Is Latest Microsoft Surface Book And Surface Pro 4 Firmware Update Causing More Problems Than It Is Fixing?

Microsoft has been dealing with tons of complaints about the Surface Book and Surface Pro 4 since they were released last October. According to an article by Digital Trends at the end of 2015, Microsoft finally acknowledged the problems.

“The blossoming Surface brand has provided Microsoft plenty to celebrate over the last year or two, but the most recent additions to the line haven’t quite met the expectations of some consumers. Now, the company has issued an apology from the team responsible for the hardware.”

The Surface Book, which is a first-generation product for Microsoft, seems to be causing the most problems. A member of the forums at Windows Central calls his Surface Book purchase the “worst” PC experience of his life.

“Once I started using it to browse the internet, huge holes opened up to swallow my user experience whole. The display driver crashed and recovered three or four times an hour and if I was stupid enough to try and watch a few videos back-to-back, then I was guaranteed of a crash in Edge or a BSOD if I was using IE,” claimed the forum member with the nickname “Motor_Mouth.”

He thought it was just “teething trouble” and installed all the updates, which did fix some of the issues. Like others, the user often loses keyboard and trackpad functioning and has to fix it by detaching and then re-attaching the screen. While this experience hasn’t been too awful for most users, Motor_Mouth can no longer detach the clipboard at all.

Microsoft recently released a third major update for the Surface Book and Surface Pro 4. According to InfoWorld, the update has received a mixed response.

“While most of the online chatter this morning is at least mildly positive, there are still reports of problems after the firmware was updated.”

InfoWorld quotes a user on Reddit, who says that the “Sleep Mode” problem, where the battery is drained when the device is in that mode, hasn’t been solved. He says that even when his Surface is running with one to five percent of the CPU power, the fans are still on full blast. Another user claims that the icons do not scale properly when switching from an internal to an external display.

There are several complaints on Twitter about Microsoft’s latest firmware update.

@panos_panay FYI. Ever since the latest firmware update I am getting a lot of KERNEL_SECURITY_CHECK_FAILURE blue screens on Surface Book.

— incendy (@incendy) January 30, 2016

The firmware update hasn’t caused as many complaints for the Surface Pro 4 as it has with the Surface Book. Many people believe that the Surface Book hardware is what’s causing most of the problems. According to a poster named “lakleeman” at the Surface Book forum on Windows Central, getting a Surface Book replacement is difficult.

“After trying all tech support suggestions, my Surface Book will not turn on. So, I’ve arranged a replacement for my Surface Book. Microsoft said it should arrive in 3 to 5 days. However, 16 days later I am still waiting for one to be shipped!” the user angrily claims.

The community appreciated that Microsoft acknowledged the problems in December. However, they may want to make a more official statement before the complaints, which could produce a huge backlash against the company, get way out of hand.

[Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images]