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Crazy theory? Is Edge responsible for Surface woes?

sjh688

New Member
So I was playing around with surface #3 (#1 froze in the middle of a windows reinstall trying in vain to fix the driver crash issue while #2 simply stopped turning on). At this point between the 3 devices I've probably experienced every issue that's been brought up on these threads, with the most frustrating being the 10% an hour battery drain in sleep mode due to constant battery requests from the Intel audio driver which could not be stopped even with requestoverride. Like with the last two, I've typically been lucky to get 5 hours of battery life. However, I wanted to pass along that immediately following a windows reinstall and an sfc scannow I just had two full hours of web browsing and am still showing 85% battery (low brightness and battery saver on). If Microsoft can ever fix all of the bugs these devices really will have great battery life. We'll see if they ever get it all figured out (I for one am not holding my breath).
 

jtcb

Member
There are so many issues I have been reading. I might not buy SP4 afterall.

Is there any way to not use Edge as a browser even once? I guess not? I have to at least use it once at the beginning to go to Chrome or other browser website to download/install whatever you want to use before stop using Edge?
 

hughlle

Super Moderator
Staff member
There are so many issues I have been reading. I might not buy SP4 afterall.

Is there any way to not use Edge as a browser even once? I guess not? I have to at least use it once at the beginning to go to Chrome or other browser website to download/install whatever you want to use before stop using Edge?

You could download it on the device you typed that post with and stick it on a usb drive or email it to yourself..

Most of the issues are not really sp4 issues but just Windows 10 issues.
 

leeshor

Well-Known Member
There are so many issues I have been reading. I might not buy SP4 afterall.

Is there any way to not use Edge as a browser even once? I guess not? I have to at least use it once at the beginning to go to Chrome or other browser website to download/install whatever you want to use before stop using Edge?
Yes, it is possible not to use Edge, which I feel is a large part of the issues you are seeing. The only exception I have found, that I can't seem to get around, is that I can Get Firefox to be the default for EVERYTHING except for Cortana. That's the only time Edge opens on my systems.
 

GreyFox7

Super Moderator
Staff member
There are so many issues I have been reading. I might not buy SP4 afterall.

Is there any way to not use Edge as a browser even once? I guess not? I have to at least use it once at the beginning to go to Chrome or other browser website to download/install whatever you want to use before stop using Edge?
It might be but you'll really have to work at it. it defaults to Edge for opening PDFs and even though I managed to select Reader to open a PDF by right clicking the second one I opened didn't give me that option and used Edge anyway, thereafter it was Edge every time.

IMO Edge may aggravate some issues it's not the cause of the issues. Firmware, drivers, glitchy graphics hardware are the cause. Edge is just poking the sore spot harder than some of the others. The Firmware and Driver fixes will cover up the glitches through timing changes, operation recoverability enhancements, and failure mode mitigation.
 

Cerif27

New Member
My cortana on my desktop hasn't worked right since day one, but that's a different thing entirely. That plus all the issues I see on here with the battery and the other drivers etc, it makes me really nervous to get mine on friday. I'm gonna really have to work it real hard for those initial 30 days. If I have to replace it more than once in the first 30 days, I'll be replacing it with a Dell. I'm pretty disappointed they haven't worked this stuff out yet. We'll see if this week's firmware updates help out. I'm crossing everything I have in the hopes that some things find solutions in that update.
 

GreyFox7

Super Moderator
Staff member
My cortana on my desktop hasn't worked right since day one, but that's a different thing entirely. That plus all the issues I see on here with the battery and the other drivers etc, it makes me really nervous to get mine on friday. I'm gonna really have to work it real hard for those initial 30 days. If I have to replace it more than once in the first 30 days, I'll be replacing it with a Dell. I'm pretty disappointed they haven't worked this stuff out yet. We'll see if this week's firmware updates help out. I'm crossing everything I have in the hopes that some things find solutions in that update.
Realistically some things will get fixed, others will take longer. Keep in mind there may be more than one problem with very similar symptoms so some things may still happen just less frequently than before. There's always a chance a new problem will be revealed.
 

mtalinm

Active Member
I dumped Edge for IE11 and am much happier.

surface does nto overheat when 4-5 tabs are open.

fewer display-driver crashes (though not totally gone, though I'm hopefully for yesterday's update)

edge is like the new chrome
 

GreyFox7

Super Moderator
Staff member
My understanding is that the Nov 18 update was mostly about the Touchscreen going unresponsive issue and there was not a fix for display driver crashing yet. Apparently this fix took weeks of investigative work and involves CPU microcode updates in the firmware.

TBH the touchscreen (pen, trackpad) freezing and unresponsiveness is the more serious and impactful of the problems. The display driver issue is a big annoyance but mostly harmless.
 
The display driver crash doesn't prevent you from using the device. Freezing does. So I can understand why they focused on that first. I think the display driver issues is going to need help from both Intel and Microsoft.
 
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