Microsoft Surface Pro 4 Bugs + Defects

[IsraelDuran]

I haven't been able to install the 10/23 update but most of the issues have subsided but I have noticed a new issue that being anytime I try to refresh my inbox with the mail app it just closes.

 

[TheCudder]

BTW, I'm vacationing in Los Angeles and I am going to take my Surface Pro 4 to the Microsoft store to see if they can offer any solutions. I will report back. Yes, I'm nerdy enough to go to the Microsoft store while on vacation.

I wouldn't waste the time, these issues are related to Microsoft Edge, video drivers and firmware. The store can't do anything to correct this.

 

[RicKaysen]

Updating now....we'll see how this goes.

 

[RicKaysen]

Updating now....we'll see how this goes.

Yay

 

[pdt]

I have your #2 and #8, but not the others. The heating issue is especially puzzling to me because my SP4 (8/256GB i5) never gets hot and I haven't yet noticed the fan running. And I'm getting 7-8 hours battery life so far (just since Monday, so only limited testing). If the fan is running, that would cut the battery life. So far it seems to me as though Edge consumes less battery than Chrome, and both consume more than non-browser tasks such as watching a video locally. Edge definitely has bugs, especially display driver crashes, but no color issues. I'm reasonably happy with the device overall, so far. I do wish they had a matching power cover which could add maybe 6-8 hours more life. That would make it nearly perfect.

After saying this, I decided to give it a better test by sitting down with my fully-charged SP4 and just reading news sites with Edge to see what happens. I didn't do anything else, just used Edge. After a half hour or so the thing started getting hot and the fan went on. The battery started running down at an alarming rate. I reached 6% after about 3 hours.

I had a much better experience when I was multi-tasking with other apps and off-line distractions that gave the thing a minute of rest now and then. So now I understand where the overheating problem is coming from. Seems as though Edge just isn't ready for prime time.

 

[Steven0706]

After saying this, I decided to give it a better test by sitting down with my fully-charged SP4 and just reading news sites with Edge to see what happens. I didn't do anything else, just used Edge. After a half hour or so the thing started getting hot and the fan went on. The battery started running down at an alarming rate. I reached 6% after about 3 hours.

I had a much better experience when I was multi-tasking with other apps and off-line distractions that gave the thing a minute of rest now and then. So now I understand where the overheating problem is coming from. Seems as though Edge just isn't ready for prime time.

True! I am using Chrome but still it is not perfect.... Good news is the bug decreasing...

 

[RicKaysen]

I hope they sort it out. Edge has some cool features. I enjoy being able to read an article without all the intrusive, flashing clickbait.

 

[onysi]

After saying this, I decided to give it a better test by sitting down with my fully-charged SP4 and just reading news sites with Edge to see what happens. I didn't do anything else, just used Edge. After a half hour or so the thing started getting hot and the fan went on. The battery started running down at an alarming rate. I reached 6% after about 3 hours.

I had a much better experience when I was multi-tasking with other apps and off-line distractions that gave the thing a minute of rest now and then. So now I understand where the overheating problem is coming from. Seems as though Edge just isn't ready for prime time.

I ran the same test, along with my Surface Pro 3. Guess which one still ran longer while the body was cold to the touch? I'm seriously disappointed at Microsoft for this. How could they not see this issue? I was deciding to sell my Sp3, but now I may just keep it a bit longer and return sp4.

 

[todkapuz]

So lets see how many I have...

1. [Hardware] Unbalance screen color (partly due to back light leaking), which mean you will see a light yellow region on your pure white screen.

I have some backlight bleed on the bottom.. its not horrible.... really didn't expect to see any in a $1k+ range computer, but not deal breaker for me.

2. Fixed! [H/S] The rear camera cannot take photo! simply because it cannot focus! Try it and let me know.

I haven't done anything with cameras other than windows hello..... I .... really never have seen the point... idea`l of holding something this big to photograph.. i dunno.

3. [H/S] The sleeping and heating issue...

