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March Firmware disappeared, and touchpad not working now

ihaveabu

New Member
I installed the March update the day it came out, and installed just fine. Now it's no longer listed on the Surface firmware updates page

Now, my touchpad doesn't move my mouse anymore. Clicking the left and right mouse buttons makes the clicking sound, but the clicks don't register either.

Seriously Microsoft please test your updates before you release them.
 

jrapdx

Member
I installed the March update the day it came out, and installed just fine. Now it's no longer listed on the Surface firmware updates page

Now, my touchpad doesn't move my mouse anymore. Clicking the left and right mouse buttons makes the clicking sound, but the clicks don't register either.

Seriously Microsoft please test your updates before you release them.

Updates were installed on my SP2 yesterday. By evening I was noticing peculiar behaviors, particularly whenever the Bluetooth mouse was turned on, WiFi disconnected. Very annoying. I finally got some measure of peace by using the alternative access point (I have 2). Signal not as good, but at least it isn't disrupted by BT activation.

Weirder was a new problem with the keyboard (Type Cover 2). It started to input the wrong characters--not what I pressed, and instead of characters, an area of text was selected. The status of the Caps key didn't make a difference (pressed or not). Pressing the "." always gave ">". Obviously the system was unusable. Rebooting helped for a while, but the problems recurred, though not noticing it so far today.

I don't know which of the multiple updates might be contributing. I'll have to revert them one by one, except of course that won't work with firmware.
 

benjitek

Active Member
My SP2 512GB model has worked fine after the firmware was updated, have been using it since it was first released. Wonder if there are issues related to the older CPU with the earlier models...
 

GoodBytes

Well-Known Member
Same here. I have the SP2 256GB Type Cover 2, and the March firmware operates perfectly on my system.

For your touchpad. do the following
1- Turn off the Surface Pro 2
2- Disconnect the keyboard, and make sure the contacts on both the keyboard side and the Surface Pro 2 is all clean
3- Connect it back, and press the Vol Up button and power button for several seconds, you'll see it will start and go to the UEFI screen, keep holding until it turns off.
4- Position the Surface Pro 2 on a table, with the keyboard flipped down in, basically how you would use your device on a table typing. Then turn it on via the power button

This should solve your problem. If not, restart it, and now you should be good.
 

jrapdx

Member
My SP2 512GB model has worked fine after the firmware was updated, have been using it since it was first released. Wonder if there are issues related to the older CPU with the earlier models...

My SP2 has the 4300u, and it has been updated with March and earlier blobs as recommended by MS. Certain problems appeared after updating yesterday, so naturally I suspect something among the several updates was the source of difficulty. Exactly which of the twelve updates received is responsible is hard to determine.

The fact that your machine works "fine", has little bearing on how well my SP2 is working. For one thing, you have no way to comprehensively test how your machine functions under the very wide set of circumstances our computers are subject to. Environments, accessories, applications, workloads all vary a lot and greatly affect ideas of what "working fine" means, and defects exposed in one situation may remain completely hidden under different conditions.

Facing enormously perplexing and complicated problems like I've had with the SP2, I deeply appreciate thoughtful help when it is offered. OTOH, generic, random, "off the cuff" commentary is not so useful. I guess being helpful requires knowing which is which.
 

irwinm

New Member
Help. So I just noticed my Surface Pro 2 wasn't getting a wifi signal. I had seen it take some updates yesterday when I shut down but didn't really use it much today. So I rebooted it to see if that would fix the wifi adapter, and it said installing system update, flipped to the TPM and secure boot control Bios page, and now is bricked there in an endless loop to a red Surface splash page!

Any idea on recovery options?
 

GoodBytes

Well-Known Member
Try Volume Up and Power button. Press and hold until the system powers on. And let go when you get to the UEFI screen. From there make sure that TPM and Secure boot control are enabled, and select "Install Default Secure Boot Key". Exit setup and save.
Does it help?
 

irwinm

New Member
Awesome - got it working - thanks! It was really bizarre though with that red surface splash. I have rebooted again and it's still red with the "surface" word in a black square. At least wifi is working again. Something weird happened.

Thanks again - long time lurker but knew I could find help here! (And sorry to hijack thread but thought this might have something to do with the update)
 

GoodBytes

Well-Known Member
Your Wifi works, as we just did an actual full reboot. So the wireless card got it's powered cut out, clearing what every hardware bug which made the card not working, and now it works.

The Red screen, is from my understanding, to be a problem with Secure Boot. Secure Boot option should be enabled in the UEFI screen, and with "Install Default Secure Boot Keys" should solve this problem. However, Secure Boot not working is not providing any downside beside being open to a virus/rootkit type of software which can replace the Windows boot loader with it's own to take control over the system, like systems with the old BIOS system. So it's not a must fix, but it is recommended. That is of course, if THAT is the meaning of the red screen for sure, and does not have another meaning, as it is all undocumented.
 
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