Mobile Broadband Disappearing

[aw1234]

Hi All,

The company I work for bought 10 x Surface 3's to be used as mobile laptops, with Mobile Broadband and 4G enabled SIM's on the EE network.

Ever since we rolled these out, we have had constant issues with the "Mobile Broadband" connection randomly disappearing from the network connections screen. On occasions we have also had the WiFi connection missing.

When this occurs, we have to uninstall the "Surface 3 Modem Device", reboot and usually it works again. Other times it doesn't, and the driver has to be reinstalled from the exe file.

I have seen there have been some recent firmware updates containing driver updates for Wifi & Mobile Broadband - I have ran Windows Updates on one of the machines which has picked up several updates and firmware patches however the driver version of the Modem Device hasn't altered at all.

Surface 3 Modem Device (Mobile Broadband) is still showing:

Driver Date: 31/10/2013
Driver Version: 6.3.9600.16453

Marvell AVASTAR Wireless-AC Network Controller (Wifi) is still showing:

Driver Date: 13/11/2015
Driver Version: 15.68.3093.197

I have been unable to find downloadable drivers more recent than this.


Has anyone else come across this problem, and hopefully found a resolution? Or is there a location I can download the latest firmware which has only recently been released?

Thanks in advance.

 

[leeshor]

Welcome to the forum

Have you reported this issue to Microsoft?

 

[aw1234]

Is there an official method of doing this? All I can find is contact support, where there may or may not be a £60 charge.

 

[leeshor]

No charge for reporting it. Use Windows feedback or go to the Microsoft Answers page. Surface - Microsoft Community

 

[Plantje]

I hardly ever got a response from Microsoft Answers other than to reset my machine, reinstall the app (what app?!?) etc.
Windows feedback will not be answered upon.

To the issue: I have never encountered this with my Surface 3

 

[leeshor]

But they can be made aware that there is a problem. The more people with the same issue the more likely they will be looking at/for a fix.

 

[Plantje]

Ok, you got a fair point there. I think the OP is looking for a way to mention the issue and get some feedback that will lead to a quick solution of the issue.
If you have to pay $ 60,- for support it most likely is because it is business support. And this is business support you are requesting right? I assume the company will pay for the support.

If it is of any use I looked up my driver versions:
LTE modem:
Date: 29-10-2015
Version: 10.0.10586.0

WiFi:
Date: 30-11-2015
Version: 15.68.9037.59

 

[aw1234]

That's correct, looking for a way to resolve these issues so they are more stable.

There are obviously newer versions of drivers available as per above, however I am unable to get these installed on the 10 machines we have.

I have downloaded the files from here Download Surface 3 LTE - Outside of North America and Y!mobile in Japan from Official Microsoft Download Center and tried installing but the driver date does not change. I have installed each driver manually (right click & install) - again the driver date does not change.

One thing I have noticed has changed is the "Surface CoSAR" device under system devices.

This has updated to:
Date 26/01/2016
Driver Version 2.0.272.0

I have read this offers reliability improvements for the 4G, but I am unsure what it actually does as I thought the modem controlled everything.

Thanks again

 

[KloppKopp]

I have the same drivers on my machine as Plantje. So these seem to be the newest ones available.

However the Broadband and to a lesser extend the WLAN stability of the S3 LTE under WIN10 have been a known issue for a long time.

I have mine now for a couple of months and in the beginning the Broadband connection broke down every other minute and the S3 had to be rebooted to get it up again.

After a couple of S3 firmware updates and WIN 10 updates from MS its now quite stable since a few weeks.

One important point though. Its only stable if I use the Edge browser. When using chrome ore others it still brakes down regularly. Might not be your problem, but on my S3 makes definitely a difference.

 

[Intranetsites]

My Current Solution: Rather than reboot like I have for months, I now have learned to turn the radio off, wait 10 seconds and turn it back on. This action reconnects me within five seconds. This tells me it's just a Microsoft software issue that is not able to restart the mobile radio in a timely manner.

 

[Plantje]

@OP: Do all 10 Surfaces have the same issues?

 

[Intranetsites]

I'm on my 3rd Surface 3 lte and I have to say my 3 year old ipad lte on same Network still stays connected much better on the iPad, if the MS radios are in inferior or the software is not designed to reconnect i can not say, but for me it is a major issue to consider buying the IPad Pro lte as my next larger tablet or watching the Samsung 13 inch or several other rivals . Would love to hear how the radios differ between all