Why Does Surface 3 Shut Off Completely After Sleeping for 1 Hour

[Ben Lehtovaara]

Just want to see if anyone else has this problem. When I put my Surface 3 to sleep by pressing the power button, after less than an hour, it will shut off completely. When I need it quickly to snap back from sleeping, all of a sudden its cold booting.

Power settings for On Battery and When Plugged In are both set to Never Turn Off.

My old Surface Pro did this too. I always thought it was because it was a Core i5 processor without connected Stand By. I was sure the Surface 3 wouldn't do it as my wife old Surface RT doesn't do it. Even my laptop with a Core i5 resumes properly, although slowly.

MS wants to replace my device but I want to make sure this is not normal before I do this.

 

[Bagums]

Mine does this as well, I sort of assumed maybe it was a feature to save on battery life.

 

[cygnus11]

Mine only goes into hibernation after about 4 hours in sleep. Hibernating after less than an hour seems wrong.

 

[luv2skipow]

I haven't tested mine against a clock but it seems like the advertised 0-4hrs Instantgo (aka Connected Standby) and hibernate after that.

You aren't pressing the power button too long... right? Just thought I would ask.

Sounds like it might be faulty. Maybe a restore before going back to the store?

 

[xTmX Korrupt]

Mine goes to hibernation after 4 hours as well. Check the power settings maybe? It may be as simple as switching the time it takes.

 

[sugarbowl06]

Mine was doing this and I never could figure out why. It drove me nuts.

I finally wiped it clean and installed 8.1 Enterprise from a USB drive. It has not happened with the new install.

 

[Dewg]

You can solve this easily by running the following command from an elevated command prompt (Run command prompt as administrator):

powercfg -H OFF
​

 

[mwright53]

Mine does this as well

 

[DLCPhototography]

Does anybody know a way to specifically identify and/or change the Hibernation behavior? I mean, at least in the Registry, or somewhere, the apparent 4-hour delay must be defined, and could be changed.

I see how the command line powercfg can be used to change behavior, but that is inconvenient, with somewhat limited control.

What I would like to see is independent control of:

Powering Down the Screen
Going to Sleep (Connected Standby or not)
Hibernation

There would be separate control for both Powered and Battery for each of these 3 parameters.

As it is now, changing one seems to change the other, so control is not complete or independent.

I love my S3, but would love it even more with these abilities added to it.

 

[Dewg]

This article may be of interest to you for setting the Hibernation function: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2998588

As for Sleep and Monitor - those are available in the Power Config app or Control Panel app.

Worth noting from Microsoft: Four hours is the minimum supported value for the CS battery saver time-out.

 

[Ben Lehtovaara]

I have not got a satisfying answer from MS on this. They say it should go stand by for instant-on for 3 hours and then sleep to wake after that. The problem is that it doesn't just sleep after 3 hours but turn off, even if you set power settings to never turn off it clearly cold boots. Bothers me, Id rather have less battery and have it instant-on no matter how long it has sat.

 

[Dewg]

I have not got a satisfying answer from MS on this. They say it should go stand by for instant-on for 3 hours and then sleep to wake after that. The problem is that it doesn't just sleep after 3 hours but turn off, even if you set power settings to never turn off it clearly cold boots. Bothers me, Id rather have less battery and have it instant-on no matter how long it has sat.

Ben, see my post #7 above. Do that command and you won't hibernate anymore.

 

[Ben Lehtovaara]

Hi Dewg

I tried to run that command prompt and it didn't seem to make a difference. After a few hours I came back to my surface, hit the power button and it went to the surface splash screen, loaded for about 20 seconds and then resumed. I want it to instant-on when I need it! Is this actually possible?

Was command prompt supposed to confirm what I did? I entered the command and hit enter and it didn't say anything in command prompt. Maybe I did it wrong?

Ben

 

[Dewg]

Hi Dewg

I tried to run that command prompt and it didn't seem to make a difference. After a few hours I came back to my surface, hit the power button and it went to the surface splash screen, loaded for about 20 seconds and then resumed. I want it to instant-on when I need it! Is this actually possible?

Was command prompt supposed to confirm what I did? I entered the command and hit enter and it didn't say anything in command prompt. Maybe I did it wrong?

Ben

You can also check the root of C:\ for the file HIBERFIL.SYS

It's a hidden and system file. In the elevated prompt type:

CD \
DIR /A:S

That will show all hidden, system files. If you see the HIBERFIL then the command didn't take. POWERCFG -H OFF

 

[neo158]

Mine does this as well, it's due to hybrid sleep which has parts of both sleep and hibernation. It's nothing to worry about though as it does this to save battery life.

 

[Dewg]

Mine does this as well, it's due to hybrid sleep which has parts of both sleep and hibernation. It's nothing to worry about though as it does this to save battery life.

Correct - however, Ben wants the instant-on feature even after 4 hours of sleep. The way to do this is to disable hibernation.

 

[Ben Lehtovaara]

I tried the command you mentioned and it does not show hiberfil.sys. It appears turning hibernation off worked but I dont know that it had any impact. Can you confirm this actually worked on your surface?

 

[neo158]

Yeah, that's the only way to do it. For most people it won't be an issue, it's always useful to know how to disable it though

 

[Dewg]

I tried the command you mentioned and it does not show hiberfil.sys. It appears turning hibernation off worked but I dont know that it had any impact. Can you confirm this actually worked on your surface?

I've had hibernation off on all my devices since Windows 8 was released. I like the instant-on feature too - and it works great for me.

 

[arrty]

New surface pro owner as of two weeks ago.

Thanks for the powercfg command. I was looking all over in settings for this and finally stumbled on this forum.

The problem i encountered was that after the deep sleep mode, my lubuntu VM running in virtualbox would end up crashing. Hopefully this solves my problems over there and other users of a surface pro + virtual box + ubuntu can find this post.