Surface 2 Battery Drain while asleep! Argh. (Surface waking from sleep?)

[Gamely Lounges]

Sometime in the last week or so I noticed that every morning my Surface 2 dead due to battery drain. I can't remember any changes or installs that might correlate with this sudden behavior.

Yesterday, out of frustration, I did a full reset, nuking my system back to the original state and starting from scratch. Last night I went to bed with 61% power. Shut down all the running apps (I have installed only a handful) (holding the app down until it flipped sides). This morning I woke up and sure enough, 0 power available. In the screenshot below you can see at 23:07:17 I went into connected stand with 61% and told the surface to sleep. Seconds later it woke itself up again and went into "active" status and proceeded to drain itself.

Is anyone else experiencing this battery drain? I have searched a bit and haven't found anything. Seems like the issue is actually that it does not REMAIN in sleep mode. By the way: I know that I can turn off the device every night. I shouldn't have to do that.

Thanks for any thoughts and help,
Gamely Lounges

 

[livekyle]

Do you have a TypeCover or TouchCover attached? If so, check this out: After last patch tuesday (3/11/2014): Surface not - Microsoft Community

 

[Gamely Lounges]

livekyle thanks for that link! It's nice to know that I'm not the only one and that the issue is being discussed. Hopefully MS will fix it soon with a patch.

 

[WillysJeepMan]

I'm beginning to suspect a hardware defect in the Tegra 4 chip rather than a driver issue. It is easier to believe that rather than Microsoft has been unable to fix it after so many attempts. Besides, this wouldn't be the first time that MS has been burned by an NVidia bug.

 

[Cruncher04]

I'm beginning to suspect a hardware defect in the Tegra 4 chip rather than a driver issue.

That is very unlikely, as the SoC power state is completely software driven. In addition other Tegra 4 devices would show a similar behavior, which I am not aware of.

I experienced such a behavior myself, but only with type cover attached. Which leads me to the suspicion, that the type cover sends an unwanted wake-up command under certain circumstances.

 

[kristalsoldier]

I'm beginning to suspect a hardware defect in the Tegra 4 chip rather than a driver issue. It is easier to believe that rather than Microsoft has been unable to fix it after so many attempts. Besides, this wouldn't be the first time that MS has been burned by an NVidia bug.

But why would such a problem arise only now? If it was a hardware problem, should it not have had arisen much earlier? Unless of course the problem is occurring on a specific batch of machine.

 

[Gamely Lounges]

I doubt that we would suddenly see an issue like this with the tetra chip. What would cause it to suddenly behave this way?

On the other hand, I *could* see that maybe something is going wrong with the wiring of the type cover. Maybe, after being bent X times, the wiring is getting flaky and sends the wrong signal to the machine.

Most likely, imho, is that MS was refining the communication between the device and the cover (maybe in preparation for the new Surface 3), and inadvertently introduced a bug into the software controlling the device state.

 

[WillysJeepMan]

But why would such a problem arise only now? If it was a hardware problem, should it not have had arisen much earlier? Unless of course the problem is occurring on a specific batch of machine.

This problem is not just arising now. It's been going on for at least 5 months...

 

[fieldbaker]

Sometime in the last week or so I noticed that every morning my Surface 2 dead due to battery drain. I can't remember any changes or installs that might correlate with this sudden behavior.

Yesterday, out of frustration, I did a full reset, nuking my system back to the original state and starting from scratch. Last night I went to bed with 61% power. Shut down all the running apps (I have installed only a handful) (holding the app down until it flipped sides). This morning I woke up and sure enough, 0 power available. In the screenshot below you can see at 23:07:17 I went into connected stand with 61% and told the surface to sleep. Seconds later it woke itself up again and went into "active" status and proceeded to drain itself.

Is anyone else experiencing this battery drain? I have searched a bit and haven't found anything. Seems like the issue is actually that it does not REMAIN in sleep mode. By the way: I know that I can turn off the device every night. I shouldn't have to do that.

Thanks for any thoughts and help,
Gamely Lounges

View attachment 67415

Do "powercfg /energy" and link the report here. The top of the document will do

 

[kristalsoldier]

This problem is not just arising now. It's been going on for at least 5 months...

How long has the Surface 2 been on the market?

 

[WillysJeepMan]

How long has the Surface 2 been on the market?

Since Oct 22 2013, 7 months ago.

 

[Gamely Lounges]

Do "powercfg /energy" and link the report here. The top of the document will do

I have changed my behavior and am no longer experiencing the problem.
When I am done using the surface I simply close my type cover.
I never bother pressing the power button on top (unless I am doing a full shut down).

Thanks!