So I posted a few weeks ago asking for opinions on the Surface Pro 4, trying to decide if I should pick one up and slap Linux on it.
Opinions were…mixed.
I got a decent deal on one, and that’s partly why it’s taken me so long to post an update. It was cheap because the previous buyer had returned it to the seller claiming that there were power issues. The seller said they hadn’t encountered said issues in the hour or so of testing they did, and I call fucking bullshit!
Once powered off or restarted it was taking up to 48hrs before it would grace me with booting up. And usable time ranged for 15mins to an hour before system lockup resulting in either a freeze until battery run out, or immediate system shutdown, and another 12-48hrs wait to power it up again. Obviously this is suboptimal.
Part of the issue, possibly unsurprisingly, was windows and the stripped down BIOS. After turning off secure boot, turning off the “battery saver” mode(restricts charging to 50% of total capacity) and scrubbing windows off the drive like a crusty booger…things have improved. I’m still unable to restart the device, restart powers down, but no power up. Wait times to power up again went from probably 36hrs average to 2hrs average, and if I just don’t turn it off, the system is stable.
My time with Nobara on the surface has been really enjoyable, everything is just stock, I’ve not wanted to muck around too much and get attached in case I can’t figure out the actual root cause of the power issues.
As such, not really much else to report other than Nobara running well, and pretty much everything running as well or better than when windows was installed. Touch functionality works slightly differently in Nobara than Windows, but that’s not really a bother for me.
If any of you greybeard wizards has any ideas on what might be happening with the power cycle issues I’d appreciate some suggestions. I think it may be a battery issue, but I’m waiting on a hot air station to be able to open it up and have a proper look at it’s guts. Doesn’t seem to have anything to do with temps, that was my first thought but that didn’t pan out.
I have some strange power issues with my laptop that may have a similar cause.
I put an additional drive in my work laptop so I could debian for work without nuking the system drive.
Shutting down usually always works properly but rebooting gets stuck sometimes. It’s like it gets to the bottom of the reboot cycle and loses the ability to say “okay boot back up now”. On my laptop, it’s obvious that it is still on because of the light on the power button. I hold it down for about 12 seconds until it goes off and then I can power it back on.
I wonder if your surface is doing a similar thing where it is still powered on but not booted. You might try hiding the power button down for about 15 seconds and then hitting it again when it’s in this state.
:'( I wish, unfortunately no amount of button holding helps. I’ve tried all the different button combos to get it to boot. At least the time to reboot is getting shorter. Not usably shorter, but better than several days!
These things are totally unrepairable. Had one at work that needed an NVME upgrade. You have to melt the glue holding the glass screen in place to get to it.
I am very well aware of the nightmare ahead of me with regards to opening the thing. I’m not even going to attempt it before my new hot air station arrives
I’m gonna highjack this post to ask what’s a good lightweight DE for touchscreen devices?
My dad is currently using my old Surface Pro 3 I slapped Ubuntu LTS on, Gnome works great for touch but it’s abit sluggish on the hardware. Also I couldn’t get touch screen scrolling to work on Firefox.
I would highly recommend the stock Nobara install, it’s running Gnome with custom settings.
Comes preinstalled with the linux-surface kernel extensions.
I work with a company who distributes a mix of surface pro and Lenovo Yoga laptops. Right now they’re on Surface pro 7s.
I’ve yet to hear anything good about them over the years and models we’ve handed out. Most of the guys with them call us back to get a Yoga instead.
With the stock windows install I’d agree, after slapping Linux on this bad boy slap no issues…well…other than the ones that I already mentioned
Microsoft has a terrible track record with hardware.
About the only hardware they’ve ever sold that didn’t crap the bed was the Xbox, Xbox one, and Xbox series whatever the fuck.
The 360 would cook itself, instead of fixing it, they added red LEDs to tell you it was fucked. The windows phones were unresponsive and unimpressive garbage, and every tablet they’ve made has been mired in various hardware and screen issues.
It’s almost like a software company that has a business model that depends on selling people regular updates, can’t get its head around the idea that hardware should just work for the task it’s designed to do. They want you to buy a new tablet every year or two, because it makes them money. They don’t really care if the battery is going to cook itself in 5 years, when the plan is you’ll buy a new device in 2 years, because you really need to edit PowerPoint™ presentations while on the train and with a touchscreen.
Their mice and joysticks used to be top notch.
Aw man, the Intellimouse with the horizontal scrolling, and the Sidewinder joysticks… 🤌
I’ve been deploying and servicing Surface Pro’s since the Pro 3, but now that I really think about it, I’ve never actually handled a Pro 4, just everything else in between.
Through all the comments I’ve noticed you don’t appear to have tried the “hard reset” procedure yet? Any time our Surfaces have gotten funky, a hard reset usually kicks them in the butt for a few months until another wonky issue crops up. Your delay to power on sounds just like some of the wonkyness I’ve experienced but moved on from after 15 seconds of button presses. Hold power and volume up for 15 seconds.
I still have my Pro 3, I also have a Pro 5 and Pro 7. My Pro 3 still gets 6.5 hours on the battery, they’re not without their problems but it’s often how you treat them.
I’ve sold and supported hundreds. I’ve only had one come back after someone was unable to follow my instructions above. I was able to perform the above and resold it the next day.
I appreciate the suggestion, but that was quite literally the first thing I tried. The first time it wouldn’t turn on I tried pwr&v+ for 90 seconds, then either ctr+alt+b or ctr+sft+b can’t recall what one it was, then alternating between v+ and v- in quick succession, all those are meant to be ways to hard reset/virtual battery disconnect
You couldn’t pay me to use this…
I mean…if I had enough money I’m pretty sure I could…
If you’re having power on issues, I would make sure you are using a standalone power brick. I’ve used a Surface Pro for work and I’ve found that sometimes when connected to the docking station, it wouldn’t power on. When connected to a standalone power brick it usually would. For a standalone power brick, I’ve used both the one that came with the Surface and also a 65W USB-C adapter with a USB-C to Surface per cable.
I’m using an official stand alone power brick.
Is there touch screen? If so how does it work on linux?
It has a touchscreen, and it works quite well on Nobara. Nobara is a Fedora fork with Surface kernel mods to get most/all of the extra stuff working.
I just got a thinkpad x1 yoga gen 4 with a touchscreen. Installed Ubuntu 23.10 and Im loving it, works well with touch. Although I only use touch with the lenovo pen in xournal++ for taking notes in some subjects. And monument valley.
Surfaces are notoriously hard to repair so good luck
I mean, if I fuck it up irreparably…I’m out less than £100. I spend that taking my wife out on a date night. I bought it to play around with. It’s just a bit more of an involved game than I had thought I’d bought a ticket for…
I also had people not praising them at work .
Back then it was Surface Pro 8s and Surface Book 3s They throttled a lot due to temp issues.
All I know is that I bought my wife a Surface Pro 3 and it had to be replaced TWICE for the same exact issue. One of the times I was at the Microsoft store I even overheard another person with the same issue.
I owned a surface back during the 2014 Microsoft hype campaign, the absolute garbage windows 8 RT experience forever made me hate any and all laptops with surface in its name…
