Poll Surface Pro 4, a very expensive frustation

[Luinwethion]

I ask myself, do people at Microsoft use their own products? Or they just use the Surfaces for the conferences and after that they go running back to their MBP?



It really seams like the second one, yeah I understand that from time to time something might bug down and you might even need to restart the system. But having to restart such a device 3 times in a day due bugs that are around since the beginning of the ages is unacceptable.



Even after clean installing Windows 10 AU the system can turn out to be unusable.



Before someone puts the blame in other software, I've almost nothing installed on my surface, and nothing else starts up with Windows other than Defender and OneDrive, I like to keep things pretty clean.



Almost all problems are linked to Windows freaking out after resuming it from sleep / hibernation.



I often leave Edge and Mail open always, because I like to keep my tabs and I use Mail a lot.

Edge doesn't like waking up from hibernation, it will freeze, it will get slow and sometimes it won't even close, forcing me to close the process.



Switch from landscape to vertical while Windows Hello is taking ages to turn the camera on? More often than not the graphics will freak out and 1/3 of the screen will be kept in landscape while the rest will turn. Fix? Restart. Very strange thing, never saw something like this, not even in the cheapest Chinese Android tablet I've seen things like this.



Groove music, that one is funny, how to kill the Surface battery in 1 hour? Well, have some Music at the local OneDrive Music folder, and play it with Groove, for decoding a 320Kbps MP3 Groove would use more than 50% of the power of a dualcore I7 processor, very impressive.

Now sure after months of agony with Groove, they solved the problem by avoiding the CPU to speed up and get hot, but this doesn't mean that Groove is fixed, now when I open Groove, I can't make some steaks on the back of my surface anymore, but I can't work on it either because the whole systems slows down, it seams like I'm exporting something in Premiere, but no, and people complained about iTunes needing resources.





Now as it is, the SP4 is pretty unusable as a mobile computer, that goes to sleep and resumes many times a day while keeping apps open. I understand the decision to hibernate the machine after 2h of inactivity, makes sense for the battery and I'm able to accept the longer wait from time to time, but when resuming from sleep, even with its i7, 8GB of ram and super fast SSD, the SP4 is everything but instant on resuming. Even if I would not use Windows Hello that more often than not bugs down, it will take the device annoying seconds before it responds to my command of dismissing the lock screen.



Anyone with problems and frustrations like mine? You found a solution for any of those problems?



I'm really thinking of giving up

 

[jnjroach]

I haven't experienced the issues you are facing - I had the issues with Edge but narrowed those to the Extensions as they are still at Beta level, I went back to HOST File Blocking of Ads and haven't seen the Edge Issues.

I use my SP4 (i7/16/256) 14-18 hours a day every day, docked and mobile. I have Office 365 (64 bit) Insider Builds, Visual Studio 2015 SP2, Camtasia and Reflector2 installed. I'm on Redstone 2 Insider Builds.

Also, Microsoft is one of my major customers and I can tell you that those that are using the SP4 or SB use it as their daily driver, some MS Employees are using ThinkPad X1 devices and some have Mobile Workstations (HP, Dell and Lenovo).

MBP are not an option for MS Employees unless they are used for specific DEMO purposes....

Clean install isn't all it cut out to be in the new Windows Era, you would have had better luck with downloading the Recovery Image unless you carefully followed the documentation on creating a clean Surface Image.

 

[kristalsoldier]

I ask myself, do people at Microsoft use their own products? Or they just use the Surfaces for the conferences and after that they go running back to their MBP?

Anyone with problems and frustrations like mine? You found a solution for any of those problems?

I'm really thinking of giving up

I am quite sure I saw the same poll on Windows Central which I responded to in the same way as I responded here. No my SP4 has no issues that I can see thus far. It has been stable and the battery life has not disappointed me (yet). This seems to me to be a continuation of my experience with the SP3 (though it was a much warmer machine with the fans coming on more often under the same operating conditions).

 

[Gtfeckner]

I had exactly the same experience as you describe.

