Terrible battery life of surface pro 4 - do you agree?

[ryland Johnson]

Here you go. Taken from the official MS web site.

Quote; "Its battery lasts 9 hours1".

Quote; " [1] Up to 9 hours of video playback. Testing conducted by Microsoft in September 2015 using preproduction Intel? Core™ i5, 256GB, 8GB RAM device. Testing consisted of full battery discharge during video playback. All settings were default except: Wi-Fi was associated with a network and Auto-Brightness disabled. Battery life varies significantly with settings, usage, and other factors.

Did you read the part......" Battery life varies significantly with settings, usage, and other factors".

I find that statement obvious, it appears others don't however that is their error not Microsoft's.

 

[zkyevolved]

Haha, I know - I posted it!

Haha, sorry. I'm at work and I didn't bother to see who wrote it, my apologies.
On my new SP4, I updated it, and let it charge to 100%. It's completely stock and has 0 of my apps. Just the ones that came installed from Microsoft. I left it in standby. So when I get home I'll check to see if this SP4 has battery drain as well with stock. If it doesn't have any drain, I'll proceed to install my programs. If I see drain, then it's an application. Hopefully there won't be any in any case.

In the SP4 that I'm using now I have the drivers you uploaded. I believe it has helped. I also changed from 2 hours (120 minutes) until hibernation to 1 hour (60 minutes). So this leaves me a little confused as to why there is 100 minutes of drain... In good news, with your driver, the first sleep study revealed no drain from the graphics card. But the second sleep study showed it again. Here, take a look.



And from today



Edit: New SP4, same make and model and production date (1545), same battery drain. 4-5% an hour, or 8-10% per sleep cycle (2 hours before hibernate kicks in). I'm reformatting it with the latest image from MS, as I did with my first SP4, and use the drivers provided by you. Thank you.

The only thing I can really REALLY hope for is that MS fixes THIS bug!

 

[Rayaarito]

4 hours with heavy use would be ok. Let me phrase it this way: since I have not yet recieved the keyboard, I have been using my device as I would have an Ipad: shopping online, reading news, reading e-mail, watching youtube, watching occational shows from tv-broadcaster, facebook app, twitter app, insta app. Tasks that could easily be accomplished on an iPad (or with Macbook with full iOs). For these tasks, iPad would give 9+ hours of usage time, the surface gives me about 4 hours including high volume fan noise and a flickering screen at low light. Therefore, I conclude that this device is not a good choice for this kind of usage pattern. Maybe as a business machine for meetings (unless of course you want to show videos in a conference room in which case the fan noise would be pretty disturbing).

I agree. Me and my buddy are contemplating returning it but when it works, it's so amazing. Such tough choices

 

[badMojo69]

Return it and wait for MS to fix the issues. Its not like they're going to never make anymore.

If I still want one next year and they've fixed the bugs I'll buy one. My hope is though that they'll up the memory for the M3 to 8 gig.
I don't need a I5.

 

[MyBrainDumping]

Here's a tip to prolong the battery on your Surface 4.

(This is only for people who wants the longest battery life, sacrificing a little speed)
I have tested this on my SP4 i5.

Firstly, create a power profile to turn your i5 into a fanless M3:

Use the registry hack and create a new power profile, called it 'fanless' or 'max battery life' or 'M3' or whatever you want. Instead of setting the GPU to max performance, set it to max battery life. Under the CPU setting, set the max performance to 50% (this will make the i5 runs at 1.2 ghz). Also, set the min performance to 1%. Make sure that the cooling setting is set to 'passive'.

Second step, go to setting-privacy-background apps: turn everything off.

Third step: turn on battery saver.

This will get your SP4 to last the entire day, you won't even notice the speed difference unless you are playing full-fledge PC games. Plus, you can switch to a fanless profile whenever you want.

