Bulging batteries in Surface laptops are a growing issue

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PUBLIC DEFENDER By Brian Livingston More and more users of Microsoft Surface 2-in-1 laptop computers are reporting a bent and battered screen that’s b
[See the full post at: Bulging batteries in Surface laptops are a growing issue]

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Chris Greaves, rc primak, lmacri

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I remember flying from Burbank, California to San Francisco via PSA airlines, back when Boeing 727s still had open overhead storage (before the hatches were mandated by the FAA.  Compaq “portables” were lined up nose to tail on the overhead, to the point where if there was any turbulence, you ran the risk of being injured by flying Compaqs.

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We used to buy Dell laptops and they were very reliable. Now we’re getting Lenovo and I’ve been pretty disappointed. They are the only computers we have that have problems with HDMI to VGA converters. But a bigger issue is the WiFi. We have almost 100 access points in our building and all of the Lenovo laptops will just randomly switch to an AP with a weaker signal that is further away. But on the other hand, if you carry a Lenovo down the hall it hangs on to the AP where you were and won’t switch to a better AP so you have to turn the WiFi off and on. Sometimes it just refuses to connect to our main WiFi, even after a reboot, and you have to switch it to the Guest WiFi and then back again. We’ve had a few Lenovos where the WiFi adapter has just disappeared, it’s not even in Device Manager. Have to update the BIOS to fix it.
All in all, not a fan of Lenovo laptops.

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Where can I get the “Battery Smart Charging” app?  I can’t seem to locate it.  I had a Surface Pro 3 with a bulging battery.  The local Microsoft Store (Westbury, NY) replaced it with the equivalent Surface Pro 4.  This replacement now has a bulging battery 😒.  I have a second Surface Pro 4 which, so far, is fine.  It is almost always connected to the charger.  I would like to put the app on the good one to see if I can prolong the agony.

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Has anyone at Microsoft discovered that in the summer, in Phoenix, we are lucky if the nighttime temperature drops below 90 degrees?

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You can buy a fan base/laptop cooler for the Surface.

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Maybe if one lives in Phoenix, Arizona, one could instead buy air conditioning so not to die of heat exhaustion? And never leave the Surface out in the sun?

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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John18 wrote:

we are lucky if the nighttime temperature drops below 90 degrees?

OscarCP wrote:

And never leave the Surface out in the sun?

[ducking]

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I think microsoft use a cement based glue for surface devices, a bulging battery certainly helps access the internals, so not all bad! 🙂

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The author quotes one of his fellow contributing editors saying that he has not seen the bulging battery issue on Lenovo and Dell laptops. The people he serviced must have been lucky.  I have a Dell XPS 15 9550 laptop which just after a year of  purchase I encountered the bulging battery issue. I used to keep the laptop plugged in all the time and when going on battery, even for a short period of time, it would recharge to full capacity after plugging it back in. I was not aware of the fact that this was a bad practice. I was not the only one this battery issue was happening to if you perused the Dell XPS Support Forum at that time. There was a rash of this issue for the 9550 and 9560 systems. Fortunately Dell replaced my battery and fixed the rising trackpad caused by the bulging battery free of charge. My understanding is that they will no longer do that. Now many manufacturers include a setting option to limit the charge level of the battery to a maximum charge level and a minimum recharge level which will help make the battery last longer. I strongly suggest anyone with a laptop to make use of that option.

JohnD

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For Dell, specifically, the Dell Power Management program they include has usage settings in it, just select the ‘always plugged in’ option.

 

By default, however, it’s set to ‘adaptive’ and it will automatically mitigate the issue anyhow.

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I had the same problem with a bulging battery on my HP Omen, so its not just the Surface that has this problem. It bulged to the point that it damaged the keyboard from pressure underneath; I’m in the process of replacing the battery and keyboard now.

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