Battery issue / not charging over 65%

[Maxwell]

Hi everyone,

Here is my issue :
I bought a pre owned Surface Pro 3 (core i5-4300U / RAM 8Go / 256Go SSD) running on Windows 10, with the original charger.

At the beginning, everything was doing well, the battery was charging until 100%.

I tried to use an external powerbank powerefull enought to charge the SP3. I tried it on a friend's SP3 before buy mine, and it was working well and fast (from 0 to 100%)

I plugged my SP3 on the powerbank but I had some difficulties doing it work properly. I gave up after many test.
Since that day, my SP3 doesn't charge over 70% with the wall charger.
I spent hours to find a solution on the web, tried to disable and enable the "Battery limit" of the Kiosk Mode in the Bios, checked the battery report of Windows and HWinfo telling me that the battery have a full charge capacity of 40455 mWh (with a 42157 mWh designated capacity) and 74 cycles. But today, it's very complicated to charge over 65%...

I already updated the firmware and tried some battery reset but nothing fix my problem.

I don't know what to do except replace the battery, but with a health of 96%, it will be sad to do that.

Do you think I "broke" something trying to connect an external powerbank ?

Thank you for you help.

 

[GreyFox7]

what are the specs of the Powerbank? what make and model of powerbank?
is the cable part of the powerbank or is it a separate cable? what brand of cable if it's separate?

Try doing the two button reset.

These instructions apply to the following Surface models:

• Surface Pro, Surface Pro 2, Surface Pro 3, Surface Pro 4
• Surface Book
• Surface 2, Surface 3
• Surface RT

If you have one of these Surface models, use this two-button shutdown process to make sure your device turns off completely:

1. Press and hold the power button on your Surface until the screen turns off (about 30 seconds), then release it.
2. Press and hold the volume-up button and the power button at the same time until the screen turns off (about 15 seconds), then release both.
   
   The screen may flash the Surface logo, but continue holding the buttons down for at least 15 seconds.
3. After you release the buttons, wait 10 seconds.
4. Press and release the power button to turn your Surface back on. You should see the Surface logo.

 

[Hard.Wired]

@GreyFox7 made a great suggestion which truly can clear up many battery issues.

I still use a SP3 (i7-4650U) as a daily driver, but it is getting a bit long in the tooth. I can still get about 3 hours on battery with the system tweaks I've done and if I turn down the performance.

Over the years, I have had to replace my power brick twice because I leave mine plugged in almost all the time, which is not recommended, but I always have it doing something. I have noticed that as the battery ages it will not charge to its relative 100% if I have the "Power mode" set to "Best performance" while I am doing something CPU intensive for long periods of time. I now usually leave it set to "Best battery life" unless I really need the extra oomph...

As for 3rd party chargers, it is almost always best to get one that exceeds the specs of the original in terms of wattage. As previous battery designs get older, it can take a little more "push" to get them to take their relative full charge over time. This is also dependent on the charging circuitry, so YMMV.

 

[Maxwell]

what are the specs of the Powerbank? what make and model of powerbank?
is the cable part of the powerbank or is it a separate cable? what brand of cable if it's separate?

Try doing the two button reset.

These instructions apply to the following Surface models:

• Surface Pro, Surface Pro 2, Surface Pro 3, Surface Pro 4
• Surface Book
• Surface 2, Surface 3
• Surface RT

If you have one of these Surface models, use this two-button shutdown process to make sure your device turns off completely:

1. Press and hold the power button on your Surface until the screen turns off (about 30 seconds), then release it.
2. Press and hold the volume-up button and the power button at the same time until the screen turns off (about 15 seconds), then release both.
   
   The screen may flash the Surface logo, but continue holding the buttons down for at least 15 seconds.
3. After you release the buttons, wait 10 seconds.
4. Press and release the power button to turn your Surface back on. You should see the Surface logo.

Thank you @GreyFox7 but I already found this procedure and already tried it, one more time with your reply but nothing changed.

