Surface Book 2 base died spontaneously [RESOLVED]

Question

I've been meaning to make this post a little over a week ago but life responsibilities got in the way. 

My Surface book 2 base (bottom portion with the keyboard) seems to have died spontaneously overnight. I had my SB2 folded in sleep mode and plugged in on my desk overnight. I woke up in the morning to see that my SB2 won't turn on and displaying the battery low symbol despite still being plugged in (and the power light on solid white). The base was completely unresponsive to all button presses and was blaring the fans at max quite audibly. I made a post about this on reddit here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Surface/comments/f9jeyy/my_surface_book_2_spontaneously_died_during_my/

And I called Microsoft Support. We tried everything with no result. My support person was Carlos and the ticket number is: xxx-xxx-xxxx (PII removed) 

A person on reddit told me that there is a manual release accessed by a paperclip. With a video he linked as a guide, I was able to free the clipboard from the dead base and charge it directly. To my surprise, it turned on! I charged it to full and tried reconnecting it to the base again, nothing. I tried cleaning the base with compressed air and wiping the connection prongs with ethanol, still nothing. I tried COMPLETELY reformatting windows from USB boot image and updating, still nothing. 

I'm still able to use the clipboard by connecting it to my surface dock, which has my peripherals. Thats how I was able to boot up from a USB image anyway since the clipboard doesn't have any ports. 

Pictures of my issue and current set up are here:

https://imgur.com/a/zbcoCuZ

I meant to go to the Microsoft Store last week but couldn't. Looking to go this weekend. Posting this for posterity. I also made another reddit post about this here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Surface/comments/fdps25/update_on_my_dead_surface_book_2_base_situation/

UPDATE: 3/9/2020

I went to the Microsoft Store yesterday afternoon (Monday 3/8) and explained my situation. Despite my extended warranty ending on January 25th, the tech support there were forgiving and nice enough to offer me a replacement unit with a 90 day warranty. I am grateful. I got the best possible outcome. But this does seem to be an unfixable hardware issue. I urge anyone who encounters this issue to visit an official Microsoft Store as soon as possible, if there is one available in your area. Worst case, they offer a discounted refurbished unit. best case, you might get lucky and have your unit replaced for free. Hope this helps anyone who has this issue. 

Reddit update here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Surface/comments/fg4dvj/dead_surface_book_2_base_situation_resolution/

Answer 1

Hi Ahmed AlHussainan,

Thank you for reaching out to Microsoft Community. I'm sorry to hear about what happened to your Surface Book 2.

You mentioned that you have already tried doing the USB Recovery Image but still issue persist, we could say that this is a hardware issue already.

May I know if you were offered for a replacement options available on the phone support? If not, I would suggest that you contact support so you could check what are the replacement options available for your Surface Book 2.

Kind Regards,

Marrion Y.

Answer 2

Hello. It happened to me a month ago. only surface book 1.

Answer 3

These base failures with no apparent cause seem to be happening more frequently. I had to get a replacement machine a few months ago when mine died. In my case I had the Surface Book sitting on a shelf using an external monitor and keyboard. Suddenly my desktop started scrolling endlessly. Investigation led to finding the base keyboard had failed. No drama like fans running wild. It was working fine one minute and dead the next.

Answer 4

Phone support advised me to go to a Microsoft Store for further support. I'm planning to go sometime this weekend. I feel like seeing is believing in this case and I'm lucky to have an official Microsoft Store a few hours away.

Answer 5

I went to a store myself. They didn't have a replacement in stock but they took care of shipping the defective machine and having a replacement sent to me.