Surface Pro 7 Knackered. – Forumite.site

This topic has 6 replies, 2 voices, and was last updated 4 years, 5 months ago by Wheels-Of-Fire.

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September 21, 2021 at 1:32 pm #68755
Wheels-Of-Fire
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@grahamdearsley
Forumite Points: 4
It would appear that Microsoft has managed to break my Surface Pro 7 with a UEFI update.

The tablet shows the 4 white squarse for about a minute and then switches off !

Repeated forced shutdowns do not bring up the trouble shooting menu, holding down the volume button when starting does not enter the UEFI and a Windows setup USB stick is ignored.

Any ideas before it goes back to Microsoft ?
September 21, 2021 at 5:02 pm #68756
Ed P
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@edps
Forumite Points: 39
Try a WinPE stick, if that works it gives you a command shell but I really do not know how you then force a uefi bios screen. Maybe typing ‘settings’ from the WinPE screen would work to force a restart, but I have never tried this.
September 21, 2021 at 5:11 pm #68757
Ed P
Participant
@edps
Forumite Points: 39
Maybe solution 6 in the following link is the way to go.

link

I have to confess I have never tried any of these crapped-up bios methods, so let us know what works for you.
September 22, 2021 at 12:17 am #68761
Wheels-Of-Fire
Participant
@grahamdearsley
Forumite Points: 4
I could have gotten to a command prompt from the Windows installation USB stick if the Surface Pro had taken any notice of it, but it didn’t.

I solved the problem by chance an hour ago.

For reasons only known to Microsoft, or the writers of UEFI, even a forced shutdown was not a proper shutdown, the computer was still trying to resume a failed firmware update.

I discovered that if you hold your finger on the power button it does a forced shutdown, which didn’t help, but if you hold your finger on the button for another 10 seconds it does a proper forced restart, that solved the problem.

The first thing that Windows did when it restarted was to tell me that I had an urgent firmware update pending 🥶

Fortunately it all worked this time.
September 22, 2021 at 12:30 am #68762
Wheels-Of-Fire
Participant
@grahamdearsley
Forumite Points: 4
On a side note, Microsoft support was about as much use as a chocolate fire guard, after reading to me from a script for about 20 minutes they finally said that, as the Surface is still under warranty, my only option was to send it back to them, at my expense, for repair. If it turned out to be a real fault then they would refund the postage.
September 22, 2021 at 10:44 am #68765
Ed P
Participant
@edps
Forumite Points: 39
Your solution was very similar to item 7 in the link I gave. i.e. hit restart three times in a row and the automatic repair sequence is started and this will eventually give you uefi access too!
September 22, 2021 at 12:58 pm #68768
Wheels-Of-Fire
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@grahamdearsley
Forumite Points: 4
Well no, like I said,multiple forced shutdowns did nothing, the system just kept restarting at the screen with the 4 white squares because it hadn’t actually shut down.

This will be something to do with the Windows 10 fast start up feature that I already knew about, choosing shutdown from the start menu actually puts the system in a form of hibernation.

A restart is still a restart that reloads all memory from scratch but rebooting after a shut down does not.

I had no idea that a forced shutdown would work the same way but it does.

This must be tied into the UEFI settings somehow too because holding down the volume button on the Surface when it boots is meant to bring up the UEFI menu, but it didn’t, and the system didn’t even look at a bootable USB stick.

So my problem was, how to force a restart when Windows wouldn’t load ?

The answer was to keep my finger on the power button for another 10 seconds after a forced shutdown.
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