skellington
Member
Hi everyone,
UPDATED 2/3/14
I have a new Surface Pro (1), 128GB, updated to windows 8.1 with all updates and no other programs installed. With this default configuration I've found several (arguably) major bugs and wanted to share the repro steps and solutions for all of the big bugs I'm aware of. This should help those who run into the same problems, but also if others aren't seeing these bugs that would be good to know too. I've seen these same problems on the units at the MS store though, so I believe they are software related and not a problem with my machine.
-- Hibernate doesn't work reliably --
REPRO: Easy to repro, just set the lid or power button to enter hibernate, and then enter/exit hibernation multiple times. Every 5(?) or so cycles, the machine will (silently) crash on resume and boot from scratch. It's best to have a program running in the desktop so it's obvious when the machine is fully reset instead of resuming, otherwise the Surface Pro boots so quickly you might not notice that it crashed (because there is no obvious indication that it crashed -- but the event viewer will show a crash).
SOLUTION: Don't use hibernate. I don't know of any other solution. Sleeping the machine uses about 1.16% of battery per hour which isn't too bad if you can get to an outlet every day or two. Not using hibernate saves 4gigs of disk space too which is a small kind of victory.
-- Machine won't wake from sleep when certain power options are chosen --
REPRO: This bug seems to be related to wifi power savings, specifically, if in 'Power Options' you set the 'Wireless Adapter Settings / Power Saving Mode' to 'Maximum Power Saving,' the wifi device will crash the kernel on awake fairly often, maybe every 3 sleeps or so.
SOLUTION: Don't use the 'Maximum Power Saving' option for wifi device in 'Power Options.' It seems there is another solution if you want to use 'Maximum Power Saving' you can set the wifi device to NOT "allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" in the 'Device Manager / Network Adapters / Marvell AVASTAR... / Properties / Power Management.' I'm not sure which solution would be better for battery life, but I don't use 'Maximum Power Saving' because the default 'Balanced' power profile doesn't use it.
-- Machine sleeps after 2 minutes no matter what the sleep time is set to --
REPRO: Set sleep time to anything greater than 2 minutes, don't touch the machine, observe that it sleeps after 2 minutes.
SOLUTION: There is a power profile setting called 'system unattended sleep timeout' which is set to 2 minutes by default and will activate the sleep. I don't know why this option exists or why it is hidden by default even though it is relevant, but to make it visible requires a change to the registry. Instructions on how to do that can be found here:
Power Options - Add "System unattended sleep timeout" - Windows 7 Help Forums
-- Swiping from edge on type cover 2 stops working --
REPRO: I'm not exactly sure how to repro this reliably. The swiping just stops working sometimes and it's not clear if it's related to sleeping or something else.
SOLUTION: Detach the type cover and re-attach will re-enable swiping (or just ignore the edge swiping and deal with it not working)
-- Machine will not sleep on it's own --
REPRO: Set the sleep time to something short, wait for the machine to sleep, awaken it the usual way. You'll see the lock screen for a split second and then it will go away and you'll be at the desktop or tiles without having to enter your password. This is because the machine didn't go to sleep when it was supposed to. It's difficult to pinpoint what causes this because sometimes it will sleep. It's an intermittent problem.
SOLUTION: No reliable fix known (but I'm still researching). There seem to be many possible causes of this problem so it's difficult to pin down one definitive solution. The only way to reliable sleep the machine is through closing the cover or pushing the power button, but there is even a problem with those (see the next problem below).
-- Machine will not sleep even if cover is closed or power button is pressed --
REPRO: This is an intermittent problem, doesn't always happen. Start a video on youtube that you can hear through the speakers, close the cover or press the power button. Normally, the OS should sleep (regardless of media power setting) when closing the cover or pressing the power button, but often the computer will sleep and then wake up again. The screen will be off, but you can hear that youtube is still playing and if you leave it in this condition the battery will drain to zero quickly (because it's not really sleeping).
SOLUTION: I found on my SP that the type cover kept waking up the machine even if you didn't touch it. This isn't always the case and it's not clear why the type cover keep waking the machine (bad type cover, bad drivers, etc.) but a reliable solution (so far) is to go the device manager and turn off "allow this hardware to wake the machine" on all of the keyboard and mouse devices.
-- Touch screen stops responding if you detach type cover while SP is sleeping --
REPRO: Get the SP to sleep (if you can), detach the type cover, wake the machine with the power button and try to unlock the machine. You'll find that you can't swipe the lock screen up. It's as if the touch screen stopped working.
SOLUTION: Reattach type cover and touch will start working again OR just don't detach the cover while it's sleeping.