My SP4 was extremely unstable, crashed almost constantly and nothing I did helped.

Turned out I had a faulty unit. Microsoft replaced it for a new one in 96 hours and since then it has changed from the most frustrating and useless computer I ever had, to simply the most amazing, versatile and productive device I have ever used.

I use it heavily and I haven´t have had one single problem since it was replaced. Simply perfect reliability.

Honestly, I don´t think there is anything inherently wrong or faulty with the SP4 as a design/product. The problem is with Microsofts quality control, which might be the worst ever in history. It is shameful to read the forums and finding so many frustrated users.

If you can get your unit replaced, things might change for you. I wish you the best of luck. When it works as it should, the SP4 is an amazing product.

Best regards, and please excuse my poor English.

 

[dcoplien]

IMHO most of the major problems (assuming you're current on updates), seem to be with quality control by whomever they contracted with for manufacturing.

 

[Lorenzo B.]

Hi. I understand your frustration and sympathize with you.
I cannot say I am experiencing the same problems since my SP4 (i5/4/128) has so far been running flawlessly through all the various software updates including AU. I might have been one of those lucky enough to bump on a defects-free machine, or it might be because I have removed many of the ugly apps wrapped onto W10 (Groove, Cortana and such). Either way I have nothing but praises for this little monster, which I use as a tablet in couch-potato mode and as a full-blown laptop during daytime.
I do all my work on that (Gmail, Word/Excel, Evernote, One Note, GDrive and Opera always open), and still have to hear the fan kick in, unless I'm playing games such as Skyrim, Tomb Raider, I am alive, Assassin's Creed 2 (fullscreen, medium detail with a very acceptable framerate), and even then it never gets as loud (and hot) as my former 2011 MBA (i7/4/250), with a browser, email client and Evernote running.
Battery-wise I had read ugly stories but I am very happy with the 6-7 hours I can squeeze out of it which, again, are more than twice what I got with the MBA that would die after 3 hours and something back in 2011-12 and, would not reach two hours as of lately, after five years of careful use and with the battery still retaining more than 80% of its original capacity...
I of course wish you all the best and cannot do anything else but second what others have been writing: Get in touch with Support and try to obtain a replacement unit; that will hopefully solve all your woes.
Keep us updated.

 

[Luinwethion]

So, by clean install I actually meant reinstalling windows with a recovery USB downloaded from MS.

It might be hardware issues, but it just strikes me that there are just too many things going on, and it's too random for me to feel confident in blaming the hardware, and actually, with AU some problems like the lag in recognizing the attached keyboard disappeared.

I've been trying to isolate the cases where something might fail, but it's impossible for me to create repeatable steps.

Just for a heads up of what kind of things I encounter, I was using my surface in tablet mode, pushed the power button (it went to sleep), and I attached the type cover.
Half an hour later, I came back, removed the type cover, powered the surface back on, and the screen rotation refuses to work.

https://twitter.com/_Rena_Chan_/stat...32516528037888

Some more time using the Surface with the keyboard, and everything was fine again.

Other thing that makes me crazy is that sometimes I open a new tab on edge, and (as crazy as it might sound) edge seams to think that I'm holding down the crtl key, and it will behave as it when I press some other key, it's not a keyboard hardware failure because this problems is isolated to edge and won't affect other Windows apps.

So, with all that, unless it's software stuff, this might be some really hidden bad controller or firmware issue.

Anyways it seams that for most people even in heavy work the Surface works as expected, so first I'm trying Insider builds again and if not, I will have to contact MS and hope for a fast and good solution.

@jnjroach Interesting, I would think that in the US (assuming you live in the US) MS would be more flexible with its employees, in it's Netherlands HQ, I saw quite a lot of apple machines

 

[Philtastic]

Does it "bug down" more than I'd expect? I'd say yes: I generally don't expect basic functions like sleep, wake, and CPU clockspeed variation to fail for months. Is it unusable? Far from it. Would I recommend the SP4 to a casual user? I don't think that I would due to Microsoft's poor quality control of both hardware and software combined with the high price. Both myself and my brother have had hardware issues (I've had a keyboard port fail within the first week which required an exchange and my bro has screen flicker at low brightness settings) and you'll find plenty of posts on the plethora of software issues that have plagued every iteration of the Surface line.

