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

[stnm]

It s the same for me. 4 hours max using just edge (3 - 5 tabs) and outlook. Display is set to 38%.
With others reporting 6 -7 hours i started to think i got a faulty device.

 

[WildKarrde]

Win Key/cmd/enter

powercfg /batteryreport

 

[ryland Johnson]

.......

 

[Lon Z]

I know nothing about computers... How do I change my CPU to 50 percent if that helps with the battery? And how do I set it to max battery graphics?

I basically use three applications - Word, Edge (for reading and sometimes videos), and a screenwriting app. I just want this thing to last more than five hours and not sound like a spaceship ready to blast off.

I like this thing when it works, and I'm super lazy so don't want to return it... But for the stuff I need it for, would I have just been better off with an iPad Pro?

 

[dkp23]

So after reverting back to intel driver from sept, i left sp4 in sleep and in about 30 hours it drained 11 %, better i guess.

Will update to new drivers that came out yesterday and see what happens.

In the end, i think the battery is going to suck regardless. Once in use, there is not stopping the rapid decline in battery %.

The sp3 when it had win 8.1 had great battery life, once i updated that to win 10, the battery life is similar to my experience with the sp4 after replacing it. My guess is, the battery life is what it is out of the box If you want more battery life, you will probably have to tweak the hell out of this thing.

 

[abivaanenopi]

Do you think there will be and update for batterylife issues? Lets hope so...

 

[zkyevolved]

Do you think there will be and update for batterylife issues? Lets hope so...

Joe from MS responded and said that they're well aware of it, and didn't have time to implement the same sleep as the SP2 / 3 in time before release. They said that in early 2016 they'll have the fix for it. So I'm going to trust them a little bit longer. I love my Sp4, it's gorgeous and has awesome specs and, honestly, it's my perfect device IF they can fix that battery drain issue! So... I'm going to give them a few months and let's see . Until then, I'm just going to hibernate. If my SSD begins to die or something like that (highly unlikely) I'll just RMA the little thing. That's why I got the MS complete! Right?

 

[ioaniro]

There's hope:
@ Kent, Yes, The 'standby' battery life is an issue we are working on and have been working on. We can put the processor into a deeper sleep state than it is currently set to. We couldn't do it at RTM for a variety of reasons, power management is a very hard computer science problem to solve especially with new silicon. Currently it is not in the deepest "sleep" that it can be so there are wake events that would not otherwise wake it. We will have an update for this issue sometime soon in the new year.

One of the ways that you can improve the situation right away is to make sure you don't have web sites open that are actively streaming when you close cover of go put the device to sleep. Especially if you have a website open that uses sound. This will keep the PLM service running.



To make it really sip power like your pro 2 did. Pro 2 did not have Connected Standby. It went straight to hibernate or S4. To do this on your book or Pro4 you can make that happen.

To do this have the device go to Hibernate (deeper sleep and not listening) instead of "Sleep" (always on or connected Standby) I hope the picture is clear enough.

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/.../16f08be5-10c0-434c-b1f5-e2cf82e018b1?page=33

Slowly...

 

[raoul3650]

Patient guys...the Intel 6th Gen chip is very new in the market and I believe the Surface team at Microsoft is currently working to fine tune it.
Hopefully they can fix it within this 2-3 month time.

 

[dkp23]

Just updated the intel drivers and took less than 2 minutes for the display error to pop up again.

 

[Hannover Fist]

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.

Great suggestion!!

How long does your i5 last on these settings?

 

[freetail]

It's terrible! Even with the screen set to darkest I barely get enough juice to watch a single film (movie). Better battery was one of these reasons I chose to upgrade from SP3 but beginning to think it wasn't worth it. Also still overheats and crashes as a result - especially in video playback. I have top of the range i7 with 512GB drive and 16GB RAM. Sad sad sad

 

[freetail]

Great suggestion!!

How long does your i5 last on these settings?

Well I've tried this - set new Battery Saver Plan, and set everything as you suggested. I'm now getting an estimated anywhere from 3.25hrs to 5hrs mins from 80% battery (it seems to change every time I go to the task bar), so that's somewhere between 4hrs and 6.25hrs total from 100% with battery saver turned on?! I've turned off all background apps and stopped any backup software (OneDrive, LiveDrive, etc). The only thing open right now is this web page (one tab). Pretty pants for a machine that costs a small fortune (i7, 16GB RAM, 512GB drive). Feel hugely let down by MS this time around. SP3 seemed like the better bet after all (with a new keyboard attached).

Any other suggestions / fixed welcome... (especially from MS).

