Wow!!! Lot’s of “update” news this week. But, maybe, Microsoft finally got the infamous (and long-standing) Surface sleep issues fixed on the Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book.
Only about a week after Microsoft released a cumulative update (that was resetting the default file associations for some people), they dropped another update yesterday – which seems to include fixes for the the battery drain while sleeping problem that has plagued the SP4 and Surface Book since release.
The February Update for the Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book includes a whole slew of fixes and driver updates.
Surface Sleep Issues Fixed: Details
Here’s some details about what was included in the February Update. [Note: Since the update is delivered as multiple updates, they will all appear separately when you view your update history as opposed to showing up under one name]
- System Hardware Update – 2/17/2016:
- Microsoft driver update for Surface UEFI
- Microsoft driver update for Surface Management Engine
- Microsoft driver update for Surface System Aggregator Firmware
- Surface Management Engine update (v11.0.0.1202) improves system stability.
- Surface System Aggregator Firmware update (v88.1081.257.0) improves accuracy of battery status and battery life during sleep.
- Surface UEFI update (v104.1085.768.0) improves battery life and improves stability during power state transition changes into and out of sleep states.
- Intel® Precise Touch Device driver update (v1.1.0.226) improves stability during power state transition changes into and out of sleep states.
- Intel® HD Graphics 520 driver update (v20.19.15.4364) improves display stability, system stability and battery life.
- Intel® Display Audio driver update (v8.20.0.745) supports compatibility with the updated graphics driver.
- Realtek High Definition Audio(SST) driver update (v6.0.1.7734) improves system stability.
- Intel® Smart Sound Technology (Intel® SST) Audio Controller driver update (v8.20.0.866) improves system stability.
- Intel® Smart Sound Technology (Intel® SST) OED driver update (v8.20.0.866) improves system stability.
- Intel® Management Engine Interface driver update (v11.0.0.1176) improves system stability.
- Intel® Serial IO GPIO Host Controller driver update (v30.63.1603.5) improves auto rotation reliability when tablet mode is turned off.
- Intel® Serial IO I2C Host Controller driver update (v30.63.1603.5) improves auto rotation reliability when tablet mode is turned off.
- Surface Book Base Firmware driver update (v1.2.0.0) improves battery life during sleep.
You can see more information on Microsoft’s update history pages for the Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book.
Surface Sleep Issues Fixed: Should I Install It?
If you’ve been plagued by the battery drain while sleeping issues you might want to give it a shot (you may need to go into Windows Update and tap the Check for Updates button).
I would advise you to make sure you have good backups and a USB Recovery Drive just in case. If you’re cautious or you haven’t had the battery problems, you might want to hold off and let the early adopters find the issues for you 🙂
While the folks over at Reddit seem to confirm that the battery drain issue is fixed, some people have already reported problems with the patch on the WindowsCentral Forum. It’s not clear how widespread those problems are yet.
If you have good backups, you can always roll back the update or restore from a System Restore Point – in case a bug appears after you install the update and you think it was the cause.
Tim