Thanks for reading,
-- skell
UPDATED 2/3/14
I have a new Surface Pro (1), 128GB, updated to windows 8.1 with all updates and no other programs installed. With this default configuration I've found several (arguably) major bugs and wanted to share the repro steps and solutions for all of the big bugs I'm aware of. This should help those who run into the same problems, but also if others aren't seeing these bugs that would be good to know too. I've seen these same problems on the units at the MS store though, so I believe they are software related and not a problem with my machine.
-- Hibernate doesn't work reliably --
REPRO: Easy to repro, just set the lid or power button to enter hibernate, and then enter/exit hibernation multiple times. Every 5(?) or so cycles, the machine will (silently) crash on resume and boot from scratch. It's best to have a program running in the desktop so it's obvious when the machine is fully reset instead of resuming, otherwise the Surface Pro boots so quickly you might not notice that it crashed (because there is no obvious indication that it crashed -- but the event viewer will show a crash).
SOLUTION: Don't use hibernate. I don't know of any other solution. Sleeping the machine uses about 1.16% of battery per hour which isn't too bad if you can get to an outlet every day or two. Not using hibernate saves 4gigs of disk space too which is a small kind of victory.
-- Machine won't wake from sleep when certain power options are chosen --
REPRO: This bug seems to be related to wifi power savings, specifically, if in 'Power Options' you set the 'Wireless Adapter Settings / Power Saving Mode' to 'Maximum Power Saving,' the wifi device will crash the kernel on awake fairly often, maybe every 3 sleeps or so.
SOLUTION: Don't use the 'Maximum Power Saving' option for wifi device in 'Power Options.' It seems there is another solution if you want to use 'Maximum Power Saving' you can set the wifi device to NOT "allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" in the 'Device Manager / Network Adapters / Marvell AVASTAR... / Properties / Power Management.' I'm not sure which solution would be better for battery life, but I don't use 'Maximum Power Saving' because the default 'Balanced' power profile doesn't use it.
-- Machine sleeps after 2 minutes no matter what the sleep time is set to --
REPRO: Set sleep time to anything greater than 2 minutes, don't touch the machine, observe that it sleeps after 2 minutes.
SOLUTION: There is a power profile setting called 'system unattended sleep timeout' which is set to 2 minutes by default and will activate the sleep. I don't know why this option exists or why it is hidden by default even though it is relevant, but to make it visible requires a change to the registry. Instructions on how to do that can be found here:
Power Options - Add "System unattended sleep timeout" - Windows 7 Help Forums
-- Swiping from edge on type cover 2 stops working --
REPRO: I'm not exactly sure how to repro this reliably. The swiping just stops working sometimes and it's not clear if it's related to sleeping or something else.
SOLUTION: Detach the type cover and re-attach will re-enable swiping (or just ignore the edge swiping and deal with it not working)
-- Machine will not sleep on it's own --
REPRO: Set the sleep time to something short, wait for the machine to sleep, awaken it the usual way. You'll see the lock screen for a split second and then it will go away and you'll be at the desktop or tiles without having to enter your password. This is because the machine didn't go to sleep when it was supposed to. It's difficult to pinpoint what causes this because sometimes it will sleep. It's an intermittent problem.
SOLUTION: No reliable fix known (but I'm still researching). There seem to be many possible causes of this problem so it's difficult to pin down one definitive solution. The only way to reliable sleep the machine is through closing the cover or pushing the power button, but there is even a problem with those (see the next problem below).
-- Machine will not sleep even if cover is closed or power button is pressed --
REPRO: This is an intermittent problem, doesn't always happen. Start a video on youtube that you can hear through the speakers, close the cover or press the power button. Normally, the OS should sleep (regardless of media power setting) when closing the cover or pressing the power button, but often the computer will sleep and then wake up again. The screen will be off, but you can hear that youtube is still playing and if you leave it in this condition the battery will drain to zero quickly (because it's not really sleeping).
SOLUTION: I found on my SP that the type cover kept waking up the machine even if you didn't touch it. This isn't always the case and it's not clear why the type cover keep waking the machine (bad type cover, bad drivers, etc.) but a reliable solution (so far) is to go the device manager and turn off "allow this hardware to wake the machine" on all of the keyboard and mouse devices.
-- Touch screen stops responding if you detach type cover while SP is sleeping --
REPRO: Get the SP to sleep (if you can), detach the type cover, wake the machine with the power button and try to unlock the machine. You'll find that you can't swipe the lock screen up. It's as if the touch screen stopped working.
SOLUTION: Reattach type cover and touch will start working again OR just don't detach the cover while it's sleeping.
Thanks for reading,
-- skell
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