New Firmware - July 8, 2014

[JesseDiaz]

still no update

 

[JesseDiaz]

You must have done something wrong, the wireless driver in that package is "DriverVer=06/03/2014,15.68.3042.79". At least for the "Surface Pro 3 - July 2014.zip" file... did you download the wrong one perhaps?

http://blogs.technet.com/b/deployme...ying-drivers-and-firmware-to-surface-pro.aspx

Use that guide to install your drivers/firmware.

Couple notes on the above guide;
-> 1. Execution policy for powershell scripts needs to be changed to Unrestricted for this to run.
-> 2. If you see Access is Denied messages it is because you didn't run as administrator.
-> 3. Not all drivers will install in that package so don't freak out if you see that occur.
-> 4. If you see a pause during the script execution, try and press enter.
-> 5. Once you run through this, a reboot is required although not prompted. When you reboot you will get the traditional a system update is being applied message. When I did this I heard my fan kick up speed. After reboot, I checked some of my drivers firmware and the wireless as an example has a date of 6/3 which is the official latest now.

All that said, I'm seeing an improvement on stability of the connections with both Bluetooth and Wireless N as to similar to what I had on my Surface Pro 1st Generation.

Ill redownload it but Im pretty sure I have the right one......and after that, I think its pretty easy...just navigated to the right folder...so I went to the MARVELL folder, then 8.1 then WLAN

 

[yonghong]

You must have done something wrong, the wireless driver in that package is "DriverVer=06/03/2014,15.68.3042.79". At least for the "Surface Pro 3 - July 2014.zip" file... did you download the wrong one perhaps?

http://blogs.technet.com/b/deployme...ying-drivers-and-firmware-to-surface-pro.aspx

Use that guide to install your drivers/firmware.

Couple notes on the above guide;
-> 1. Execution policy for powershell scripts needs to be changed to Unrestricted for this to run.
-> 2. If you see Access is Denied messages it is because you didn't run as administrator.
-> 3. Not all drivers will install in that package so don't freak out if you see that occur.
-> 4. If you see a pause during the script execution, try and press enter.
-> 5. Once you run through this, a reboot is required although not prompted. When you reboot you will get the traditional a system update is being applied message. When I did this I heard my fan kick up speed. After reboot, I checked some of my drivers firmware and the wireless as an example has a date of 6/3 which is the official latest now.

All that said, I'm seeing an improvement on stability of the connections with both Bluetooth and Wireless N as to similar to what I had on my Surface Pro 1st Generation.

The wifi drivers is horrible, using it half hour,then roll back to old, what's going on MS,

 

[tuchas]

No update. WTH?

 

[jimp]

No update. WTH?

Yeah, come on Microsoft! We waited patiently for this update. Now please let us all have it, LOL.

 

[kristalsoldier]

Yeah...this is very strange...no update for me either.

 

[bluegrass]

Ditto on updates. I refuse to go through the hassle of going to Microsoft's site and downloading updates and then needing to go into Device Manager and manually update whatever you think needs to be updated. It is completely automated if you get the updates through the normal Control Panel/Windows Updates if and when they make them available.

It's a shame that MS doesn't test important things like WiFI before they start selling a new product. My IT manager has been teetering on replacing our laptop users with SP3s, but he gave me this article about all the WiFI problems and is asking me if I thought it was still safe to consider their purchase. Naturally, I'm biased, having been supportive of the Surfaces since day one and I'm also anxious to start supporting them here where I work. This crazy stuff probably really hurts MS chances of the Surface computers being purchased by corporate.

 

[ipaq_101]

Very strange, the first SP3 I had all the updates show up, then after swapping that out for another one 10 days later, all the updates showed up as well, even the ones just released a couple of days ago.

Why wouldn't they release all the updates to everyone? Isn't all the hardware the same?

 

[jnjroach]

I believe they do it staggered for a couple of reasons....

1 - There is no way to test an specific update against all of the varying configurations in the PC World, MS Employee Dog-fooding is still fairly homogenous - so a Staggered Release gives them the ability to pull back before impacting the whole install base (lesson learned after the infamous December Firmware of the SP2)

2 - The Staggered Release allows for faster downloads once all of the staging servers have the update....

This is pure speculation on my part....

 

[wynand32]

It's a shame that MS doesn't test important things like WiFI before they start selling a new product. My IT manager has been teetering on replacing our laptop users with SP3s, but he gave me this article about all the WiFI problems and is asking me if I thought it was still safe to consider their purchase. Naturally, I'm biased, having been supportive of the Surfaces since day one and I'm also anxious to start supporting them here where I work. This crazy stuff probably really hurts MS chances of the Surface computers being purchased by corporate.

It's definitely a problem, but it's definitely not just a Microsoft problem. I remember my ASUS TF201 tablet where they designed the thing with an all-metal back. I'm sure everyone here knows that radio waves don't penetrate metal all that well (hence the SP3 has a plastic strip across the top where I'm sure the antennas are located), and the way that the TF201 was designed ASUS _never_ managed to provide workable wifi. Apple is also notorious for releasing notebooks with wifi problems.

I'm not trying to give Microsoft a pass here, but I'll say that they're working faster on providing a solution than I've seen from some other manufacturers. So far I haven't seen them making excuses and refusing to acknowledge the problem--quite the opposite, in fact.

 

[wynand32]

I believe they do it staggered for a couple of reasons....

1 - There is no way to test an specific update against all of the varying configurations in the PC World, MS Employee Dog-fooding is still fairly homogenous - so a Staggered Release gives them the ability to pull back before impacting the whole install base (lesson learned after the infamous December Firmware of the SP2)

2 - The Staggered Release allows for faster downloads once all of the staging servers have the update....

This is pure speculation on my part....

I've seen some speculation that Microsoft has pulled the update because of issues. I don't think that's true, but if it is, then more power to them. Better to have slower staging, identify an issue, then pull the update than have all however-many SP3s update at once, crash, and burn.

 

[JesseDiaz]

I believe they do it staggered for a couple of reasons....

1 - There is no way to test an specific update against all of the varying configurations in the PC World, MS Employee Dog-fooding is still fairly homogenous - so a Staggered Release gives them the ability to pull back before impacting the whole install base (lesson learned after the infamous December Firmware of the SP2)

2 - The Staggered Release allows for faster downloads once all of the staging servers have the update....

This is pure speculation on my part....

On #1- But the SP3s have limited configurations...and its not like I can add a video card, etc so I can understand why they do it for the rest of the PC world but SP3..I dont