Device Not Waking

[Sher the Love]

You should try an official walkthrough with MS support to see if you can get a better diagnosis. Typically tech support issues on forums are missing several steps with unclear information. Try giving them a direct call. That's what they're there for.

I restored my device before seeing you post. I called MS support anyway. He had me lengthen the time of sleep and display off in power options. He said hitting the power button really just turns the screen off and doesn't go to sleep until the time in power options. Additionally, he said the issue may not be the tablet not waking up, but the screen not coming on. He said there may be something running in the background that's preventing the screen from turning on. I'm not really sure how lengthening to two times does anything and doesn't really explain why the tablet will come to the Surface screen after ten seconds instead of the lock screen if I only have the display off for a couple minutes.

But, since I just restored my device, I don't know if these settings will actually help or if it is in fact a program I have installed. Will update once I have things installed again.

 

[D1vad]

I'd suggest that you DON'T install anything else and spend 24 hours testing your surface. See if you can get it to crash without any additional programs install. Then you'll know if it is a surface issue or a program issue. If it works without any additional programs installed then start loading your programs back in one at a time, and test after each program you install.

There is another thread about video crashing, seems to me there is a possibility you have this issue, you might try the registry patch if you have the issue without your programs installed.
http://www.surfaceforums.net/forum/microsoft-surface-2/6518-display-driver-crashing.html

To be honest I'm thinking it is an issue with one of your programs, you seem to be getting way to many bad units, to me.

Good Luck!

 

[Sher the Love]

I'd suggest that you DON'T install anything else and spend 24 hours testing your surface. See if you can get it to crash without any additional programs install. Then you'll know if it is a surface issue or a program issue. If it works without any additional programs installed then start loading your programs back in one at a time, and test after each program you install.

There is another thread about video crashing, seems to me there is a possibility you have this issue, you might try the registry patch if you have the issue without your programs installed.
http://www.surfaceforums.net/forum/microsoft-surface-2/6518-display-driver-crashing.html

To be honest I'm thinking it is an issue with one of your programs, you seem to be getting way to many bad units, to me.

Good Luck!

All I did was activate office and it's doing it. Calling MS support again.

Update: The next step was to uncheck the box in the network adapter power options, which I already did. After that, there are no more steps. He did say they are aware of the issue and are working on a firmware update. That could be a week or it could be a month. Apparently this issue was much more prevalent before the recent firmware update. He said I could either wait for the update or exchange it. I will likely exchange this tomorrow. I'm traveling over the weekend and really need something consistently working. Keeping my fingers crossed for a good device. Thanks to everyone who tried to help.

 

[Rvacha]

Yes, I have this problem, at least on the surface. I have determined that the SP2 is doing an "invisible BSOD" at the very moment I wake it up. It then does a cold start, everything that was open is closed. Unlike many BSODs Windows is not catching it directly. To see it you can open event viewer, windows logs, system and look for "critical" events from source Kernel-Power.

System Source: Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-Power
Date: 11/6/2013 5:52:29 AM
Event ID: 41
Task Category: (63)
Level: Critical
Keywords: (2)
User: SYSTEM
Computer: SurfacePro2
Description:
The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly."

The timestamp always refers to when I wake it up, not when it goes to sleep. I can manually go into hibernate without any issue. Things generally improve when I set disk drive sleep to a shorter period than the sleep timer. My SP2 has better days (when it isn't reinstalling the 10/24 firmware update) and worse days (when the firmware has been installed for the umpteenth million time). On average this happens 5-8 times a day, rendering my machine utterly untrustworthy for getting work done

 

[oion]

All I did was activate office and it's doing it. Calling MS support again.

Update: The next step was to uncheck the box in the network adapter power options, which I already did. After that, there are no more steps. He did say they are aware of the issue and are working on a firmware update. That could be a week or it could be a month. Apparently this issue was much more prevalent before the recent firmware update. He said I could either wait for the update or exchange it. I will likely exchange this tomorrow. I'm traveling over the weekend and really need something consistently working. Keeping my fingers crossed for a good device. Thanks to everyone who tried to help.

