Firmware Update Released! 2-17-16

[beefydragon]

Same here. Intel Display crashes but not as often.
But the system returning from Sleep is stuck on the "Surface" logo screen. Have to hard reboo.

Update after the weekend: Better, but still not great.

1) Battery life has improved during normal use (surfing, email). Battery life while playing games is about the same. Battery life while sleeping is MUCH improved for me, though I do not permit my SB to sleep for more than a couple of hours at a time, usually. I rarely ever allow it to enter hibernate from sleep.

2) Played Diablo 3 for many hours this weekend, and no issues with the keyboard/trackpad not responding this time. I'm not holding my breath here, though. More time will tell this tale.

3) System simply shut down on its own once in the middle of the night -- for no reason. Nothing in the event logs except an unexpected system shutdown (no BSOD). Machine was on my desk, closed, sleeping (not hibernate) and plugged in only to power (which is on a battery backup). This is a first ever.

4) Intel display driver issues continue. I sometimes have an issue where I must sign out of windows and back in after switching from my desktop monitor back to the SB's screen -- and when I do, when Windows Hello comes up to log me back in after logging out, the screen is black and there's only the cursor. Nothing but a forced shutdown/and boot sequence fixes it. This issue still exists -- I've now seen it twice since this most recent firmware update. I'm beginning to wonder if this is a Windows 10 issue and not just an Intel driver issue.

5) Airplane mode toggle bug still there ... but honestly, I collapsed the quick toggles in the action center anyways and leave my most used on the top row so I don't ever really "see" this anymore.

Why is it I get the feeling that we'll be hearing about the next generation of this device before HALF of these awful bugs are fixed? The display driver issues are getting extremely irritating, and I really wish Intel and Microsoft would figure it out and push a fix before I end up hunting for a new device. Surface Book would be perfect for me if it weren't for these stupid issues that keep requiring me to hard reboot my device... I cringe every. single. time.

 

[rdockrey]

I'm not seeing this issue (fans running all the time), and I'm using the Intel GPU for most stuff, nvidia for applications like Photoshop & games. Mine is totally quiet, as always. Did you check the nvidia settings in the control panel where you tell it what GPU to use? It may have reset on you. You could also try a two-button shutdown and see if that works.

I went through and checked everything when I started having issues and its all set to use the nvidia card. I will try the reset today and see if that helps any. Update: I rolled back the Nvidia driver and that has fixed the issue. I was going to roll back the 520 driver but that is not an option. When I rolled back the Nvidia driver I did have to go into the settings and set it to use the Nvidia card as default. I may have got away with doing the reset or reinstalling the Nvidia driver but for now I am just going to leave it as it is.

 

[zerospace-net]

And... back again. Another unexpected shutdown in the middle of the night, while the unit was plugged in and charging. I headed over to MS's own forums this morning to find a whole thread of people having the SAME PROBLEM. Well, I'm glad it isn't just me!

Good grief, Microsoft... this is completely shameful. Yeah, my SB can sleep for short periods and be fine, but apparently leaving it to sleep overnight while charging is a big no-no. =P. I'm getting rather disgusted with MS over this. Fix some issues, introduce issues that are almost far worse (how good is it for windows to just be shut off improperly all the time? And the flood of warnings and errors in my event log is absolutely disgraceful!)

 

[dgxy]

Aaand there comes my graphics driver crash again. Twice in 10 minutes or so, while using powerpoint. This is my 3rd Surface Book replacement, all had this problem, the crash usually happens when I work on excel, csv or ppt (Office Professional Plus 2010). Have i7 16 GB 512 GB - with all the updates.

 

[rdockrey]

I have been running Excel 2016 a lot here lately and have had zero issues with it.

 

[Dratwister]

Gosh... Reading all comments and I think I should buy lottery ticket instead of this SB...

 

[Dush Ku]

Seems to have memory issues if I don't reboot it after several days now.

 

[zerospace-net]

Seems to have memory issues if I don't reboot it after several days now.

What kind of memory issues? Like a leak?

That aside, I'm giving up on this thing. I spent the last 2 days spec'ing out a new machine, and I'm headed out to buy the parts tomorrow. I can't take all the BSODs and crashes and shutdowns anymore. I need my work computer to be reliable, and SB is anything but reliable (it's practically a frickin' joke). Surface Book is going to be set aside as my "toy" while I build a real computer that actually works (and that I can actually fix if something goes wrong). I hope they'll fix the issues, but as long as the SB isn't my primary computer, I can deal with its quirks and not worry when it won't wake from sleep or crashes 4 times in one day. I'll just be using it for surfing and games and for playing Diablo 3 on the couch =P. At this point, MS won't take it back and I'm not sure I can bring myself to sell it to anyone else who doesn't realize just how buggy these things are. So .. it'll be one very expensive lesson learned.

