Microsoft Releases July Firmware Updates for Surface Pro 3 (Updated)

I’ve received multiple reports from readers about a new set of Surface Pro 3 firmware updates. But there’s no official word yet from Microsoft, so it’s unclear what issues they fix.

Update: Microsoft has finally provided information about these updates. See below. –Paul

Normally, I don’t like to post about something like this before I know the full story. But you may know that Surface Pro 3 customers have recently begun complaining about battery life issues, and that Microsoft has tied the problem to the Simplo batteries that are used in some models. So it’s possible—and only possible—that these firmware updates address this issue.

Point being, if you have a Surface Pro 3, check for updates in Windows Update. And if you do happen to have a Simplo battery in that system, perhaps this is an answer. Perhaps not.

Microsoft previously released July firmware updates for Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book, but the previous updates for Surface Pro 3 date back to August. Generally speaking, one can find out the contents of these updates from theSurface update history web site or the Surface Blog for IT Pros, but neither source has any information about these latest fixes.

When they do, I’ll update this post.

Update: Here’s what’s new:

Surface Pro System Aggregator Firmware 3.9.850.0 increases battery life during sleep mode and improves keyboard stability.

Surface Pro UEFI 3.11.1450.0 improves system sleep and hibernation behavior when battery level is low.

Surface Fingerprint Sensor 2.2.10.8 increases finger print touch stability coming out of sleep.

Surface Pen Settings 11.0.311.0 enhances pen setting driver stability.

Realtek High Definition Audio 6.0.1.7642 improves the audio quality for the JAWS screen reader.

As you can see, two of the updates are related to battery life. But it’s not clear if this “solves” the issues some SP3 users have reported recently, or if this is unrelated.