Surface RT Windows 8.1 Battery Drain

[tpbklake]

Alright so after some days I noticed it would discharge faster when I'm connected to WiFi, when its disconnected it doesn't drain as fast! Idk see if you guys get the same result.

Ok, so after running powercfg reports, I also agree that it was my wifi causing the drain. There was a warning in the energy report that stated my router did not support WMM although I was sure it did.

When I went to my router configuration to verify, I found that it was supported and enabled, so I reset the router and my drain has stopped. I pulled my Surface off the charger at 6PM last night and in the last 24 hours ( 20 of which has been stand-by) the drain has only been 19%.

 

[Steven Soto]

Alright awesome man I'll check it out when I get the chance!

 

[Snazrael]

I updated from 8.1 Preview to 8.1 GA. Running the powercfg commands listed here Microsoft Surface RT and Surface 2 battery and power | Recharge Surface seems to have fixed the problem. I figure it'd be worth a shot whether you can from Preview or not. I'll report back after having doing more testing.[h=3]Surface RT only: Battery issue when updating from Windows RT 8.1 Preview[/h]If you updated Surface RT from Windows RT 8.1 Preview to Windows RT 8.1, you may notice a decrease in battery life. During the update, the wireless adapter power policy isn’t migrated. Instead, the power policy is set to a default value that consumes more power both during use and in the connected standby state.
To restore the wireless adapter power policy to the correct settings, open an administrator command prompt:
[TABLE="class: px"ordered-steps-table""]
[TR]
[TD]Step 1:[/TD]
[TD]Swipe in from the right edge of the screen, and then tap Search.
(If you're using a mouse, point to the lower-right corner of the screen, move the mouse pointer up, and then click Search.)[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Step 2:[/TD]
[TD]In the search box, enter command prompt.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Step 3:[/TD]
[TD]Touch and hold (or right-click) Command Promptto bring up the context menu. Tap or click Run as administrator.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Step 4: [/TD]
[TD]On the User Account Control dialog box, tap or click Yes.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Step 5: [/TD]
[TD]At the Administrator: Command Prompt, enter the following:
powercfg -setdcvalueindex SCHEME_CURRENT 19cbb8fa-5279-450e-9fac-8a3d5fedd0c1 12bbebe6-58d6-4636-95bb-3217ef867c1a 3[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Step 6: [/TD]
[TD]Then enter
powercfg -setactive scheme_current[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

 

[Snazrael]

It looks like this has my Surface now just disconnecting from WiFi when it goes to sleep. Of course it's going to save battery life, but not exactly the connected Standby that it should be. This saga shall continue...

 

[Steven Soto]

Alright! Thanks for the solution, will try when I get the chance.

 

[kristalsoldier]

Despite moving from 8.0 to 8.1 RT GA, I applied the fix via the command prompt. Still losing about 10% per hour - with WIFI on, BT on, brightness at around 45%, and with the Mail App syncing 3 mail accounts. This was certainly not my experience when using 8.0.

 

[rhodri22]

Does everyone suffering the battery drain have SkyDrive syncing enabled? I noticed that during the Preview that my battery life was terrible when the syncing was set to automatic (all sync setting set to on) but after I changed the default storage and camera uploads to off the battery drain disappeared. Never had the problem since Preview and GA.

 

[kristalsoldier]

Does everyone suffering the battery drain have SkyDrive syncing enabled? I noticed that during the Preview that my battery life was terrible when the syncing was set to automatic (all sync setting set to on) but after I changed the default storage and camera uploads to off the battery drain disappeared. Never had the problem since Preview and GA.

Well, I do have SkyDrive as the default storage location and the sync is automated. Would not want to turn that off though.

 

[mrpuny]

Saw this on Neowin. According to MS, there's a problem with the wifi config if the Surface was upgraded from 8.1 Preview to final release.

Microsoft provides fix for battery issues found by some Surface RT owners - Neowin

 

[kristalsoldier]

Saw this on Neowin. According to MS, there's a problem with the wifi config if the Surface was upgraded from 8.1 Preview to final release.

Microsoft provides fix for battery issues found by some Surface RT owners - Neowin

Thanks. Yeah, saw that. But I applied it to my RT and I got about 8 hours of battery life with the following use profile: WiFi on, BT on, IE11 open with 4 tabs, alternating between MS Word and PPT, SkyDrive Sync on and actively used, and Mail app open with 3 accounts actively polling to download mails as and when they arrive - so constantly. I thought that was as good as what was advertised originally about the RT.

The only thing I did not try was to check how long the battery lasted in connected stand-by mode. Will probably do that over the next couple of days or so.

 

[nasellok]

Worked for me.... was waking up in morning to a dead battery, now, in 7 hrs of standby, went from 85% down to only 79%....this is more like it!

 

[WillysJeepMan]

Worked for me.... was waking up in morning to a dead battery, now, in 7 hrs of standby, went from 85% down to only 79%....this is more like it!

That's what mine is doing too... and it is disappointing. I would expect no more than a 1% drop over 7 hrs of standby.

 

[Derausgewanderte]

That's what mine is doing too... and it is disappointing. I would expect no more than a 1% drop over 7 hrs of standby.

according to that logic the RT should not need to be charged for a month. I think battery technology is not ready for that yet. That may work if you turn it off- but only maybe. Even then you loose charge.

 

[WillysJeepMan]

according to that logic the RT should not need to be charged for a month. I think battery technology is not ready for that yet. That may work if you turn it off- but only maybe. Even then you loose charge.

That's what I'm currently experiencing on my iPad. It is not unreasonable. Standby is standby.

 

[Derausgewanderte]

That's what I'm currently experiencing on my iPad. It is not unreasonable. Standby is standby.

well that sucks... I want that too.

 

[WillysJeepMan]

well that sucks... I want that too.

I'm going to recheck the battery drain on the Surface RT. Under "typical" usage and keeping apps open when I go into standby, I was experiencing about a 6% drop over 7-8 hours.

This morning I made sure to close all apps (including the desktop) and go into standby. After nearly 9 hours, it dropped by only 2%. I think that the WiFi issue was only one of a few reasons why battery life was less than expected. Looks like there might be another.

 

[tpbklake]

Ok, so I applied the fix and after a full charge 48 hours ago, my battery level is still at 64%. This is more like I was getting with WinRT 8.0.

 

[Snazrael]

After applying the powercfg fix I got two and a half days with fairly heavy usage (not a good estimate of actual usage time). Seems to be back to normal though.

 

[Steven Soto]

I'm not having any luck, thanks for all the feedback guys!

 

[WillysJeepMan]

Updated test. Full charge, 10 hours in standby = 97% 3% drop over 10 hours... getting better.