 

[GatsbyGlen]

I have mine at 95, to keep it from going into turbo. 50 was too excessive for me, although it would be interesting to see how much more juice you could save

 

[WildKarrde]

I have mine at 95, to keep it from going into turbo. 50 was too excessive for me, although it would be interesting to see how much more juice you could save

I have my SP4 set at 50% CPU, Max battery graphics, 15% display, and no battery saver except for in emergancies. My usage is heavy internet browsing with 8-10+++ tabs open in Google Chrome, Excel almost always open, a PDF almost always open, simple MS paint drawing, OneNote almost always open, Google Drive always running and I get roughly 7 hours battery life. 8 hours if I'm lucky. I never use sleep because the device starts so quickly anyway. I don't use hibernate anymore because WiFi almost never works after I start it back up (had same problem with my SP2.)

With display at 25% and CPU able to scale up to 100% I could only get about 4.5 hours. I'm disappointed by that, but 50% CPU almost always is enough for me, even when using Solidworks 2015.

 

[GSOgymrat]

Out of curiosity I just completed an informal test. I charged my updated i5 SP4 to 100% and used it continuously until I got a warning at 4% that I needed to plug it in. The brightness was set to "suggested", Bluetooth and Wi-Fi were on with no special power management settings. I used Edge browser and went to numerous websites, watched videos on YouTube, checked email, used Citrix, read magazines and comics, downloaded a two apps, used the Microsoft News app, drew some pictures in Fresh Paint, checked Facebook... all things I typically do with SP4.

Total time was 5 hours 20 minutes.

The display driver restarted four times but otherwise there were no problems. I don't recall the fan ever being audible and the unit never felt hot. Battery life is not a priority for me because I don't normally use SP4 for extended periods of time without being near an electrical outlet. I just really wanted to know how long my SP4 would last doing typical tasks at typical settings.

 

[Justinian84]

This is appalling if true. Absolutely unacceptable.

I get over 6 hours of constant use (Adobe CC apps, Onenote, web browsing) with 75%-100% brightness on my i5 SP3 without throttling anything.

I really really hope this is purely a software issue on the SP4 and that Microsoft can fix it. If I were in your position and the battery is not fixed after a few more weeks, I would do a return. There is no way I would put up with inferior battery life on a newer generation product.

 

[zkyevolved]

In regards to the battery drain in standby, I chatted with Surface and I got this:

Before this screen shot, he even went as far as to tell me that drain is expected with devices... I told him that my SP2 and SP3 don't have this drain...
Sad... I might just return this if in a few weeks it isn't fixed.... There is no guarantee that it will be fixed, is there? I don't want my return period to run out ...

 

[GatsbyGlen]

Out of curiosity I just completed an informal test. I charged my updated i5 SP4 to 100% and used it continuously until I got a warning at 4% that I needed to plug it in. The brightness was set to "suggested", Bluetooth and Wi-Fi were on with no special power management settings. I used Edge browser and went to numerous websites, watched videos on YouTube, checked email, used Citrix, read magazines and comics, downloaded a two apps, used the Microsoft News app, drew some pictures in Fresh Paint, checked Facebook... all things I typically do with SP4.

Total time was 5 hours 20 minutes.

The display driver restarted four times but otherwise there were no problems. I don't recall the fan ever being audible and the unit never felt hot. Battery life is not a priority for me because I don't normally use SP4 for extended periods of time without being near an electrical outlet. I just really wanted to know how long my SP4 would last doing typical tasks at typical settings.

Same here. Between 5 and 6 hours, almost every time. I think it's safe to say this the typical range for everyday use. The 9 hours claimed by Microsoft is for people who like to setup a video to loop and then stare at their screens for 9 hours doing nothing else

 

[GatsbyGlen]

In regards to the battery drain in standby, I chatted with Surface and I got this:

Before this screen shot, he even went as far as to tell me that drain is expected with devices... I told him that my SP2 and SP3 don't have this drain...
Sad... I might just return this if in a few weeks it isn't fixed.... There is no guarantee that it will be fixed, is there? I don't want my return period to run out ...

Look for PJLTEST on answers.microsoft. He/She said that a rep is aware of the problem, and is being addressed. Hopefully it's true.

