I found the perfect surface, no issues, amazing battery

[billyboyblue]

So... i've been scouring various best buys looking for newer lots of items, and demanding exchanges with light bleed.. well, it paid off. The following things are NOT happening with this unit, it looks like ALL the updates were already done, other than yesterdays.

-No driver crashing with screen
-NO LIGHTBLEED AT ALL!!!!!!
-I've been using the device since about 10AM, and it's still going strong ( more on specifics in a moment ).
-I ran a benchmark, and the fan never even came on, it did afterwards, but it was not like the loud annoying one we're used to.

For the first time i feel like I have the unit we all should have.

Now, to touch base on the battery thing, here is what i've done ( broken down ), and these are the settings i have enabled.

10AM - 10:30AM - Booted it in store, did some updates, closed my cover, and sat it in my passenger seeat.
11:30AM - 12:00PM - got home, grabbed my tablet, finished updates, and closed lid to have lunch.
1:40 - 3:00 - Did the reg edit and added the following power schemes with settings :

• Extreme battery - I edited the CPU to throttle down to just 30% at max, i've done this before, it's not to low, it's intended for using it as a last restort. I also updated the Graphics usage for connected to power source to maximum performance. I have the screen set to 15% on this one.
• Extreme performance - Increased the GPU usage to max performance for both battery, and plugged in.

3:45 - 4:30 - Did some more updates ( mail, etc ). Also played black ops Zombies for about 15 minutes. Fan came on for about 2 minutes, i'd say on medium.
5:00-6:15 - Wrote this ( on the surface ), and installed a few programs, auto hot key ( for work ) , VPN setup, screen was at 50% ( which is my balanced level ).

I turned off Cortonna ( w/e her name is ).
I disable location, and smart screen.
I also disable all mail sclients from pulling data when i'm not around. I like to manually sync it.
bluetooth is off
Airplane mode is on ( wifi works fine ).

With all of that usage today ( and i'm sure i have more settings i just can't think of them ), but if you have any you're curious about, i'll tell you what i set mine too. Anyways, with all of that usage today, my battery is currently at 52% , that's just under 5 hours of on screen usage. And with it being at 52%, im' going to assume i'll be somewhere in the 8 hour range, with ACTUAL usage, not just blank screen, or " videos ", actual normal, every day usage. Even some gaming! I'm completely stoked, and love my surface again!

 

[rocketboy]

I've often thought that the Surface Pro 4 should ship with more aggressive battery conservation profiles. Then provide options to tune performance UP should they need it. Your average person surfing the web and writing e-mail and checking Facebook just isn't coming close to taxing the CPU/GPU.

Psychologically it seems more satisfying to know that you can increase the device performance should you need rather than quickly run out of power and figure out how you can disable things to get more power. The latter is much more work than the former and pretty much impossible for the lay person.

 

[fastcarve]

I received m i7 on Monday. I was worried about battery life based on all I've read here. Today was the first day I was able to see real world performance for one of my use cases which includes using it all through the work day, unplugged, for mostly taking notes with OneNote. The battery performance was exceptional. After a 9.5-hour day, I still had 36% battery remaining. I never shut it down. I did put it in sleep mode for small increments of 10 minutes or so when I wasn't taking notes, but I haven't installed the newer drivers that improve sleep battery drain. I did a little email via Outlook and a small amount of web/Chrome usage.

I was averaging about 6.7% drain per hour. I did have the screen brightness low which is my preference rather than a battery-saving compromise. I had the CPU set to max out at 50% which is plenty for this usage. This was leading to an almost 15-hour battery life!

I haven't yet tried it for my other needs which I expect to give drastically different battery results: heavy-duty PhotoShop editing. If I can get 4 hours from that battery doing that I'll still be happy.

I've had no crashes or other flakiness.

My unit is from lot 1602.

 

[jrhurley]

ok going to run my SP4 for a few day with the present config to make sure i am stable and benchmark it. then i will do the power configs as you suggest and compare with luck i too will have a SP4 running as well as it can be thanks

 

[zkyevolved]

What is your lot number?

 

[francorg]

So... i've been scouring various best buys looking for newer lots of items, and demanding exchanges with light bleed.. well, it paid off. The following things are NOT happening with this unit, it looks like ALL the updates were already done, other than yesterdays.

Which model are you using? CPU, SSD, RAM?

Thank you,
Roberto

 

[billyboyblue]

I received m i7 on Monday. I was worried about battery life based on all I've read here. Today was the first day I was able to see real world performance for one of my use cases which includes using it all through the work day, unplugged, for mostly taking notes with OneNote. The battery performance was exceptional. After a 9.5-hour day, I still had 36% battery remaining. I never shut it down. I did put it in sleep mode for small increments of 10 minutes or so when I wasn't taking notes, but I haven't installed the newer drivers that improve sleep battery drain. I did a little email via Outlook and a small amount of web/Chrome usage.

I was averaging about 6.7% drain per hour. I did have the screen brightness low which is my preference rather than a battery-saving compromise. I had the CPU set to max out at 50% which is plenty for this usage. This was leading to an almost 15-hour battery life!

I haven't yet tried it for my other needs which I expect to give drastically different battery results: heavy-duty PhotoShop editing. If I can get 4 hours from that battery doing that I'll still be happy.

I've had no crashes or other flakiness.

My unit is from lot 1602.

Any light bleeding on that?

 

[billyboyblue]

What is your lot number?

1551

 

[billyboyblue]

Which model are you using? CPU, SSD, RAM?

