape here in Germany and I can even
bay a NEW SP7 on sale (with a little searching) for 700€.....
- You know the end - which is somewhat anti-climax: I can either take it or live with my precious SP4 without SMT and not expect a fix to come anytime soon. This is basically what he told me. Not in these words, as of course I logged the chat, but there was
not much hope for a fix, as the internal thinking is that this is a hardware issue inside MSFT and thus I dont see any reason for them to bugfix their sh*tty builds in this regards for the couple of poor guys still wanting to use their SP4 at promised performance....
Cheers, Michael
Good to hear Michael
As stated prior to your feedback as many are faced with this issue. In the current state of affairs with different units, ranging from SP3,4,5,6 | SL 1,2 | SB 1,2. SMT is not new in development, it has been around since Y2K, but actual implementation of SMT
on CPU's that support SMT is fairly new. Take AMD RYZEN 5 and up along with Intel Core i9 & up, core focus right now is mainly on Server Side CPU's, Client / Consumer CPU's are taking a hit from integrity check without page cache of integrity values of what
is clean VS. dirty file consistency. So in short, moving forward from this mayhem, it is best to do all of the following above, then turn SMT back on, with a full flush of any Cache on the system. Currently my battery is like yours with the exception that
battery last about 3-3.5 with SMT on with WIFI and all radios including Windows Hello, Connected Standby and so forth. With SMT off my SP4 will last 5-6 hours as should like if it was brand new, Watching Videos, Using high CPU and GPU applications, productivity
apps and alike. For the most part, aside from others facing this issue, it is recommended that like any electronics, do not charge battery over night or leave any electronic charged after it hits 100% stating fully charged. Best Practices since I had my
first cellular device @Nokia 96'.
NOTE: Lets just hope MSFT fixes the firmware and with low-level implementation that is suitable for portable compute devices. If the latest iPhone and prior Intel Core i9 MacBook Pro suffered from SMT along with battery inconsistency then MSFT should be
able to implement the same practice with the guys over at BSD and recompile the code into a compliant MSFT SpecOps requirement along with Intel & AMD.
As Stated Current Power Delivery While on Battery: So give or take 5-6 hours on Battery while having all radios off. With Best Performance. on AVG. Life span is about 2-3 hrs depending on CPU and GPU utilization. Real World Utilization in any environment.
