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:
- Outlook
- Evernote
- MS Edge (4 or 5 Tabs)
- Task Manager
- File Explorer (3 or 4 Tabs)
- MS Excel (2 to 3 files)
- MS Word (2 to 3 files)
- 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.