How to Make Both Surface Book 2 Batteries Drain Simultaneously?

Question

When I first bought my Surface Book 2 both batteries would drain simultaneously. I didn't use the clipboard much so I liked that the power usage was distributed. Since a particular update sometime last year though now only my keyboard battery drains.

My discharge cycle count on my keyboard battery is nearing 150 while my clipboard only 75 because of how the clipboard wont drain until the keyboard hits 40% charge. This is dumb because all it's doing is stressing the bottom battery excessively, which will only decrease the battery capacity over time.

It'd be fantastic if I could customize the discharge behaviour so that they both discharge simultaneously like they used to. I'd expect that sort of functionality for buying a $3000 device, and I'd expect such a device to last me as long as possible, which is a big ask when you're forcing me to stress one of the batteries all the time.

And for the love of God Microsoft don't move this question into one of my old threads about the same issue. Nobody sees those old threads, so I need to post this again to actually get your attention. This issue is getting really annoying.

Answer 1

T ha n k Y o u F o r P o s t i n g  i n M i c r o s o f t  C o m m u n i t y. C a l l M i c r o s o f t  o n l i n e s u p p o r t    1  -  8  -  8  -  8  -  2  -  8  -  0  - 0  -  6  -  6  -  6    B e t w e e n 10:00 A M t o 7:00 P M EST. W e w i ll l H elp yo u t   o f i x  y o u r  I s s u e s.

Answer 2

Hi Blank_ ,

First of all, we sincerely apologize for the inconvenience that had caused and we thank you for bringing this concern to us. For us to further assist you, we would like to know more about this issue.

1. Have you made any changes on your devices (e.g. settings or updates) before this issue occur?
2. When did this issue occur?
3. How many hours or minutes does the battery last?
4. Have you already performed some troubleshooting steps? If Yes, what are they?

In the meantime, install and run Surface Diagnostic Toolkit. This toolkit resolves the most common Surface issues. Please follow the on-screen instructions posted. Tip! Restart the device after.

Or you can run Power troubleshooter. Kindly Open Settings > Update & security > Troubleshoot > Power and then select Run the troubleshooter.

Looking forward for your response and keep us posted of the outcome.

Answer 3

1. Yes, an update, but not sure which one, because it was a long time ago.
2. Around mid last year.
3. The battery life has dropped from around 12 hours to 9 hours, judging by the stats I got when I ran a battery diagnostic test.
4. I have performed trouble shooting steps, being the surface diagnostic toolkit, the power trouble-shooter, and other stuff that I did a long time ago so I don't quite remember.

In fact I've done the diagnostics and troubleshooting twice. It has changed nothing.

I really don't think this is some critical error. You must understand that this isn't a technical fault, it's a design fault. I should really have the option to control the battery drainage behaviour to my liking. I remember reading somewhere that this base-battery-drain-first and then top-battery-drain-after was a literal design choice by Microsoft. It's crap because it's stressing my bottom battery needlessly.

I have suggested to Microsoft through the feedback hub that they should let me control the Surface Book battery drainage so that both batteries drain simultaneously, but to no avail. And because they have never added the feature, I started searching if there was some other method of controlling it by doing it myself, messing with the OS. So far I haven't figured out how to control it, which is why I've started this thread.

And another strange thing is that sometimes my Surface Book 2 just decides to revert back to how it used to work, being to have both batteries drain simultaneously. I don't know why it does this, it seems to do it at random, but it is very rare, maybe once a fortnight.

Surely you'd be able to pass information like this as suggested onto the technical team. It is because the feedback hub is useless that I am annoying you here. If I don't get the ability to control battery drainage then I will just keep coming back periodically to complain, and it'll mean one less Surface Book sold when it's time for me to refresh. I know it means nothing to you and one customer does not affect the company at all, but it doesn't seem I'm able to get much help out of support unless I vehemently make clear how annoyed I am.

Answer 4

Hi Abygaille, 

I have the same exact problem which occurred after the latest update of Microsoft windows, I have tried surface toolkit, and power trouble shooter, I also did a reset with no effect , my surface book 2 only a couple of months old and I have noticed battery 2 is runng through more cycles than battery 1 and battery 1 stops discharging sporadically and usually starts to discharge when battery 2 about 40 to 50 %. Can you please help as I dont want to go through warranty replacment process. Thanks

Answer 5

It seems that the battery discharge is adaptive. For a few discharge cycles, it will drain only the bottom battery. Then, once charged up again, it will start draining both batteries, but only a few times before it switches back to discharging only the bottom battery. So it's like 50% of the time the top battery wont discharge with the base battery like I want it to, but will instead stay at 100%. Not even Microsoft could explain to me this strange behaviour.