 

[Grimmric]

It's terrible! Even with the screen set to darkest I barely get enough juice to watch a single film (movie). Better battery was one of these reasons I chose to upgrade from SP3 but beginning to think it wasn't worth it. Also still overheats and crashes as a result - especially in video playback. I have top of the range i7 with 512GB drive and 16GB RAM. Sad sad sad

Something must be wrong.
I have the i5/8/256 and i put a movie in a loop to see how long it would run.
With a 50% brightness and no special power plan i got about 8.5 hours of movie watching.

 

[andrewstuart]

Clunk! Crash, bang and wallop ! Not a cat in hells chance of attain those claims. Lucky if I get three hours from web browsing , movie watching. And yes I have it turned up to the max because that's why I bought it, performance and quality. Have we had the wool pulled over our eyes! Come on guys here's your chance to shine and be a leader, but the battery stats or poor. I moved from Mac, Android and Garmin on a wing and prayer and some fine marketing. Don't let me down, please.

 

[billyboyblue]

Clunk! Crash, bang and wallop ! Not a cat in hells chance of attain those claims. Lucky if I get three hours from web browsing , movie watching. And yes I have it turned up to the max because that's why I bought it, performance and quality. Have we had the wool pulled over our eyes! Come on guys here's your chance to shine and be a leader, but the battery stats or poor. I moved from Mac, Android and Garmin on a wing and prayer and some fine marketing. Don't let me down, please.

If you purchased this anticipating you would be able to run everything on high and get MS claimed numbers, then you're what we would call and idiotic buyer. MS blatantly tells you the battery tests they performed were watching videos ON the device ( not youtube, etc ), with max 50% settings. If you do this, you WILL get between 8 - 9 hours, just as MS has claimed, and advertised. How do you feel you were a sheep ? They gave you literally everything they claimed to, you just failed to read.

 

[explosive0]

If you purchased this anticipating you would be able to run everything on high and get MS claimed numbers, then you're what we would call and idiotic buyer. MS blatantly tells you the battery tests they performed were watching videos ON the device ( not youtube, etc ), with max 50% settings. If you do this, you WILL get between 8 - 9 hours, just as MS has claimed, and advertised. How do you feel you were a sheep ? They gave you literally everything they claimed to, you just failed to read.

Stop being an apologist. I own a SP4 as well as a MacBook Pro. Apple's advertised times are what I get with typical usage, if not more. On my SP4...not even close to what MS is advertising.

 

[Delirious D]

Im slightly disappointed with battery life but not mad. My sp4 stays on through out my 6 hour work shift. I wasnt heavy browsing but it was online the whole time.

I definitely wont put myself through the dissappointmnet of closing the keyboard cover (sleep mode) and expecting it to turn on in 8 or 12 hrs. If thats what you want i recommend an android. Hands down thats going to be the best battery life you'll get without it being a nook reader. When i set my samsung tab down, i know tomorrow i can pick it up and it'll be on and ready. Dont hold those expectations on the surface pros.

 

[sflxn]

This is too much! 3-4 months after returning this lemon of a computer, I still see people on this forum having the same problems. People need to stop making excuses for this POS and wait till Microsoft/Intel fix the problem. Those waiting for a firmware to fix this problem are likely in for a huge disappointment. This problem is likely both a driver and a hardware issue. It's likely a defect on the skylake CPU. I moved from the SP4 to an XPS 13 and the problem is on it too. It's not nearly as garbage as the SP4 but I do get welcome to a dead battery more than I like. I'm staying away from any more Windows/Skylake machine.

All the excuses about how light usage (basically turn it on and not touch it) gets the marketing time is ridiculous. I also have a work MBP. Under regular usage (VMs, compiling, youtube), I get the times that Apple markets. I close the lid, come back in a WEEK, and it comes on immediately (not wake from silly hibernate) with plenty of charge. My Dell M3800 with linux loses less battery in sleep than my XPS 13 with Windows 10, which loses way less battery than the SP4 paper weight.

 

[seremify]

Stop being an apologist. I own a SP4 as well as a MacBook Pro. Apple's advertised times are what I get with typical usage, if not more. On my SP4...not even close to what MS is advertising.

This.

That's the thing I don't enjoy about Windows devices (and admittedly some of it is due to the sheer variability in battery demands of different usage scenarios) whereby you need to take everything with a pinch (or more) of salt. At least with my iDevices and Macbooks, the advertised battery life is actually reflective of what I get with what I consider to be relatively normal usage patterns (web browsing, office apps, light gaming, etc).