Thank you,
Roberto

Surface pro 4, I5, 128GB Disk ( Samsung ), 4GB ram.

I actually started off with a I5, 8GB ram, 256GB disk,but it had massive light bleed, and the best buys in my area were out, so i just downgraded, which is really fine, most of my work consists of not needing more than 4GB of ram.

 

[fastcarve]

Any light bleeding on that?

Small light bleed over HOME/F8 only visible on startup or on black screen at max brightness. None visible with how I actually use it.

 

[zkyevolved]

That's cool. I got a 1550 and it has light bleed and a faulty fan (vibrates while on), and it disconnects from the monitor / projector... A new one on its way...

 

[Indistinguishable]

NO LIGHTBLEED AT ALL!!!!!!

So miracles do happen...

 

[billyboyblue]

I opened many newer lots at the best buy stores, and I think the newer lots have much less lightbleed.

I wasn't able to take any data to confirm my theory, but based on the units I opened,
it seemed like older lots just had more light problems. I didn't have the units long enough to test other issues. However i did take one of the 1551 units home over night, and got pretty good battery life.

i fel like the units that came with most of the firmware upgrades already installed, had less issues, as if it were installed a different / better way.

Unfortunately, I have no data so I won't say that's the case. However, if you CAN get a newer 16xx device, i would suggest you try

 

[Indistinguishable]

I wasn't able to take any data to confirm my theory, but based on the units I opened,
it seemed like older lots just had more light problems. I didn't have the units long enough to test other issues. However i did take one of the 1551 units home over night, and got pretty good battery life.

Light bleeding isn't new with the Surface Line. My Surface, Surface 2, and now my Surface Pro 3, have all had light bleeding to some degree. It's not the worst thing in the world, just a minor annoyance.

 

[ray963]

Light bleeding isn't new with the Surface Line. My Surface, Surface 2, and now my Surface Pro 3, have all had light bleeding to some degree. It's not the worst thing in the world, just a minor annoyance.

Oh, I didn't know that it's one of the features of the SP line :grincry:
But in all seriousness that's a sad thing, I am glade that you are able to enjoy using them despite of that.

 

[billyboyblue]

I now have two units with no light bleed, one of them is a refurbished one directly from Microsoft. I do have a case open with them about the depleting of the inventory at a local best buy. They say that the light bleeding isn't something people should have in their devices. Granted, many , if not all people do, it looks like all the newer units simply don't have it. they are sending me a new one in a box that they swear doesn't have the light bleeding issue, so we'll see, i'll take a pic when it gets here tomorrow.

 

[decider]

So... i've been scouring various best buys looking for newer lots of items, and demanding exchanges with light bleed.. well, it paid off. The following things are NOT happening with this unit, it looks like ALL the updates were already done, other than yesterdays.

-No driver crashing with screen
-NO LIGHTBLEED AT ALL!!!!!!
-I've been using the device since about 10AM, and it's still going strong ( more on specifics in a moment ).
-I ran a benchmark, and the fan never even came on, it did afterwards, but it was not like the loud annoying one we're used to.

For the first time i feel like I have the unit we all should have.

Now, to touch base on the battery thing, here is what i've done ( broken down ), and these are the settings i have enabled.

10AM - 10:30AM - Booted it in store, did some updates, closed my cover, and sat it in my passenger seeat.
11:30AM - 12:00PM - got home, grabbed my tablet, finished updates, and closed lid to have lunch.
1:40 - 3:00 - Did the reg edit and added the following power schemes with settings :

• Extreme battery - I edited the CPU to throttle down to just 30% at max, i've done this before, it's not to low, it's intended for using it as a last restort. I also updated the Graphics usage for connected to power source to maximum performance. I have the screen set to 15% on this one.
• Extreme performance - Increased the GPU usage to max performance for both battery, and plugged in.

3:45 - 4:30 - Did some more updates ( mail, etc ). Also played black ops Zombies for about 15 minutes. Fan came on for about 2 minutes, i'd say on medium.
5:00-6:15 - Wrote this ( on the surface ), and installed a few programs, auto hot key ( for work ) , VPN setup, screen was at 50% ( which is my balanced level ).

I turned off Cortonna ( w/e her name is ).
I disable location, and smart screen.
I also disable all mail sclients from pulling data when i'm not around. I like to manually sync it.
bluetooth is off
Airplane mode is on ( wifi works fine ).

With all of that usage today ( and i'm sure i have more settings i just can't think of them ), but if you have any you're curious about, i'll tell you what i set mine too. Anyways, with all of that usage today, my battery is currently at 52% , that's just under 5 hours of on screen usage. And with it being at 52%, im' going to assume i'll be somewhere in the 8 hour range, with ACTUAL usage, not just blank screen, or " videos ", actual normal, every day usage. Even some gaming! I'm completely stoked, and love my surface again!

I am supposed to get a perfect SP4 Saturday, Jan 30

 

[billyboyblue]

I am supposed to get a perfect SP4 Saturday, Jan 30

From Microsoft? Or a retailer? How many have you gone through already?

 

[decider]

From Microsoft? Or a retailer? How many have you gone through already?

I own a couple actually, but since Microsoft told me that my surface pro 4s should have no light bleed I thought I would try to find one light bleed free. So I did go a Microsoft Store today and the first one I buy had light bleed. I refunded right there on the spot. Keeping the two I bought from BB as they have minimal light bleed but I don't want another with minimal light bleed. Staff at this store too did not know what light blee is.

 

[Albert Metelsky]

What exactly is light bleed?