What's turning my Surface on in my bag?

[sdanaher]

For the 3rd straight day in a row... I put my s pro 3 in my sleeve.. leave home.. go to work or airport... a couple hours until I take it out of the sleeve...

the sleeve is hot to touch
surface battery is 20-25% drained

Clearly it is turning on in the bag.

I checked the sleeve to see if it might be pushing the power button, seems very unlikely.

What tools in windows can I use to determine why it is turning on?

 

[tweedie]

Are you accidently pressing the pen button? I think if you either single press it, or double press it, it suppose to switch on the sp3 from standby.

 

[Dk92]

Happens with my Surface 2 as well. I open it up, just to find out the battery is drained because the camera was active the whole time it was closed.

 

[engellion]

I had the same thing happening with my Surface Pro 3.

I have a Logitech T630 Ultrathin Bluetooth Touch Mouse paired to the Surface. What I found was I would close the touch cover, then pick up the mouse and turn it off. However, in picking up the mouse, being touch based, the surface of the mouse registers my finger on it, and wakes up the Surface Pro 3.

Solution: Turn off the touch mouse first, then close the touch cover. All is now good.

If you are not using a Bluetooth mouse, it could also be an inadvertent tapping of the button on the top of the pen. That will do it too. So make sure the pen is placed where you do not inadvertently press the top button. I bought a sleeve for the Surface that also has a pouch for the pen, which keeps the pen laying flat against the Surface, reducing the risk of tapping the top button.

P.S.The T630 is a great touch mouse. Complements the Surface brilliantly.

 

[sdanaher]

This has gotten to the point that the device is useless as a mobile device. Twice today I've come back to it completely dead. Once sitting on my desk.

What tools are in windows to determine what is keeping it on?

 

[RobertMSFT]

I'm very interested in knowing what is causing this problem for you. Try the SleepStudy tool as noted here:

msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/dn495346(v=vs.85).aspx

Anyone else, please post your experiences with this problem and any solutions you may have found.

Robert-

 

[LinT]

I have the same issue. There is command you can run that will tell you the reason the screen was activated. (I'll try to find it again). Mine kept saying it was the keyboard. So I went into device manger and disabled its ability to wake the surface. It was better for a while, but it still occasionally happens. I've pulled out a hot low battery SP3 many many times.

 

[wayn1ak]

I think if you go in the command prompt and type "powercfg -lastwake", it will tell you what woke up your computer last.

How to Find Out What Woke Up Your Computer Last

 

[yonghong]

I had the same thing happening with my Surface Pro 3.

I have a Logitech T630 Ultrathin Bluetooth Touch Mouse paired to the Surface. What I found was I would close the touch cover, then pick up the mouse and turn it off. However, in picking up the mouse, being touch based, the surface of the mouse registers my finger on it, and wakes up the Surface Pro 3.

Solution: Turn off the touch mouse first, then close the touch cover. All is now good.

If you are not using a Bluetooth mouse, it could also be an inadvertent tapping of the button on the top of the pen. That will do it too. So make sure the pen is placed where you do not inadvertently press the top button. I bought a sleeve for the Surface that also has a pouch for the pen, which keeps the pen laying flat against the Surface, reducing the risk of tapping the top button.

P.S.The T630 is a great touch mouse. Complements the Surface brilliantly.

lol' exactly the same story as me

 

[RobertMSFT]

Even then if your system resumed from sleep with a touch mouse or an accidental pen button press, wouldn't it drop right back into sleep mode shortly after? I suspect it's not staying on for hours after wake and draining the battery like the OP states.

 

[engellion]

I guess it would depend on what the "sleep after" minutes is set to when on battery. Also how much bag movement is taking place. The Logitech T630 touch mouse is quite sensitive. Placing it in a pocket in my bag, the cursor still moves on the screen even from a little bit of bag movement. With my SP3 asleep, I only have to pick up my bag, and the movement is enough to move the mouse inside the bag. The cursor movement is sensed and the SP3 turns on. I just did this now with my SP3 on the desk in sleep mode. I suspect carrying the bag around at length would be enough to keep the SP3 on, or at least waking up each time I move my bag. In my case, turning off the T635 first, before I close the touch cover, has put an end to the SP3 waking up in my bag.

For the OP, if they don't have a touch mouse, then bumping the pen constantly around in the bag could do it. Otherwise I have no idea.

 

[RobertMSFT]

sdanaher - did you figure out why your battery was draining?

 

[sdanaher]

I think so.. I think it was getting knocked on by the typed cover being slightly jarred and waking the device up.. repeatedly.

I got a new backpack which seems more secure in the laptop section and I've had no issues yet... but leaving for a trip tomorrow which will be the real test.

 

[RobertMSFT]

How is it going so far with this? It still doesn't make sense that a keyboard or mouse would drain the battery when it is just sitting on a desk with no one touching it overnight. Anyone else experiencing this problem?

 

[deankaltsas]

well...surface pro 4 .......you can add it to the list of devices that turn on automatically in the bag!!!!

 

[Adventure Capitalist]

Hi guys !I know this is 2 years later, but this is EXACTLY what is happen with my Surface BOOK.

It keeps happening over and over again. Almost always, when I just hit the power button (which is set to go into sleep mode)...

and Today (hour ago), I made sure to actually TURN IT OFF via the start menu, and it still happened!

Laptop seems "off" when I put it in my bag, then I get home, and it's burning hot and on again!

I see your issue had to do with a touch mouse. This isn't my case, I don't have a "touch mouse". I have a regular mouse, but I checked it just in case, and it was OFF.

Does anybody have any tips to share how I can stop this once and for all? It kills the battery, and that heat cannot be good. What did you do to fix it?

Thanks in advance for any help

 

[EMitchell]

Hi guys !I know this is 2 years later, but this is EXACTLY what is happen with my Surface BOOK.

It keeps happening over and over again. Almost always, when I just hit the power button (which is set to go into sleep mode)...

and Today (hour ago), I made sure to actually TURN IT OFF via the start menu, and it still happened!

Laptop seems "off" when I put it in my bag, then I get home, and it's burning hot and on again!

I see your issue had to do with a touch mouse. This isn't my case, I don't have a "touch mouse". I have a regular mouse, but I checked it just in case, and it was OFF.

Does anybody have any tips to share how I can stop this once and for all? It kills the battery, and that heat cannot be good. What did you do to fix it?

Thanks in advance for any help

I assume you're running Windows 10? This was an issue discovered a while ago, the fix is to not use the sleep mode. Instead, change your settings so that when the power button is hit, or when the computer is closed, it goes into hibernate. Apparently when the system is in sleep mode, it will wake up occasionally to check the state of the universe. Sometimes it doesn't go back to sleep. Putting it into hibernate solved this problem for me. My default off now is hibernate, and i haven't had it turn on in the bag ever since.

 

[anthonyng]

my bag issues were related to the power button side facing down into the bag.... making sure it stay up helps with the problem.

I also only have hibernate option due to use of Hyper-V. Sleep is not good with Hyper V installed.