Surface Pro 3 plagued by more battery problems

Editor's note: This article has been updated with a statement from Microsoft.

History apparently repeats itself. In late August, Microsoft released an update for the Surface Pro 3 firmware designed to fix the battery problems plaguing some users. Now, yet more users are complaining about new battery issues that are just as crippling—and in some cases more so—than the original problem. On top of that, these newly affected users may very well be ones that weren’t affected by the first round of battery life woes.

When the original Surface Pro 3 battery problems hit the issue appeared to affect people who had a device with a Simplo brand battery. Now, the people in this Microsoft forum thread appear to be mostly users with LG-made batteries.

The new problems appear to be varied. Some people can’t take their tablets out of the charger without the Surface shutting down, similar to the Simplo battery issue. Others say their battery won’t charge when plugged in, but it shows a certain amount of battery life. The minute they unplug their Surface, however, the device shuts down.

So far Microsoft hasn’t said much about the issue. Barb Bowman, a Microsoft MVP and community moderator on the forums, said on Tuesday, September 13 that Microsoft is aware of the issue and investigating. Since then there haven’t been any significant updates from Microsoft’s side in the forum thread.

Update: A Microsoft representative sent along this statement:

“We are aware of a battery issue that is affecting a limited number of Surface Pro 3 users. We can confirm that the issue affecting these customers was not caused by the software updates issued on August 29th. Our team is actively looking in to the issue to determine the cause and identify a fix. We will post an update as soon as we have more information to share.”

The impact on you at home: If you have a Surface Pro 3 and aren’t experiencing any issues then you are probably in the clear. Anyone who hasn’t yet received the new firmware update or seen any battery problems might want to hold off on installing the new firmware if you can. That said, it’s not clear if the firmware update is causing this issue. Some users have been complaining about the issue since the Anniversary Update rolled out to the Surface Pro 3 in early August. The new SP3 firmware rolled out about four weeks later.

For those already suffering battery woes it’s probably worthwhile to add to the chorus of users dealing with battery problems on the Microsoft’s forum thread.