Microsoft Surface 3

[bclarke]

Hi

 

So hoping someone has the same issue as me. We issued the Surface 3 (not pro) Edu bundle to all our teachers and students last year. This has been a massive success in terms of how it is used and how much everyone loves it. The problems I am seeing is with the hardware though and Microsoft don't seem to want to help with this.

 

When we issued these it was to staff first. We put docking stations on all the teacher desks and the plan was to allow students to use docking stations too. When we did this and teachers started to dock their Surfaces we started to see issues where the Surface wouldn't display. It turns out that the pins in the display port on the Surface became bent and crumpled. It didn't and doesn't happen to everyone and sometimes it has happened to the same person more than once with different Surfaces and docking stations. I at first blamed the user of course, perhaps they were forcing the docking station shut without placing the Surface correctly to start with. They insisted they followed my instructions correctly. It still happens, and it happens to students too.

 

So far we have been lucky that MS replaced the Surfaces under warranty, but we didn't buy the extra warranty after the first year as we decided to put a budget aside for breakages rather than pay out for insurance, so this would cover loss and damage to screens etc which we haven't seen much of. The display port issue however is different and we see this regularly. We also see issues with the power supply USB lead becoming damaged after prolonged use. Again, MS have changed our power supplies each time under warranty even though it is only the cable that is the problem. Now they won't.

 

I have been speaking to the Education Business Development Director at Microsoft who has been sympathetic but careful not to accept liability on these two issues and he has gone higher up. He says Microsoft hasn't seen this issue before and they conclude it must be user error and them forcing it shut. I have experimented with this and it simply doesn't happen by forcing it shut.

 

They also say that no one else has this issue, but we seem to be in the minority because they don't know any other business who use the docking stations the way we do! I am at a loss now as to how to resolve this.

 

I guess my point to this post is this. Has anyone else seen the display port crumpled pin issue and can't necessarily explain how it happened or you can? Perhaps you use the docking station and can verify if indeed we are doing something wrong? It would be good to hear from anyone that uses the Surface 3 (not pro) to hear your experience of it.

 

Oh and the final issue I have is one of overheating in the docking station. It is wrapped up so much that it overheats the Surface and slows the processor right down to a crawl until you undock it and let it cool down. The warmer days are worst for this as well as watching video whilst docked.

 

I won't be buying Surfaces again and will be looking at alternatives when we refresh. I don't regret buying the Surface in many ways as they are very good devices, I just wish Microsoft would help us out with this issue.

 

Anything from anyone will be appreciated.

 

Ben

[3s-gtech]

It sounds like at least he wifi works on yours. It's so temperamental on the one Surface 3 that we have that it was returned to MS, upgraded to 10, has had more firmware updates than an Asus motherboard, and yet it still just randomly and repeatedly drops out (which doesn't work well with domain users with folder redirection - they have to log off and back on again to access anything). I have bought a Surface 4 Pro which is fine.