Surface auto-shut down when battery reaches 5%.

[arsi123]

Is there any way to prevent the Surface from automatically shutting down when the battery reaches 5%?

I feel it's a waste of 5% of battery if the OS does not allow it to be utilised ...

 

[jnjroach]

You can modify this Settings under the Advanced Power Settings in the Power Options Desktop Control Panel, click change plan settings then Advanced Settings.

HTH,

 

[arsi123]

When I go into "Critical battery action" for "On battery", the only option available is "Shut down." There's no option for "Do nothing."

EDIT: Never mind. I just changed the "Critical battery level." Thanks anyways for your help!

EDIT 2: It didn't work. When I change the Critical battery level to anything below 5%, it automatically changes it back to 5% ... What to do?

 

[arsi123]

Didn't work ...

 

[bosamar]

I'm old school and like to drain the battery to less than 10% once a week. IMO it's good practice to exercise the battery. Of course this old fart may be wrong. I also think these new tech batteries can take a lot of punishment. No worries as far as I'm concerned.

 

[jnjroach]

Then that is the level that is programmed into the Firmware and I don't think there is much we can do about it....sorry

 

[arsi123]

I'm old school and like to drain the battery to less than 10% once a week. IMO it's good practice to exercise the battery. Of course this old fart may be wrong. I also think these new tech batteries can take a lot of punishment. No worries as far as I'm concerned.

That is indeed good practice. Draining a battery completely frequently is never a good idea (hence, that's why I assume Microsoft have kept the minimum level to 5% before the device shuts off/hibernates), but once in a while is always good to ensure that it's calibrated well.

However, I just wanted to squeeze a bit more life out of the battery, before it reaches 0%. I was wondering whether the Surface could run until, say around, 2% before it shuts down. Admittedly, 2-3% extra battery life is not going to make a mountain of difference, but as they say, "every little helps."

 

[arsi123]

Then that is the level that is programmed into the Firmware and I don't think there is much we can do about it....sorry

Hmm, so is there no way to bypass this? I mean, even through a few registry tweaks? The RT does have a command prompt; can we not put that to the test?

 

[jnjroach]

Sure, you can explore the Registry but this is a much more closed system than Windows x86, there are decisions that we made for both performance and battery. Unlike Windows x86 the troubleshooting method is to do a hard reset rather than attempting to do break/fix, this lowers the TCO and again the idea is to give a better consumer experience by preventing Software/Code Rot as we see in legacy Windows Win32 Applications....