 

[Salvo]

I ask myself, do people at Microsoft use their own products? Or they just use the Surfaces for the conferences and after that they go running back to their MBP?



It really seams like the second one, yeah I understand that from time to time something might bug down and you might even need to restart the system. But having to restart such a device 3 times in a day due bugs that are around since the beginning of the ages is unacceptable.



Even after clean installing Windows 10 AU the system can turn out to be unusable.



Before someone puts the blame in other software, I've almost nothing installed on my surface, and nothing else starts up with Windows other than Defender and OneDrive, I like to keep things pretty clean.



Almost all problems are linked to Windows freaking out after resuming it from sleep / hibernation.



I often leave Edge and Mail open always, because I like to keep my tabs and I use Mail a lot.

Edge doesn't like waking up from hibernation, it will freeze, it will get slow and sometimes it won't even close, forcing me to close the process.



Switch from landscape to vertical while Windows Hello is taking ages to turn the camera on? More often than not the graphics will freak out and 1/3 of the screen will be kept in landscape while the rest will turn. Fix? Restart. Very strange thing, never saw something like this, not even in the cheapest Chinese Android tablet I've seen things like this.



Groove music, that one is funny, how to kill the Surface battery in 1 hour? Well, have some Music at the local OneDrive Music folder, and play it with Groove, for decoding a 320Kbps MP3 Groove would use more than 50% of the power of a dualcore I7 processor, very impressive.

Now sure after months of agony with Groove, they solved the problem by avoiding the CPU to speed up and get hot, but this doesn't mean that Groove is fixed, now when I open Groove, I can't make some steaks on the back of my surface anymore, but I can't work on it either because the whole systems slows down, it seams like I'm exporting something in Premiere, but no, and people complained about iTunes needing resources.





Now as it is, the SP4 is pretty unusable as a mobile computer, that goes to sleep and resumes many times a day while keeping apps open. I understand the decision to hibernate the machine after 2h of inactivity, makes sense for the battery and I'm able to accept the longer wait from time to time, but when resuming from sleep, even with its i7, 8GB of ram and super fast SSD, the SP4 is everything but instant on resuming. Even if I would not use Windows Hello that more often than not bugs down, it will take the device annoying seconds before it responds to my command of dismissing the lock screen.



Anyone with problems and frustrations like mine? You found a solution for any of those problems?



I'm really thinking of giving up

Welcome in the group.
I returned back my surface pro 4 and microsoft refounded me money because i7 it was very very very hot.
When i tried sp4 , i found some similar to your graphic/app bug as display with some graphic bug, update errors and random wake up.
You was lucky to restore the sp4, i was unable to make a factory reset.

I see that microsoft fixed some sp3 problems and He doesn't found a solution for Sp4 problems.

I will never buy Surface pro and i need a pc/tablet and tomorrow will buy yoga,macbook pro or other alternative .
Inviato dal mio YOGA Tablet 2-1050L utilizzando Tapatalk

 

[clouds5]

I had to replace my first sp4 because of a flickering screen at low brightness. The second one i have now is pretty much perfect. No issues so far, not in software nor hardware. But maybe that's just because i have a different use pattern than you. As any device the sp4 is certainly not perfect.

 

[kristalsoldier]

I have removed many of the ugly apps wrapped onto W10 (Groove, Cortana and such). Either way I have nothing but praises for this little monster, which I use as a tablet in couch-potato mode and as a full-blown laptop during daytime.

How did you remove Groove, Cortana and such...?

 

[Luinwethion]

So a bit of an update, I sent the surface back to MS, it arrived today and waiting for news.

I expect that they will replace it for a refurbished one. Just hope their refurbished quality control works.

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