January 2016 firmware problems

[GizmoEV]

I have the AT&T Surface 3 128gb version with Win 8.1 Pro. Ever since the ‎1/‎19/‎2016 firmware was installed I've had several issues. First, closing the keyboard no longer puts the tablet to sleep. Second, the touch screen and digitizer quits working more frequently and only a reboot gets it working. In the past, closing the keyboard and putting the tablet to sleep for a few seconds would make the touch screen/digitizer start working on waking back up. Third, besides the time it takes to reboot ordinarily, my surface won't completely shut down so it never can boot back up. I end up having to hold the power button to force a power off. Fourth, frequently when waking the tablet either the WiFi or the LTE connection simply vanishes. By that I mean there isn't even a toggle in the charms bar to turn them on or off. It is like the tablet doesn't even have the respective radio installed. It takes a reboot to fix, yes, I have to hold to power button to force a power off because of problem three. :angry:

Any one else seeing similar issues? Any suggestions short of a refresh or factory reset? Please don't suggest Win10 until placeholders in OneDrive are returned.

 

[lordcpaq]

i am having the same issues on my at&t s3 running windows 8.1. pro. was running well before the update.

 

[3earnhardt3]

Sounds like a bad firmware install, has happened to me 3 times now. I had to completely re-image(not refresh or reset) my S3 and now it is back to perfect working order again.

 

[GizmoEV]

Sounds like a bad firmware install, has happened to me 3 times now. I had to completely re-image(not refresh or reset) my S3 and now it is back to perfect working order again.

Are you saying that I need to do more than the "Remove everything and reinstall Windows" option in the Update and Recovery option? If so, do I have to remove and recreate the partitions and such?

 

[GizmoEV]

Well, I finally bit the bullet and did a full refresh of my system. I'm on Win 8.1 Pro. When I set things up I first turned off any automatic updating. After getting logged in I ran a check for updates. The only firmware update in the list was the January update. I unchecked all updates except for the firmware update. I installed the firmware update and made sure everything was working fine and then I installed the other updates. So far today it has been working reasonably well. Definitely better than it was before. Hopefully it will stay stable.

 

[3earnhardt3]

Glad to hear you are back up and running again. You will probably be fine until the next firmware update at least. I always keep an eye out on windowscentral for hints of another firmware and try to isolate it like you did. As for the re-image, yes it is a complete reformat of the drive and image from a USB. The "remove everything and reinstall windows" option still uses a combination of current drivers installed and fresh ones from the server, so depending on how mucked up your install got, you may need to re-image instead.

 

[GizmoEV]

My system has been running better than ever after reinstalling like I described above. The Feb firmware update appears to have installed just fine too. Battery life is more realistic, cell and WiFi seems to be working better (only one issue since Jan firmware), and charging has been more consistent (not with the MS charging brick, however).