Okay, I'm sure that's not the progress you want, but that's good that they're aware of a more widespread issue, which means a fix is in the works.

One reason why I push people to properly call tech support (rather than just do forum support and then constantly exchange or whatever) is that real tech problems need to get into Microsoft's official support database. The only way that happens is for people to report it. Same thing with other software bugs--if no one reports it, it won't get fixed, or the company thinks it's a rare thing. This forum isn't an official Microsoft support forum, after all.

Hope things get resolved for you one way or another; five faulty devices is extraordinarily bad luck there.


Edit to add: So a workaround is to avoid the sleep setting, and just shutting down full (or hibernate), I guess?

 

[drolem]

Can you save your event log and post it? Also, can you look if there are files in C:\Windows\Minidump, and if there is a MEMORY.DMP in C:\Windows?

I have seen this behavior, and sometimes I got 4 GB (!!) dump files, and the delay was caused by the time needed to write that much data onto the SSD.

 

[drolem]

Yes, I have this problem, at least on the surface. I have determined that the SP2 is doing an "invisible BSOD" at the very moment I wake it up. It then does a cold start, everything that was open is closed. Unlike many BSODs Windows is not catching it directly.

That's not a BSOD -- that's a system reset.

Open up Device Mangler to see if you see anything with an exclamation mark.

Edit: you can also try to connect the AC adapter first, wait a few seconds, then wake it up. T

 

[CrippsCorner]

Wow sorry you're having so much bad luck, hopefully this will get sorted for you soon

 

[Sher the Love]

Can you save your event log and post it? Also, can you look if there are files in C:\Windows\Minidump, and if there is a MEMORY.DMP in C:\Windows?

I have seen this behavior, and sometimes I got 4 GB (!!) dump files, and the delay was caused by the time needed to write that much data onto the SSD.

I'm not very familiar with event logs, but I have the same thing as the guy above. "The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly"


I don't have a minidump folder and there's an exclamation mark next to "unknown device" under other devices. If I have no luck by this afternoon, I'll be exchanging it later.

Update: Oddly, this seems to be getting progressively worse. Even after a complete shutdown, it seems now I have to hold the power and volume up for ten seconds for it to boot. This happen to me twice this morning after shutting it down completely. I'm restoring it now to exchange at Best Buy. I really hope I get a good device.

 

[CrownSeven]

If you've exchanged the device as many times as you've stated - its not a hardware issue. Its either a bug in Windows 8.1 or you've installed some software which is preventing WIndows 8.1 to go into sleep mode gracefully. My guess is its a combination of both.

Is there an application that you normally have running when putting the device to sleep? Don't forget that unless you explicitly shut down an app, its more than likely still running.

Just to note - I purchased 2 SPRO2's from my local microsoft store the day of the release, and have not encountered these issues on either of them.

 

[wesker317]

Update: Oddly, this seems to be getting progressively worse. Even after a complete shutdown, it seems now I have to hold the power and volume up for ten seconds for it to boot. This happen to me twice this morning after shutting it down completely. I'm restoring it now to exchange at Best Buy. I really hope I get a good device.

This happenned to me too on my first device. At first, It would fail to wake up from sleep and do a normal boot. Programs like firefox and IE would then complain about unexpected termination. The event log would contain a critical POWER_KERNEL something code 41 as mentionned before. Later, I would simply be unable to turn on the device at all for many hours.

I returned the surface to the store and now my 2nd surface seems to not have this problem.

 

[Sher the Love]

If you've exchanged the device as many times as you've stated - its not a hardware issue. Its either a bug in Windows 8.1 or you've installed some software which is preventing WIndows 8.1 to go into sleep mode gracefully. My guess is its a combination of both.

Is there an application that you normally have running when putting the device to sleep? Don't forget that unless you explicitly shut down an app, its more than likely still running.

Just to note - I purchased 2 SPRO2's from my local microsoft store the day of the release, and have not encountered these issues on either of them.

I've only had this issue on one device. The other devices had other defects. The device I exchanged for today isn't having any wake issues or any other issues. I think I found myself a keeper.... I hope