Surface Book 2 Battery Drains Quickly

Anonymous
2017-12-01T02:23:38+00:00

Hi,

I just got a new Surface Book 2 this week and, whilst I am happy with everything else, battery seems to drain very quickly. I have been running a video for the last four hours and the battery is down to 35% suggesting a total life of about six hours. I am running it on the Best Battery Life power setting with nothing else running. Do new batteries need calibrating or would there be any other reason apart from a fault?

I am running connected to the keyboard with both batteries connected. Both seem to discharge together rather than one first, then the other but assuming this is normal?

Thanks

Surface | Surface Book | Power and battery

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question. To protect privacy, user profiles for migrated questions are anonymized.

0 comments No comments
{count} votes

5 answers

Sort by: Most helpful
  1. Anonymous
    2017-12-01T22:38:47+00:00

    Hi Roy,

    It is possible that the battery may not have been charged to full capacity, systems settings are not optimized, or too many tasks are running. To get your issue resolved, we'd like to ask you some questions:

    • How long does the battery charge last?
    • What is connected to the Surface?
    • Are you charging it with the in-box Surface charger?
    • When did this behavior start to occur?

    We'll be waiting for your response.

    Regards.

    0 comments No comments
  2. Anonymous
    2017-12-03T21:14:49+00:00

    Hi

    Thanks for the response - as the battery was only lasting 2.75 hours for the tablet and docked only 8 hours total even when only playing a local movie in Battery Saver Mode I raised an incident with Microsoft Support and they took me through some investigative steps.

    I had had some issues updating to the Fall Creators Update just after receiving the unit last week, though everything was running fine apart from the battery life.

    I did a Fresh Start install and am now re-testing but (tentatively) it looks like the problem may be solved as the same video test yesterday lasted a total of just under 15 hours.

    So looks like there was an OS or app issue causing the drain.

    Thanks.

    4 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments No comments
  3. Anonymous
    2018-01-17T01:26:54+00:00

    Hi Craig

    I am still getting acceptable battery life but not close to the 17 hours in the advertising.

    Running a video test with a looping movie file running in Power Saver mode I am still getting 11-12 hours.

    With 'normal' usage (web browsing, mail checking) similar to yours I am getting 8-10 hours. I have installed Hyper-V (though it doesn't run a VM most times) and all my other apps without a noticeable change but assume that is what has caused the drop in longevity.

    The time you recorded and posted looks very similar to what I was getting before I did the Fresh Start install which certainly made a huge difference to my machine.

    Like you, I love the machine (with the exception of no keyboard backlight!) and wanted it to work out, though it is somewhat disappointing that MS advertise 17 hours when I've never achieved near that. I would most likely still have purchased if they'd advertised 13-14 hours and I wouldn't feel a bit cheated, but I guess all the tech vendors falsely advertise that aspect to varying degrees.

    I guess try the Fresh Start install, do a full test like I did so you know where you stand and then decide if the result is something that works for you. I mainly wanted the long battery life for travel and 11-12 hours is acceptable to me. Most of the rest of the time since, I have just plugged in at some break point during the day to boost it back to full. At least it does recharge pretty quickly.

    Good luck.

    Roy.

    0 comments No comments
  4. Anonymous
    2018-01-15T20:37:16+00:00

    Hi RoyMond0, Can I ask if everything still seems ok a few weeks later?

    I'm the owner of a new book 2 for just under a week and am concerned about the battery performance. 

    I really wasn't expecting to get the toted 17 hours but I was hoping for it to last me an approximate working day.

    I took some notes of the battery after a full charge using the default settings (suggested power/brightness). During this time I was not using anything I would consider too straining. Web browsing, Office 365 (outlook and word), a remote desktop session. I ended up getting just over 3.5 hours:

    100%  11.00 - Suggested power, suggested brightness

    90% 11.24

    80% 11.49

    74% 12.01

    70% 12.09

    57% 12.38

    46% 13.01

    39% 13.17

    29% 13.39

    20% 14.00 (Battery Saver Kicks in)

    14% 14.15

    7% 14.32

    After a full charge I then did some testing using battery saver mode. I seem to be getting slightly more but still dropping about 10% every 30 minutes.

    • Closing the lid 50 minutes (sleep mode) dropped 5%
    • In battery saver mode, with the screen dimmed and all apps closed apart from MS word drops my 5% in 15 minutes.

    I really like the unit, design, keyboard etc. and if there is a quick win that'll be good for me to keep the unit and not bail out on the return period.

    I'll try the surface reset and see if that helps (I also had issues with the fall update when it went through the setup process the first time around). What sort of times are you getting now?

    Thanks,

    Craig

    2 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments No comments
  5. Anonymous
    2018-04-07T04:28:21+00:00

    Hi all, 

    I have had a surface book 2 for about a month now. I previously had a surface pro 4 for a year and upgraded. I was never able to get more than 5hrs on average on my surface pro even after applying various battery optimisation tips, so I have become accustomed to MS products not meeting the advertised battery life. This was initially the case with the surface book 2 as well, where I was only able to get up to around 5hrs max battery life. My typical usage includes: 

    1. Outlook
    2. Evernote
    3. MS Edge (4 or 5 Tabs)
    4. Task Manager
    5. File Explorer (3 or 4 Tabs)
    6. MS Excel (2 to 3 files)
    7. MS Word (2 to 3 files)
    8. OneNote

    I found a way to optimise the battery life via the link below and have now been able to improve to about 12 to 14hrs daily. I am ecstatic!!: 

    https://surfacetip.com/ultimate-tips-max-surface-pro-4-battery-life/

    Over and above this link, another important change is to ensure that the dGPU is in use only when you need it. You can do this by going to the Task Manager and checking the "GPU Engine" tab under Processor to see if GPU 0 or 1 is active for each task. If GPU 0, then Intel. If GPU 1, then NVidia dGPU. You can then switch this by going to the NVidia Control Panel (ie. right click on the desktop, and select the Nvidia Control Panel), then select "Manage 3D Settings". Under the "Program Settings" tab, you can then choose option 1, to select the program using the dGPU, and use option 2 to change it to integrated graphics. 

    This also helps to remove the "LockApp" issue when trying to detach the tablet screen. 

    In general, if you are experiencing poor battery life, you can also use the task manager to monitor tasks/apps with high CPU or Network utilisation. If these are temporary, then your battery life will adjust and be ok after they run. However, if they are running permanently, you may need to consider stopping these tasks/apps and running them only when you need to. 

    Switching off background / startup apps also helps in this regard. You can do this by checking apps running in the "Startup" tab of the Task manager and disabling them.

    The surface book 2 was already the best laptop ever for me even with 5hrs battery life. It is now a godsend with 14hrs. I am over the moon with its performance.  

    Hope this post helps everyone else experiencing battery issues. 

    Hope this helps.

    20 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments No comments