While I haven't had the sleeping issue that I am aware (although most of the sleep has been while connected to charge)... the unit does get much hotter in use than I really expected.

4. The flashing yellow/green/blue tint screen.

I have also had issues when scrolling many of the "modern" apps... like the whole area of the ap goes crazy colors.... I think thats the same.

5. The track pad of type cover died from time to time.

Not yet experienced. Dont really use the type cover much... although i still dislike how it more or less forces me to use it with some operations like remote desktop work.

6. [H/S] The touchscreen died and it need a reboot.

This, however, I did experience, and almost drove me to take this to the store and return the thing. To me to have the primary input device simply stop functioning all together is inexcusable. If I didn't have the type cover I would have had to hard reboot the thing (I assume thats possible) and would have lost what I was working on.

FURTHER: When I did that reboot, it took 5-6 minutes for the "SURFACE" word to come off the screen and actually let me log in... again for a >$1k piece of hardware, completely inexcusable. I've been able to repeat that problem twice now. But the first time with the touch dead to start it off really is what drove me to the edge.

7. [H] Poor battery life (4.5h on average, half of what it should be)

Using 15-30% cpu on average I am getting <4 hours battery life out of the pro i5 model.

8. Cannot launch desktop Onenote with pen....

I can.. but takes several tries... but then again I dont use onenote, because apparently I need to sign in with a microsoft account... not really something I care to do.

9. New! The estimation time charge/discharge is very inaccurate! I spend 40mins on '11mins' before fully charged.

I seriously had this issue both ways... literally I was on battery, had 85% left, and it was saying less than an hour of battery left (again with <30% cpu).


9. ... [ let me know bug that you found]

After its been charging with type cover closed for some time.... I remove the power, open the type cover, I can see see the red flashing light of windows hello camera thing.... but nothing pops up... press the power button..... nothing.... wait a bit. press again.. nothing...... wait.. press again finally it launches...

And the fan... always seems to be on... in the reviews I saw most were like "its never on" ... but I swear its never off... and sometimes even with <25% cpu its on LOUD.... especially when charging...

Firefox will periodically just hang for no apparent reason for a few seconds... and both firefox and chrome scrolling is ... anything but smooth.


Most of these things I can accept and know will get fixed with patches soon (i hope) .... but the touch screen dieing and then minutes to restart.... I really cant accept that in something of this price class with this level of hardware....

 

[IsraelDuran]

Another update audio no longer works at all. Any time I click on the audio button on the bottom right hand corner the troubleshooter comes up and says that I have no audio device connected.

 

[snakebitten]

I do have the Edge\Video driver related issues. I use Internet Explorer while I wait for the remedy.
Battery isn't impressive, but I suspect we won't know the battery potential for a while. (Post release updates)

Having said all that, those issues don't even come close to diminishing how impressive this thing is to use. It's fantastic.
I suspect that coming from a SP2 instead of a SP3 has me a bit more jazzed though.

I won't be getting rid of my SP2
I won't even part with my Lumia 2520 (Absolutely my favorite for mobility and LTE)

 

[Steven0706]

So lets see how many I have...

1. [Hardware] Unbalance screen color (partly due to back light leaking), which mean you will see a light yellow region on your pure white screen.

I have some backlight bleed on the bottom.. its not horrible.... really didn't expect to see any in a $1k+ range computer, but not deal breaker for me.

2. Fixed! [H/S] The rear camera cannot take photo! simply because it cannot focus! Try it and let me know.

I haven't done anything with cameras other than windows hello..... I .... really never have seen the point... idea`l of holding something this big to photograph.. i dunno.

3. [H/S] The sleeping and heating issue...

While I haven't had the sleeping issue that I am aware (although most of the sleep has been while connected to charge)... the unit does get much hotter in use than I really expected.

4. The flashing yellow/green/blue tint screen.

I have also had issues when scrolling many of the "modern" apps... like the whole area of the ap goes crazy colors.... I think thats the same.

5. The track pad of type cover died from time to time.

Not yet experienced. Dont really use the type cover much... although i still dislike how it more or less forces me to use it with some operations like remote desktop work.