The powerbank was a Charmast 65W Power Delivery 23800 mAh :

https://www.amazon.com/Portable-Charmast-23800mAh-Charging-External/dp/B09QM5P761/ref=sr_1_6

And I used a USB-C adapter cable like this one :

https://www.amazon.com/Sisyphy/dp/B07VGTPYPV/ref=sr_1_3

As I'd explained, this powerbank with this cable was working great on my friend's SP3 but not on mine.

Today, I don't have this powerbank anymore. I just want to fix my problem using the wall charger.

And just to explain quickly my project, I build a wooden photo booth for events (wedding, birthday, etc...) and wanted to make it fully autonomous with a powerbank to connect the SP3 and the SLR camera. I gave up for now, waiting for maybe invest in a better powerbank but I'm sure my problem will still persist.

This forum is my last hope before replace the battery or get a new SP ^^

Thanks for helping me.

 

[GreyFox7]

I suspect the power bank does 15V but not 12V . I once connected a 15V surface charger to my SP3 and it didn't go well ... and initially wouldn't charge with the SP3 12V charger ... after the two-button reset it worked and I never did that again. Officially the SP3 is supposed to handle it but didn't in my case and I suspect yours didn't either. IDK what would fix it at this point ... I doubt the battery is damaged, the charging circuit is my guess ... that's only a guess. although old batteries can behave strangely sometimes.

 

[XROne]

I suspect the power bank does 15V but not 12V . I once connected a 15V surface charger to my SP3 and it didn't go well ... and initially wouldn't charge with the SP3 12V charger ... after the two-button reset it worked and I never did that again. Officially the SP3 is supposed to handle it but didn't in my case and I suspect yours didn't either. IDK what would fix it at this point ... I doubt the battery is damaged, the charging circuit is my guess ... that's only a guess. although old batteries can behave strangely sometimes.

I've acquired an S3, I don't know if you can call a Surface 3, S3? isn't AWS long term storage S3? I love the small size of the S3 and i like knowing how to do the reset too, thanks. the Atom processor must sip power because it can sleep for weeks and still power up and it charges with a USB micro connector so i hope it's ok to charge it with an small USB wall charger, these factors are so convenient. i also use a high powered IQ charger, i hope it senses what the appropriate charge is.
the only thing i don't like is the wide bezel on the screen. maybe it's not as bad as that, it isn't a bezel, it's a dead area of black glass. we need a modern replacement screens for these great machines. i don't think i need the power of an i7 for my daily driver and i'd rather have the convenience of the Atom PCU run time and charging, at least so far, but i like the idea of being able to pick up an i7 one of these things, fantastic!

 

[Maxwell]

I suspect the power bank does 15V but not 12V . I once connected a 15V surface charger to my SP3 and it didn't go well ... and initially wouldn't charge with the SP3 12V charger ... after the two-button reset it worked and I never did that again. Officially the SP3 is supposed to handle it but didn't in my case and I suspect yours didn't either. IDK what would fix it at this point ... I doubt the battery is damaged, the charging circuit is my guess ... that's only a guess. although old batteries can behave strangely sometimes.

Thank you for this feedback. I think I can't undo what I've done in any way. For now, I'm gonna keep my SP3 plugged on an outlet when I'm using it as a photo booth, and I'll think about change and get the appropriate powerbank later.

Thank you again !

 

[Maxwell]

I've acquired an S3, I don't know if you can call a Surface 3, S3? isn't AWS long term storage S3? I love the small size of the S3 and i like knowing how to do the reset too, thanks. the Atom processor must sip power because it can sleep for weeks and still power up and it charges with a USB micro connector so i hope it's ok to charge it with an small USB wall charger, these factors are so convenient. i also use a high powered IQ charger, i hope it senses what the appropriate charge is.
the only thing i don't like is the wide bezel on the screen. maybe it's not as bad as that, it isn't a bezel, it's a dead area of black glass. we need a modern replacement screens for these great machines. i don't think i need the power of an i7 for my daily driver and i'd rather have the convenience of the Atom PCU run time and charging, at least so far, but i like the idea of being able to pick up an i7 one of these things, fantastic!

I had an S3 too before I bought my SP3, because I could charge it with a standard powerbank through micro USB port. But I definitly needed more CPU power for my use.