Microsoft says Surface Pro 3 battery issues “can be addressed via software”

Kit McDonald

Many Surface Pro 3 users have been noticing a steep decline in battery life lately, particularly in the case of the problematic SIMPLO batteries. Community support forum threads have cropped up repeatedly expressing frustration that their Surface Pro 3 have been draining power at an increasing rate. Some even noticed that it hadn’t occurred until more recent software updates.

As a response, Microsoft has made a public statement in the Microsoft Answers forum stating that the low battery capacity is only affecting ‘limited customers’. Also, the issue is not related to hardware, but instead might be able to be fixed via software.

Hello everyone,
We are aware of some customers reporting a scenario with their Surface Pro 3 batteries in which the system is reporting lower battery capacity than expected. We’ve isolated this to a limited number of customers experiencing this issue.

Based on our investigations we can confirm that it is not an issue with the battery cells, and we believe this is something that can be addressed via software.

We’re working through the details of how we deliver that.

Thank you all for the details you’ve shared here,
Greg

Even though July’s firmware update was slated to address battery saving issues, it seems they didn’t quite fix the full problem. Originally, many people thought the loss of power was due to faulty hardware and started trading in their devices. For some, a different device solved the problem but for others, they were hit with a hefty fee from Microsoft to fix the device and still had the issue.

At least now customers will have a reason to hang onto their Surface Pro 3 if they are experiencing the battery drainage while Microsoft works on a software solution. More information should come available as Microsoft works towards a fix. In the meantime, you can follow our handy tutorial to check on your device battery.