Windows Surface 10.6 64GB keeps shutting down, anyone know why

[seanwplandry]

Hello,

I am having an issue with my Mom's Surface, every few days it shuts down on her and she can not get it back on. When I go and look at it, which would be about 8 to 12 hours after it shut down on her, I can get it working. Just wondering if anyone knows if this is because of auto updates or is there an issue with the surface.

Thanks

 

[Xellsama]

Well, if you check your Surface 8-12 hours after it "shut down", which happens after a few days, would that not be because the battery's used up?

Can you explain what you mean by "can not get it back up"? How do you eventually revive it, by plugging in some power source? Does it shut down by itself while you are using it? Do you have it on auto-sleep after a certain time period? We might be able to help more if you provide a bit more details =)

 

[seanwplandry]

I had thought it may be the battery however my Mom says she charges it every night.

I will attempt to explain what is happening in better detail, please understand that this is not happening to me but rather my mother so I am going off what she is telling me. According to her, she will be using her surface and then suddenly it will turn black, when she tries to turn it back on it will not come on. She receives no warnings about low battery, it just happens out of the blue. She then goes and plugs it into the charger and leaves it for the night. She will then have me go look at it, at which point I press hold down the power/lock button and it turns back on. We do not have auto sleep turned on.

I know very little about the surface but from what I am able to find it appears to happen with in the same day as a update, does every update done require a reboot, and if so why would it take so long to reboot?

Hope this helps

 

[Xellsama]

That does sound strange, never happened to my Surface in over a year...but I'm just 1 data point out of many.

How many times has this happened? I think some of the updates, the more significant once, requires the device to be plugged in to complete, because these updates could take a while and might use up more batteries (and if it runs out battery halfway through updating it might cause some trouble next time you turn it on), so as a precaution, these updates won't run/finish until you plug in. If your mom has just gotten the Surface recently, she likely has a whole year worth of updates rolling in (updates since end of 2012 maybe), and there has been a good number of those "significant" ones.

If you haven't, help your mom upgrade it to Windows RT 8.1 from the stock 8.0, this might help (done through the Store app). If you already have, check the setting for automatic updates, maybe turning that off too (you can help her run update maybe once a month, or whenever u visit her, to save her confusion. and it shouldn't take long).

Next time it happens, ask her to not plug it in afterwards, so you can examine it fresh when you visit. This would give you (and us) a more direct understanding of this strange problem. Perhaps if it's not to much trouble, visit her asap when that problem occurs so we'd know it's not a battery issue.

 

[Xellsama]

It's also weird if there's no warning or notifications at all. The only time the screen goes black w/o warning is when it goes to screensaver/sleep mode when it's inactive for a while. Maybe your mom was reading a news article and stayed on the page too long without touching it...speaking of which, what app/action was your mom using/performing before each incident of this happening?

 

[seanwplandry]

She got the tablet in the beginning of January, I have updated to 8.1, but how do I turn off auto updates(as I said I am not familiar with the surface, it is not my normal tablet). this has happened at leas 2 times every week

As far as I know she is either playing a game or scrolling through Facebook when it happens . Not sure why this is happening, we bought it from Best Buy so we may take it over to them to have the check it as well, but I thought it best to check on here to see if I could get any answers before going to them

Thanks

 

[Xellsama]

Well here's my thinking on this:

If the tablet can't be "revived" when it turn dark, why would charging it help?
Two scenario where charging alone would bring back a machine:

1. machine was out of battery;
2. machine runs into problem, battery drains on black screen, then when you plug in again it gets rebooted, which might solve the original problem.

However, if your mom plugs in the machine soon after it turns black, scenario 2 would not occur.
If your mom has been using the machine all day however, scenario 1 might be the case. Surface's ideal battery life is about 8 hours, typically shorter if continuously used with high brightness, volume, and other battery intensive apps (some games use a lot of batteries). The amount of apps that makes the background tasks running might also be an issue. How strong is the wifi-signal in the house? Lot's of batteries can be used up when machine tries to search for better signal. Also, was the machine really fully charged every time?