6. [H/S] The touchscreen died and it need a reboot.

This, however, I did experience, and almost drove me to take this to the store and return the thing. To me to have the primary input device simply stop functioning all together is inexcusable. If I didn't have the type cover I would have had to hard reboot the thing (I assume thats possible) and would have lost what I was working on.

FURTHER: When I did that reboot, it took 5-6 minutes for the "SURFACE" word to come off the screen and actually let me log in... again for a >$1k piece of hardware, completely inexcusable. I've been able to repeat that problem twice now. But the first time with the touch dead to start it off really is what drove me to the edge.

7. [H] Poor battery life (4.5h on average, half of what it should be)

Using 15-30% cpu on average I am getting <4 hours battery life out of the pro i5 model.

8. Cannot launch desktop Onenote with pen....

I can.. but takes several tries... but then again I dont use onenote, because apparently I need to sign in with a microsoft account... not really something I care to do.

9. New! The estimation time charge/discharge is very inaccurate! I spend 40mins on '11mins' before fully charged.

I seriously had this issue both ways... literally I was on battery, had 85% left, and it was saying less than an hour of battery left (again with <30% cpu).


9. ... [ let me know bug that you found]

After its been charging with type cover closed for some time.... I remove the power, open the type cover, I can see see the red flashing light of windows hello camera thing.... but nothing pops up... press the power button..... nothing.... wait a bit. press again.. nothing...... wait.. press again finally it launches...

And the fan... always seems to be on... in the reviews I saw most were like "its never on" ... but I swear its never off... and sometimes even with <25% cpu its on LOUD.... especially when charging...

Firefox will periodically just hang for no apparent reason for a few seconds... and both firefox and chrome scrolling is ... anything but smooth.


Most of these things I can accept and know will get fixed with patches soon (i hope) .... but the touch screen dieing and then minutes to restart.... I really cant accept that in something of this price class with this level of hardware....

Thanks for your reply! Try Chrome instead of Edge and Firefox. Patches are coming daily base and hopefully they help.

 

[Iain_S]

also appens on IE not just edge, and I live its happening with firefox too.

 

[Iain_S]

After saying this, I decided to give it a better test by sitting down with my fully-charged SP4 and just reading news sites with Edge to see what happens. I didn't do anything else, just used Edge. After a half hour or so the thing started getting hot and the fan went on. The battery started running down at an alarming rate. I reached 6% after about 3 hours.

I had a much better experience when I was multi-tasking with other apps and off-line distractions that gave the thing a minute of rest now and then. So now I understand where the overheating problem is coming from. Seems as though Edge just isn't ready for prime time.

I don't think this is edge because none of this stuff happens on my sp3 with windows 10. Its either a wonky intel display driver or a bad firmware, or bad hardware. I am returning my sp4 tom to ms store.

 

[todkapuz]

and now my surface has started popping from time to time..

 

[onysi]

and now my surface has started popping from time to time..

Did you update? Try playing really loud music for awhile to get the audio going.

 

[chattoe]

All these bugs and that battery life are all of concern. I hope all this gets sorted before the uk release on the 12th

 

[RicKaysen]

Had the Surface screen hang up once before it would boot, but hasn't occurred again and the camera not working was fixed by applying the update. The only thing I'm concerned about is battery life. I really don't need to use it for extended periods off the charger, but it's still a concern. I wonder if further updates will address the problem.

 

[TheCudder]

I don't think this is edge because none of this stuff happens on my sp3 with windows 10. Its either a wonky intel display driver or a bad firmware, or bad hardware. I am returning my sp4 tom to ms store.

These issues are first and foremost caused by the Intel HD 520 drivers, which affects Edge in the SP4. Other browsers on the SP4 do not experience these issues.

 

[Iain_S]

These issues are first and foremost caused by the Intel HD 520 drivers, which affects Edge in the SP4. Other browsers on the SP4 do not experience these issues.

Normal IE also has same issues and firefox