Sudden shutdowns leave Microsoft customers turned off
So, you bought a new Microsoft surface. You were attracted to its portable, lightweight design, its long-lasting battery, and sharp display. Then, as if out of nowhere, you were suddenly turned off by the expensive PC.
Maybe it took a day; perhaps it took a week, but eventually, you experienced the same fate as long line of other surface users: unexpected forced shutdowns.
If you leave your Surface plugged into the charger at all times, you likely never came across this issue. Consider yourself lucky, also consider why you needed a portable computer to begin with. But, if you leave your unplugged computer unattended for a minute while you answer a text or look up at the television, and you’ll be surprised to find out your computer powered off whilst your gaze was averted.
Microsoft knows this an issue – hundreds of angry users have been posting to their help forums for months to report the problem.
The problem seems to affect years of popular surface models. Customers have reported the sudden shutdowns on Surface book 3’s, Surface Pro’s, and notable on the Surface Pro 7, which we switched to here at the Report a few weeks ago.
A solution was nowhere to be found on Microsoft’s help forums; Blogs and Reddit were also no help.
Lucky for you, we found the solution – sort of. We did stop the random shutdowns, but we are not exactly sure what step did. We warn you: this is a long and arduous process.
First, follow the standard Microsoft advice: restart your computer, and see if your copy of windows is up-to-date. Once you find out you wasted your time, because, even with these fixes, the problems remain, you can then move on to the next step.
Next, go to your settings and change your sleep and battery settings. In a cruel twist of fact, the default programming already has the computer going to sleep – not shutting down – after a minute.
Next, open your start menu – or press the Windows key – and click on the “Surface” pin. Find the updates to Firmware and Drivers, and make sure you have the latest editions. As of the publication of this article, this step does not stop the problem, but we are replicating the steps we took to fix the issue. Once you finish this step, feel free to move on to the next step.
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Finally! This is the one that fixes the problem. It’s a long process but bare with us.
Go back to the start menu and search for “device manager.” Here you will find a list of processes. Start opening drop-down menus and double-clicking programs. Check each program’s properties for a “power management” option.
There will be two options available: one to turn off a program to save battery, and one to wake that allows the application to wake up the computer. Needless to say, you don’t want to stop anything that keeps these sleepy PC’s from waking up. So, for any box that is checked and reads “allow the computer to turn off this device to save power,” you’ll want to uncheck this box and press OK.
The list is long, and we are not sure which individual program seems to do the trick, but we included a list with all the checked boxes we found – and reversed.
It’s important to remember that this list may not look the same for everyone. It’s equally important to remember that we are journalists and not computer programmers, so proceed at your own risk.
- Bluetooth
- Intel Wireless Bluetooth Properties
- Human Interface Devices
- Converted Portable Device Control Device
- HID PCI Mini Driver for ISS Properties
- HID-compliant Touchpad
- Intel Precise Touch Device Properties
- Microsoft Input Configuration Device
- Surface Compliant Firmware Update Properties
- Surface HID Accessory
- Surface HID Mini Driver Properties
- Surface HID USP Encapsulation
- Surface Navigation accessory
- Surface Pro-Type cover Integration
- Surface TCON Device
- USB Input Device
- Virtual HID Framework (UHF) HID device {All Three}
- System Devices
- Detection Verification
- Intel Imaging Signal Processing
- Intel Management Engine Interface
- Intel Serial IO I2C Host Controller — 34C5, 34E8, 34EA, & 34EB
- Intel Service IO UART Host Controller — 34A8
- Intel Smart Sound Technology (Audio Controller)
- Intel Smart Sound Technology (Intel SST) OED
- Universal Serial Bus Controller
- Intel USB 3:0 eXtensible Host Controller 1.10 (both)
- USB Root Hub (USB 3.0) (Both or all)
We hope this solves your Surface issues. We found some programs automatically turned when we checked back to confirm our notes. As with any system changes, be sure to restart your system after you make these changes.
Has our solution fixed your issue? Do you have an easier way? Write to us and let us know.
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