UEFI update with 0% battery on Surface RT

[John-Doe]

Hello everyone.

 

I come to you in a state of great despair. Let me explain :

 

I am the unhappy owner of a Microsoft surface 2 (RT version - model 1572) that I inherited from my sister.

 

She initially thought her tablet was broken because it suddenly didn’t want to boot, even after several hours of charging . This event happened quite a while ago (like 2014), it’s old I know but it shouldn’t be that much of an issue. Then the tablet stayed in a box until now when she gave it to me.

 

Let me precise that she hasn’t dropped / damaged it in any way. She has really been cautious with it (not even a scratch on it).

 

However, I discovered that it would boot but only if it is plugged in (not very practical for a tablet).

 

With the tablet powered on, it shows a red “X” on the battery icon (Battery at 0%). Therefore, I decided to perform a complete reinitialization, deleting all the data on it.

 

Then I updated it to death, encountering an issue with windows update that I could solve thanks to this article :
https://surfacetip.com/install-windows-rt-8-1-update-3-2017/

 

But you probably guessed right, all those updates didn’t solve my problem.

 

After some more investigation, I found out that red “X” is a well-known issue on this type of product.

 

Simple troubleshooting has been done following this article :
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4023536/surface-surface-battery-wont-charge
 

Microsoft has also released a uefi update that should theoretically solve my problem.

 

You can check the patch note from October 2014 here :
https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/4023481/surface-surface-2-update-history

 

Yet I am unable to install this update because in order to do so, I need to have at least 40% of battery. (There are really some jerks at Microsoft)

 

So my question is : Is there a way to force the installation of this uefi update with 0% battery ?

 

I’m conscious the battery may be dead after so much years staying at 0% but I am intimately convinced that it is a software issue.

 

Moreover, let me add that it is almost impossible (for individuals) to crack it open and access the battery for a replacement or even a simple diagnosis .
It is also not worth it to send it to Microsoft for repair.

 

To all that will have the courage to read me, I want to thank you deeply.

 

Hail to the almighty surface 2 power user !

[Levent]

I dont think you will be reviving a dead battery with a bios update, once cells reach a certain voltage they usually cant be revived.

[John-Doe]

I agree but I don't think the battery is dead.

It is indeed a possibility but it's more likely windows displaying / interpreting it at 0%.

[samcool55]

Does the surface still boot to windows?

If it does, get hwinfo and check the battery with that.

It can read information straight from the little controller in the battery and will tell you if it's legit dead or just derpy.

[John-Doe]

@samcool55

Thanks for the tip but it is a surface RT which means I can't download something outside the microsoft store.

 

I can only do a : powercfg /batteryreport in a command line which gives the attached report.battery-report.html

[kdawwgg1221]

51 minutes ago, John-Doe said:

I agree but I don't think the battery is dead.

It is indeed a possibility but it's more likely windows displaying / interpreting it at 0%.

It doesn't hurt to try to replace the battery does it? Last resort maybe? Couldn't do any more harm.

[TVwazhere]

-Moved to Phones and Tablets-

[John-Doe]

@kdawwgg1221 @samcool55

 

Well in fact it might hurt since the tablet is still booting (on sector at least).

 

Take a look at the following article to undersand the difficulty of opening it. 

https://www.techrepublic.com/blog/cracking-open/surface-2-design-changes-make-it-more-difficult-to-crack-open-and-repair/

 

It could be compared to the difficulty of opening an ipad ...

 

Even the solution given by the following ifixit comment section does not work for me.

https://fr.ifixit.com/Réponses/Afficher/193637/(Plugged+in,+Not+Charging)+Error.+Help

 

@TVwazhere

My apologies for this error

[JagExio]

Hey there, also having the same problem with surface rt, it shows battery not detected and I've tried all the options for every type of surface there is, from the power off 30 seconds, turn on with volume button and also uninstalling the battery driver but with no luck. Even when trying to update the surface it would show an error that no update can be done to it.