Surface 3 battery issues
 

Having been gifted a Surface 3 about 4 years ago, I have been a very happy user. Now even if the leads/charger are installed correctly, the darn thing doesn't want to charge. Having read that this is often a problem for this model I would like to see if buying and fitting another battery might be the answer. I know it will be costly, and I would like to get in touch with Microsoft to see if they can do this.

The telephone number for their service centre in the Grand Est is no longer valid and I suspect they may have closed this facility. Any online contacts I try to make from their website leads me to more Microsoft pages but no telephone number or email template with which to initiate contact. I phoned their Paris number earlier this afternoon ... and after pressing my responses to all their situations, I spoke to a human who said he would connect me with a technician, but there would be a delay of about 30 seconds during which I was required to respond to a survey as to how they had handled my call thus far. Reluctantly I did this ... with honest scores - this all seemed to be going swimmingly - only to have the phone cut off at the end of it. A waste of 8 minutes that I'll never get back.

Does anyone have an email address or a phone number for a REAL Microsoft service centre - English speaking for preference as my Urdu, Hindi and Malay are non-existant - that I could try? Many thanks in advance.

Dealing with Microsoft the corporation is fraught with difficulty unless you have a support arrangement up front. Your best bet is to contact a retailer/reseller of their hardware and ask for a recommendation for a repair shop, if you're lucky the salesperson may even offer free advice. Battery replacement shouldn't exceed $200 if the repair shop is honest - most of that is labour.

Funnily enough Microsoft did listen to me once when their myapps cloud site asked for my feedback. I gave them a big serve about important features that were lacking in the experience and about three months later they magically appeared - for the better.

Thanks Cattletruck! I'll talk to a local (reputed) computer repair shop ... as it was a gift, no support arrangement was offered with the product, and it is way out of guarantee ... only 1 year!! But thanks again for the heads up on what to do next!

Don't forget to take your charger along as the repairer may want to also check that too, and do backup any valuable work beforehand.

Rule of thumb: Rechargeable batteries are usually only good for about 500 charges unless they use expensive chemical technology and a very smart charger. If you suspect that is the case and you are approaching that figure, your only option is a new battery, or a very long power lead.

You should time your telephone call to coincide with English speaking working hours, as they work on a rolling 24/7 worldwide basis, tech support logging in and out as their working time zones passes. Twitter can often get you to the right support person or area with a quick tweet or two if you are in a rush.

I also had an 'Microsoft experience', in a previous life as a CTO of a large corporation with many tens of thousands of Microsoft installs. Went to a small product presentation from Steve Ballmer for industry, and afterwards was awed by his imposing height and while shaking hands as I was introduced to him, he asked if we were happy with his products and were were any issues that needed addressing? Immediately I responded that their backup product sucked real bad and was thoroughly unsuitable for a corporate world, and he turned to one of his aides and quietly just said 'take care of that'.

It was! Pronto! They purchased a well known third party backup suite outright and incorporated it into their very next OS release. Impressed!