Surface 3 non AT&T LTE has stopped working and I'm super frustrated

Question

I have a Surface 3 non AT&T 4GLTE, (T-Mobile) I bought it the day it came out. The LTE worked fairly well for the first few months and over time has gotten worse and worse. What do I mean by this? Initially there were no issues, then a reboot was required to reconnect, later i had to remove the surface 3 modem device and reboot, now it doesnt matter what I do the surface 3 modem device is seen at startup, goes through multiple refresh phases and then ends up device cannot start code 10. I've reloaded the entire OS via recovery, tried the microsoft 4g lte unlocked NA .msi, there was apparently a hotfix that is no longer available. I'm quite frankly very very frustrated and angry with a 100% microsoft product that it cannot seem to use its own hardware provided by microsoft and there seems to be NO fix. This isnt some basic reboot and try this think the drivers that are available just DONT work. DOES ANYONE have some kind of workaround for this BS????????????

Answer 1

Hi libram11,

We're sorry for the inconvenience this has caused you.

You mentioned about reloading the entire OS via recovery, did you reimage the Surface device with its original operating system? Windows 8 OS? What is the current OS version of the Surface device? Is WiFi option missing  in Settings of the Surface device? 

Please let us know what OS have you installed when you reloaded the entire OS via the recovery drive so we can further check whether or not what's happening on Surface device is already a hardware issue.

Kind Regards,

Crest

Answer 2

This has actually been an ongoing problem for months and months. It was solely the surface 3 modem device with an issue the wifi and bluetooth were never any problem. The surface would boot normally, connect to lte for a very short time and then stop working. The device would disappear in network adapters and showed code 10 unable to start in dev manager. Oddly enough my frustration seems to have helped me fix it. I had previously both clean installed windows as well as reimaged via recovery with no improvement. I also dont think this device ever had win 8 at all. After posting this I selected clean install of windows via recovery but keeping my files. The process completed normally and I then ran the latest msi for 4g lte NA unlocked. I then edited group policy to stop all automatic windows updates. LTE has been stable now for 24 hours with no issues. I did run windows update manually so the system is now on 64 bit Win 10 Pro V1909 build 18363.1016.

Answer 3

Thank you for your response, libram11.

Drivers with error codes in Device Manager and as to how you can take care of it are all listed in this link>>https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/310123/error-codes-in-device-manager-in-windows. If in case you get to experience the same problem again, what I can highly recommend is to reimage the Surface device using a USB recovery drive. This is going to wipe out all the files and apps wherein you'll have to re-set up the device so you have to save all your files first. See instructions below for details.

- HOW TO DOWNLOAD, CREATE AND USE A USB RECOVERY DRIVE -

You'll need a PC running Windows 7 or later or a Surface Device and a USB flashdrive (16GB or 32 GB).

1. Visit the page to Download the recovery image for your Surface
2. Sign in with your Microsoft Account
3. From the list of Surface devices available, select the device that you need a recovery image for

Please note that while you will only be presented with devices that are currently registered on your account, you will also be presented with the option to get an image for a different type of device. If you try to use this option, you will be prompted to enter the serial number for your Surface device. 4. Download the recovery image using the button on the page 5. When the download bar pops up at the bottom of your screen, save the file in a location you will be able to find it.

Format USB Drive:

• Note: Formatting a recovery drive will erase anything that is already stored on your USB drive. Make sure to transfer any important data from your USB drive to another storage device before using it to create a Surface

USB recovery drive.

1. Insert your USB drive into the USB port of your PC.
2. From the desktop, open File Explorer
3. Tap and hold or right-click on the USB drive and choose Format
4. Select FAT32 as the file system and enter a Volume label to name the USB drive, such as RECOVERY, and then tap or click Start
5. Tap or click OK to erase the contents of the USB drive
6. Tap or click OK when the format is complete

Create a recovery drive:

1. On your Surface or PC, open recovery image that you downloaded by double-clicking it or right click then select Extract and then Extract all.
2. Select the USB drive you formatted earlier for the location and click Extract.

Use a USB recovery drive to reset your Surface:

1. Shutdown the Surface
2. Insert the USB recovery drive into the USB port
3. Press and hold the volume-down (-) rocker
4. Press and release the power button
5. When the Surface logo appears, release the volume-down (-) rocker
6. Surface will start the recovery software on the USB recovery drive
7. When prompted, choose your language options and keyboard layout
8. Select Troubleshoot
9. Select Recover from a Drive. Choose Remove Everything and Fully Clean the Drive. Recovering this PC.
10. If prompted, select Repartition the drives
11. If prompted for BitLocker Key, tap Skip this Drive and continue with the reimaging process.

Kind Regards,

Crest

Answer 4

This is getting to the point of stupidity. The surface was stable for all of about 3 days. I've disabled all updates and I mean everything I can find in group policy. Yet somehow now its showing build 18363 even though it was 18362 and using 18362 NA unlocked lte. Now I'm back in the same old routine, backing everything up and lets just reload and start over. I am a tech professional and I'm fed up there is no way an end user could deal with this ****. Microsoft can you please STOP breaking everything you make???????????? I need this device daily but as much as I need it I'm halfway to throwing it in the garbage and looking to IOS or android solutions. They cant possibly be bigger failures than this.

Answer 5

So I created a recovery drive on USB and reinstalled to factory image. It was build 1511. The LTE modem seemed stable in the system however it did not connect at all. It didn't throw code 10 either. I then ran windows update and it updated to build 17XX at this point the code 10 error returned. I continued updating to build 18362 and then installed the msi Surface3_4GLTE-NorthAmericaUnlocked_Win10_18362_1902003_0. Still code 10. Currently updating to the latest windows update. But still not working. The surface3 modem device isnt starting with code 10. Its a clean install. I'm past frustrated at this point, I'm moving to anger, this device worked for years..........and now its connected functionality is gone this is 75% of the reason that it was purchased. I need a permanent FIX for this. I'm over it.  Also to clarify this is a Surface 3 NOT a surface pro 3. It was factory installed with windows 10. The marvastell wifi nic has NEVER failed in any way. The carrier is T-Mobile and has always been.