 

[snakebitten]

I agree that the battery life on my SP4 i5 kinda sucks. I had to drop my CPU to 50%, my display to 15%, and my GPU to minimum performance to get even close to Microsofts claimed all-day battery life. Gaming between classes is a no/go without access to a wall plug. If it weren't for the Qi-Infinity 35000 mAh battery, I would have returned my SP4. I'd be an instant buyer if they released a good power cover for the SP4. I actually waited to buy an SP2 until the power cover was released, and skipped the SP3 because the Power Cover wasn't compatible. The SP4 was a big enough upgrade to coax me over anyway, but the battery life does suck. I need REAL all-day battery life, not theoretical all-day battery life.

I decided since I'm consistently toting around a bag of tablets and smartphones and gadgets, that one of those fancy external batteries was a good insurance policy. And that Qi-Infinity setup supports everything under the sun, including making the Apple fans happy.

Got it yesterday. Let my SP4 drop to 10% (took about 7 hours of use with current power plan) Plugged in the QI and the SP reached 100% charge with Qi still having 55% left. Impressive! This ends my battery concerns for the SP2, SP4, L1520, and the new L950XL. I'm on the grid even when away from the grid.

Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[zkyevolved]

Did it work for you?

You my friend are a life saver. Check out these

My battery drain is to a minimum, after using your driver for this Surface Pro 4 at least. It wakes INSTANTLY and it works very well. Thank you, friend.

 

[mattwilson87]

Sorry, but can you clarify what it is you did to improve your battery drain?

 

[zkyevolved]

I changed my graphics card driver to the September one uploaded from a very kind member here, here is link to his post.
http://forums.windowscentral.com/microsoft-surface-pro-4/393258-5.htm#post3311851

 

[GatsbyGlen]

You my friend are a life saver. Check out these

My battery drain is to a minimum, after using your driver for this Surface Pro 4 at least. It wakes INSTANTLY and it works very well. Thank you, friend.

That's consistent with what I see, roughly 1.5% per hour or around 550 mW per hour. I sure hope this is just a software issue (a combination of driver and Win 10 updates) which causes the problem. Hopefully Microsoft provides a more permanent fix soon.

 

[zkyevolved]

That's consistent with what I see, roughly 1.5% per hour or around 550 mW per hour. I sure hope this is just a software issue (a combination of driver and Win 10 updates) which causes the problem. Hopefully Microsoft provides a more permanent fix soon.

To go from 4% --> 1.5% is clearly software. Otherwise it would still be at 4%, don't you think? A bad transistor or battery or connection here or there will always be present, regardless of the software fix.

 

[Grimmric]

To go from 4% --> 1.5% is clearly software. Otherwise it would still be at 4%, don't you think? A bad transistor or battery or connection here or there will always be present, regardless of the software fix.

I thought i didnt have any problems with my SP4 but i have found two.
I cant create recovery disk, is my first problem.
Then i tried to put it in sleep mode for the night to see the drain.
When i tried to wake it up the screen doesnt come on. Its black.
So i had to do a long press on the power button and restart it
And i noticed that the drain was 46% on a 6 hour sleep.
How do i install the drivers you mentioned?
I have the file, but doesnt know which file to press

 

[zkyevolved]

I thought i didnt have any problems with my SP4 but i have found two.
I cant create recovery disk, is my first problem.
Then i tried to put it in sleep mode for the night to see the drain.
When i tried to wake it up the screen doesnt come on. Its black.
So i had to do a long press on the power button and restart it
And i noticed that the drain was 46% on a 6 hour sleep.
How do i install the drivers you mentioned?
I have the file, but doesn't know which file to press

Right click the windows menu and click Device Manager
Expand Display Adapters
Right click Intel HD Graphics 520
Update
Click "browse my computer for driver software"
Click "let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer"
Click Have disk
Click browse
Locate the folder, and use the files there and select the driver you'd like to use.
It'll take a little to update the driver, and then the screen will turn off and on a time or two. My person devices needed a restart so the touch screen would work correctly again, or the pen. Both devices had different reactions to the driver changes, but a reboot always fixed the issue.

Start at 4:44 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=621Ur6e7JTw
This is what you need to be doing.

Hopefully this helped.