On the other hand, If the issue is not reproducible, as in, truly random, no notification/warning at all and can't be demonstrated on demand, it's likely a faulty product.
Since no one else here seem to experience that either, this might be an unique case. Best Buy might had it mislabeled when it's actually refurbished. I have always thought the battery low warning on all different versions of Windows a bit annoying, as in, they usually start kicking in like at 20%. But if you got no warning at all, that is very very strange. Was the screen dimmed automatically before it shut down?

In any case, it just seems weird to me that charging it over night would fixes (temporarily) the issue, since nothing has been done to the tablet at all really. It wouldn't really make sense to be a software issue here (because then you should be able to reboot it on the spot). Take it to the Microsoft store if there is one near you actually, Best Buy doesn't always have the most competent people running these things.

 

[Xellsama]

Also in terms of updates, I think it's in PC settings. So um... swipe in from right, there should be a PC setting option near bottom right, tap that, and you'll be taken to a screen when you can well...change settings. I think update is one of the things that you can change there ( I haven't really gone to that menu in a long time..)

 

[seanwplandry]

Thanks for the advise, I will talk with my mom, maybe her games are killing the battery. I did check the surface a few minutes ago and the software was not updated as I previously thought, I have done the update so hopefully that will help. I had not considered the WiFi signal, it is pretty good in the house but there are a few weaker zones, one of which is my moms room I believe and this has only happened when she is there. Hopefully the update did the trick and it will not turn off again. If it does our next stop will probably be Best Buy

 

[jsmorgan@gmail.com]

Saw your message and had to let you know the exact same thing is happening with one I bought two weeks ago. Randomly the device shuts off hard. Simple power button click doesn't turn it back on. I have to hold it for 8 - 10 seconds and release and a repeated click to get it to turn on. Or I have to hold it for 15 seconds or longer. There is an error in the log but it just says an error occurred during bugcheck. No other information apart from a warning that the machine rebooted from this issue.

This article seems to indicate similar issues but I didn't receive the recent firmware patch, therefore I'm not getting relief yet.

Microsoft Struggles to Get Surface Pro Updates Right | Tablets | TechNewsWorld

Just wanted you to know you're not alone.

 

[aw50me]

Just wanted to add i had the exact same issue even when the battery was fully charged on a 32GB Surface 2

The funny thing is (as i think you mentioned) if you connect the charger and play with the power button (i say play because i don't remember exactly what i did) it came back to life.. took mine back to the Microsoft store where they tried to duplicate the problem but of course it wouldn't do it.. they then suggested a refresh.

So i let her do the refresh and low and behold i get the classic blue screen with some page file error when the refresh was done.. she looked at me .. i looked at her.. boom... replaced with a brand spanking new one which has not since done what the first did..

 

[Zackzain75]

Hi,
I do realize that this is an old post, but I would just like to inform that this problem is not unique. I'm having the same issue with my Surface RT. It just dies whenever it feels like to. . . . . and this has got nothing to do with battery running out. I notice an even higher frequency of this happening when I put the device in its sleeve with other stuff (mouse, USB dongle etc). It is alarming every time it happens as you just don't know when is the day the machine really decides to permanently "sleep". This being an RT, I have gotten into the habit of not frequently saving documents that I create, thinking that I can continue editing whenever I feel like to. But with this issue getting worse, I no longer feel that it is an option's for me.

To power on the device after this happening, you have to press and press and press and press the Power button, and pray that it will come alive again. It gets frustrating after a while. I do note that it's easier to come alive again if the charger is plugged in.

I do think that this has something to do with one of the previous updates, as the problem started right after downloading one of the patches issued by Microsoft.

I sure hope MS will find a solution for this soon.

 

[anon(10105336)]

This same exact thing is happening with my surface pro device. Shuts off completely with no warning and takes up to an entire day before it comes back to life

 

[calfee20]

I had the same problem and it took me a while to figure out. It is caused by the touch cover. With mine if it shuts off I pull the cover off and I am back in business. It is worse with the cover folded all the way back.

I hope you all have the same problem because that would mean the tablet is OK.

 

[RichTheRealtor]

So I've been having the same issue now with my Surface 3 for about a year. I notice it will shut down suddenly when I'm at about 25% battery, and if I open Chrome, that tends to do it as well