Microsoft: Surface Pro 4, Surface Book sleep issue bug will be fixed next year

While the Microsoft Surface Pro 4 has yet to reach India, there are a couple of things that fans in India can be happy about, since they have not been able to purchase one just yet. As with every new early adopter that reaches out for the newest chipsets, come the issues with optimisations and Microsoft by utilising Intel’s latest Skylake chips, seems to have plenty of them. Still then, the most hated one is the ‘standby’ battery life bug that drains the Surface Pro 4 or Surface Book’s battery rather quickly. And after 31 pages of complaints on its official Surface forums, Microsoft finally decided to give its Surface users an answer. The problem as expected was to do with Microsoft’s move to utilise the latest Intel Skylake silicon. A Microsoft team member commented, stating that the development team is aware of the issue that not just drains batteries quicker but also makes the device warmer than usual when packed into a backpack. The problem lies with putting the new Intel Skylake chips into a deep sleep, or rather one that is not deep enough. This results into a sleep state wherein the processor keeps waking up during wake events where it would normally sleep through them. The results are depleted batteries that would barely last 4 hours or so. The Microsoft representative did give a temporary solution, “One of the ways that you can improve the situation right away is to make sure you don’t have web sites open that are actively streaming when you close cover or put the device to sleep.  Especially if you have a website open that uses sound. This will keep the PLM service running.” Else you could also head into Power Options and then System Settings and then stick to ‘Hibernate’ instead of ‘Sleep’ to deliver better standby times. Still then, there are plenty of problems that Microsoft Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book owners are annoyed with and you can find a long list of these on the official forums. Indeed, Surface fans in India who have been waiting for the first surface device to enter the market should be relieved now that Microsoft has confirmed that it is working on ironing out the bugs. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, confirmed that the Surface Pro 4 tablet  would be arriving in the country in January 2016.