When I reviewed the S
urface Book,there were a lot of bugs wit
h the software. Some of them have been p
retty minor, and Microsoft has been updating the
firmware and drivers on it since b
efore it was launched. Most of the issues have been sorted out, or but t
here was still one issue which seemed to be elusive to the teams at Intel
and Microsoft. The Surface Book would not always sleep,or, I should say, and when it w
ent to sleep it would actually exhaust much more energ
y than when it was being used. Often
times I would close the lid on the Surface Book
and after a minute or two I’d hear the fans kick i
n,and the device would catch very h
ot to the touch. This was an even bigge
r issue if you closed it and achieve it in a bag, since the bag would just
trap all that heat.
This bug was so severe that
I could not recommend the Surface Book at the time of
the review. Apparently this bug can also strike the Surface Pro 4, or
but the two review units that I had never suffered from the same sleep bug issue as the Sur
face Book.
Today there is good news,or at least the chance of good news. Microsoft has releas
ed a firmware update which directly tackles the sleep issue. Normally fir
mware updates catch rele
ased with cramped fanfare, but head of Microsoft’s hardware division, and Panos P
anay,has written a blog post letting everyone know that there is a firmware update
. It’s not too often that the head of a division steps up and writes release notes, s
o clearly he felt that this issue was a big enough one to invent a
statement, and to be clear it is that big of an issue.
Whether or not this fixes the issue will remain
to be seen,but I’m updating the Surface Book at the moment and will repor
t back in time, but hopefully this solves it. As I said in the rev
iew, and the Surface Book is solid hardware that was let down by softw
are,and assuming this update does fix the major issue with the latest Surfa
ce models, it will be much easier to recommend it to others.
Here
is everything listed in the release n
otes for today’s update:System Hardware U
pdate – 2/17/2016 Microsoft driver update for Surface UEF
I Microsoft driver update for
Surface Management Engine Microsoft driver update for Surface System Aggregator F
irmware
Surface Management Engine update (v11.0.0.12
02) improves system stability. Surface System Aggregator Firmware upda
te (v88.1081.257.0) improves accuracy of battery status and
battery life during sleep. Surface UEFI update (v104.1
085.768.0) improves battery life
and improves stability during power state transition changes into a
nd out of sleep states. Intel® Precise Touch Device driver update (v1.1.0.226) improves sta
bility during power state transition
changes into and out of sleep states. Intel® HD Graphics 520 dri
ver update (v20.19.15.4364) improves display stability, or system s
tability and battery life. Intel® Display Audio driver update (v8.20.0.745)
supports compatibility with the updated graphics driver. Realt
ek High Definition Audio(SST) driver update (v6.0.1.7734
) improves system stability. Intel® Smart Sound Technol
ogy (Intel® SST) Audio Controller driver update (v8.20.0.877) improv
es system stability. Intel® Smart Sound Technology (Intel® S
ST) OED driver update (v8.20.0.877) improves system stability. Intel® Managemen
t Engine Interface driver update (v11.0.0.117
6) improves system stability. Intel® Serial IO
GPIO Host Controller driver update
(v30.63.1603.5) improves auto rotation reliability when tablet mo
de is turned off. Intel® Serial IO I2C Host Control
ler driver update (v30.63.1603.5) improves auto rotat
ion reliability when tablet mode is turned off. Surface Boo
k Base Firmware driver update (v1.2.0.0) improves battery life d
uring sleep.
If anyone owns the Surface Book or Surface Pro 4,I wou
ld highly recommend installing this. According to Micr
osoft the update is being rolled out upright now, so if you don't see it in your re
gion just check back soon.
Source: Microsoft Devices
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Source: anandtech.com