Some Surface Book and Surface Pro 4 users have raised an issue regarding their device’s battery. Apparently, these devices have been shipping with outdated battery drivers from 2006. Due to this, these devices have been known to suffer from a battery drain issue in Connected Standby, which is now known as InstantGo.
InstantGo is supposed to allow the devices to run services in the background, turn on in less than 500 milliseconds and not drain more than 5% over a 16 hour period. However, the old drivers have the exact opposite effect on battery life.
Some users have updated their batteries and found that this solution does solve their problem. Reddit user, kusmog mentioned that his device is now much cooler compared to before updating the battery drivers. On the other hand, some users have said that the update has only made the situation worse. Windows Central forummer, ncxcstud mentioned that his device froze twice within an hour of updating the battery drivers. Once he rolled the drivers back, the problem went away.
If you have been facing battery drain problems on your Surface Book or Surface Pro 4, there’s no harm updating the drivers. All you need to do is go into device manager and click on ‘Batteries’. Select ‘ACPI Compliant Control Method Battery’ and click on ‘Update Driver Software’. Search automatically for the driver, and there should be an update available.
In addition, do note that this process needs to be done twice for the Surface Book. If the battery update doesn’t fix the problem, just roll back the drivers and wait for Microsoft to release a proper fix.
(Source: Windows Central)
