Surface Pro 3 constant random crashes

Question

Hello,

I received my Surface Pro 3 in mid August, and since I've been using it, it constantly has random freezes.  These freezes happen randomly, no matter what I am doing, and have caused me to lose quite a few important papers.  I'm getting tired of them, and I need a fix!  I have tried all sorts of restarts and refreshes, however, the only thing that causes the tablet to come out of it's freeze, is if I do a hard 15 second power button hold reset.  Even after I do that, it will freeze again randomly and not accept any sort of input.  Someone help!

Answer 1

Hi Mitchellpm,

I appreciate the time you have taken to test this and perform the Refresh. If after doing so, your touchscreen is still partially unresponsive, we highly suggest you contact our Technical Support Department.

Before you do so, please check that you have followed all the troubleshooting steps presented in the next support article:

• **Surface touchscreen: problems with touch**
• Before you begin
• Solution 1: Clean the screen
• Solution 2: Reset touchscreen calibration
• Solution 3: Install the latest updates
• Solution 4: Two button shutdown (Surface Pro only)
• Solution 5: Restore, refresh, or reset Surface

If the steps above don't work, depending on what is most convenient for you, you can:

1. Open a service request yourself, using our **Online Service Center**
2. Contact our Technical Support team**here**

Hope this helps!

Best Wishes,

Answer 2

Hi Mitchellpm,

Thank you for your prompt and kind reply! We appreciate all the details provided!

In this case, we recommend the following:

1. Perform a Refresh:  **Restore, refresh, or reset Surface Pro**
2. Apply all **Windows Updates**
3. Run Disk Clean-up

Please let us know if the issue persists after performing the troubleshooting steps above!

We are here to help. Keep us posted.

Best Wishes,

Answer 3

Hi Mitchellpm,

Thank you for reaching out to the Surface Community!  I understand that your Surface Pro 3 is consistently experiencing random freezes.  I realize how aggravating and frustrating it is lose your work without warning.  I will do my best to assist you with this issue.

In order to identify and troubleshoot the issue you are experiencing, we will need some additional context and supporting details:

• Can you correlate the random freezes with specific applications or processes running?  What were you doing when the random freezes appear?  Are the freezes consistent with certain applications?
• What applications or processes do you have running?  Are there any music, video or streaming active in the background?
• Are there any error messages that appear before the system freezes?  Do you notice any on-screen indicators, such as spinning icons etc, that indicate the system is busy?  Does the system resume after a period of time?

As a next step, please check that all Windows Updates have been installed on your Surface Pro 3.  Here's how:

Step 1: swipe in from right for Charms Bar

Step 2: select Settings

Step 3: select Control Panel

Step 4: select Windows Update

Step 5: select Check for Updates

Step 6: select Install

Be sure to restart after each Windows Update layer.  After completing the last Windows Update, Check for Updates again to ensure there are no remaining Windows Update layers that have not been downloaded.

After installing all Windows Updates, use your Surface Pro 3 as you would for a day or two.  Please let us know if you observe any changes in the behavior and frequency of random system freezes.

Thank you,

WalterW288

Answer 4

I cannot correlate these freezes with any specific processes or applications, as they occur when I am doing nothing, or when I have multiple processes open.

Google Chrome seemed to be a big culprit, but I have not used it since I discovered the constant crashes when using it.  I have had multiple full system freezes while using Microsoft Word 2013, and have lost a number of documents/progress because of this. 

I usually do not run any music in the background while doing my work.

There are no error messages that appear, no on screen indicators, and the system never resumes, even after hours.  It just freezes with whatever is on the screen at the time and does not respond to any kind of input.

I installed the windows update, and after this last update, I have noticed that the top left and top center portion of the touch screen, do not respond to finger tip touches. However, it will respond when I use the bluetooth pen. 

I have experienced only two more crashes since updating, and they both occurred during basic daily tasks, once during a Microsoft Word 2013 session, and once after I just left the tablet awake for around 5 minutes.

This is very frustrating! Even more so now that I cannot use the touch feature on a large portion of the screen!

Answer 5

I'm doing the full system reset right now, I realized that the crashes are much more frequent when I'm using microsoft word 2013. It crashed 2 times in less than 5 minutes when I tried to open some documents for school in read only mode.