Good luck, everyone.. I'll probably still be around, but less so once I'm not using the SB all the time.

 

[Nexusofuniverse]

Was your machine really hot when you took this photo? Often my SB will turn on in my laptop bag, and is so steaming hot when i take it out that it's too hot to touch and the screen will discolor like this until it cools down. Also when i flip the screen around backwards and close it to draw on the screen I find even doing light duty stuff, like in Fresh Paint, the computer gets too hot to draw for very long and I have to close the apps and let it cool down before I go back to work.

 

[cvflowe]

BSOD almost consistently after using the SB, closing the lid and reopening after sitting idle closed a few hours. Should I take it to the store only to be swapped with a refurb? Or continue to wait for an update? Needless to say, long time Microsoft customer extremely disappointed right now.

Posted via the Windows Central App for Android

 

[zerospace-net]

BSOD almost consistently after using the SB, closing the lid and reopening after sitting idle closed a few hours. Should I take it to the store only to be swapped with a refurb? Or continue to wait for an update? Needless to say, long time Microsoft customer extremely disappointed right now.

Posted via the Windows Central App for Android

What's the error on your BSOD? I've seen a couple of IRQ_NOT_LESS_EQUALs since the 2/17 update. Rather than BSOD, mine is just shutting down on its own while left in sleep for any random period of time (sometimes its 5 minutes, sometimes 4 hours or more). The more time it spends in hibernation, though, the less I've seen this issue happen, so it's definitely linked to sleep and not hibernation.

I have used my SB a lot less since Friday, when I built my new windows 10 desktop. In that time, I have now seen the windows hello stuck at "turning camera on" each time since I left it to hibernate and just plugged it in one night to charge. I understand a reboot fixes this, but I've been too lazy to reboot, so I've been signing in with my PIN.

 

[JaimitoFrog]

Turning off pin and hello, then reinstalling then makes it better. I try to avoid sleep if possible, even after this firmware. Hibernate has far fewer issues.
Another issue I have is hot plugging tablet into the kb when there is video on, it can freeze on occasion. So can the kb/touchpad.

Posted from Windows Central for Windows 10

 

[Dratwister]

Ok, so I finally got issue with my SB. After leaving the SB through nights:
1) First day, it's automatically turned off. Tracked down error report but there's no error in the list.
2) Second day, it became kinda hot after putting it to sleep through whole night, the battery went down to 60%, means 40% lost for 10 hours of sleeping.
3) Third day, it became hot again. This time it drained down to 50%

Really worried about this. Well, at least until I found the culprit. In my case, through 3 nights, I left the stylus onto the SB (using magnetic side) and let the SB to sleep, which I didn't do before. I used to put out the stylus before leaving the SB to sleep. This looked like the source of problem, so I put the stylus off again and voila: no more heating up and auto turning off through nights. Feeling relieve again so far.

 

[zerospace-net]

Really worried about this. Well, at least until I found the culprit. In my case, through 3 nights, I left the stylus onto the SB (using magnetic side) and let the SB to sleep, which I didn't do before. I used to put out the stylus before leaving the SB to sleep. This looked like the source of problem, so I put the stylus off again and voila: no more heating up and auto turning off through nights. Feeling relieve again so far.

This is odd, because my battery does not drain during sleep anymore, and I always leave the pen attached to the side...

 

[Dratwister]

This is odd, because my battery does not drain during sleep anymore, and I always leave the pen attached to the side...

I don't know exactly why. May be my SB keep trying to connect to the stylus all the time when it's near the screen, and that drained the battery, leaded the machine to heat up. For now, I backed to put away stylus and the machine works flawlessly again.

 

[jmerrey]

I'm not sure which update it was, maybe a little bit of many, but the battery life on my SB is outstanding now. I was at a seminar yesterday from 9:00-3:00. I took my SB off the charger at 8:30, had it on all day with Outlook 2016 open, and taking notes in OneNote, plus a few quick web checks, and at 3:00 I still had around 30% battery. Incredible.

 

[cvflowe]

If I've attached it correct, this is the error message I am receiving.

Posted via the Windows Central App for Android

 

[zerospace-net]

If I've attached it correct, this is the error message I am receiving.

Posted via the Windows Central App for Android

Yep, I've gotten that one a couple of times. It appears to be a driver issue. I also have been getting internal power errors more frequently, too (one last night immediately after waking the device and one the night before, same scenerio).

Now that I've built myself another computer, I'm tempted to try and do a refresh/wipe everything and see if that helps any. I'm honestly betting it won't. My system runs very well when it isn't blue screening or shutting itself down while asleep.