Microsoft’s Surface line of products is incredibly well-designed and innovative, pushing the 2-in-1 Windows 10 market forward in some pretty exciting directions. At the same time, Microsoft has been struggling as of late with some performance and reliability issues typically involving display drivers, CPU sleep states, and others that require firmware to resolve. Yesterday, it appears that Microsoft issued a firmware update for the Surface Pro 3 and Surface 3 iterations,
Microsoft doesn’t provide much detail on what the firmware update addresses, although in perusing the associated Reddit thread we see that, as usual, updated Intel HD display drivers are on tap. And, as far as we can tell, the firmware introduces its own set of issues.
Note that if you experience any issues with shutting down or starting up a Surface device, or general wonkiness, the two-button shutdown method of restarting the machines can sometimes help. Just shut your Surface down normally, then hold the power and volume-up button for 15 seconds, wait for the Surface splash screen to appear and disappear, wait 10 seconds, and then start up.
We understand that Microsoft is working hard to resolve issues with the Surface line, including the Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book with their well-publicized issues with Intel Skylake sleep states. We’re a bit surprised that Microsoft still hasn’t release new firmware for the newest Surface devices, but we do hope that the last-gen machines are getting some relief.
