Tag: Surface Pro 7

This is a problem that I have only noticed recently and, as detailed later, it might be caused by a driver for the Wi Fi network Adaptor. (Although the current driver is over a year old and the ‘Wi-Fi drop out after sleep’ has only been a recent occurrence for me.)

After the SP7 has gone into sleep mode, the Wi-Fi fails to re-connect when the computer is activated.

The “no Internet” icon appears in the Task Bar when the SP7 is woken from sleep.

Initially, I ran Troubleshoot Problems (right mouse on the icon) and this fixed the problem. However, after I realised that it was an on-going issue, I looked for a better remedy. At first I thought that I would go to Network and Sharing Centre / Change Adaptor Settings / WiFi adaptor / properties / Power Management and turn off “Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power”. However, the “Power Management” tab is no longer there.

So, I found an alternative by going to All Settings / Network and Internet / Wi-Fi and turning off the Wi-Fi, waiting a couple of seconds and turning it back on.

Although turning the Wi-Fi off then back on worked, I was curious to find a better answer and this article on the Windows Central site has another explanation.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/windows-10-1803-and-above-why-wifi-disabled-after/36323a4b-050a-45a0-a32e-92a34dca8ddb

According to this article, it is a driver issue with the Intel AX201 Wi-Fi adaptor – driver version 21.40.1.3 – and hopefully it will be fixed soon.

I checked the date of driver 21.40.1.3 installed on my SP7, and it is dated May 2019 . However, in my case the problems have only become apparent recently (last month or so).

The Intel site has a newer driver 21.90.3 issued in May this year, but I am inclined to wait for a new driver via Windows Update particularly as the article advises against installing a non Windows Update driver.

In the meantime I have tested the suggested work around:

Hardware manager -> network adaptor -> Intel AX201 -> Advanced -> MIMO power save mode -> Change “Auto SMPS” to “No SMPS”.

This worked most of the time but was not 100% successful, particularly if the computer has been asleep for a lengthy period.

I then changed the power setting (All Settings/System/Power and Sleep) so that the computer “never” goes into sleep mode when plugged in and this seems to be working. Before, with Sleep mode activated, the Wi-Fi  disconnected  on sleep but turned back on after about 1 second delay in most cases but failed after long periods asleep.

I suppose setting “Sleep” to “Never” defeats the purpose of my tests, but I have downloaded driver 21.90.3 and I am thinking about installing it. In the meantime, I will continue to experiment and add to this post in a few days.

UPDATE – 13 Jul

The suggested work around of disabling MIMO power save mode is not working for me.

I have changed it back to Auto SMPS and altered Power and Sleep to never allow sleep when the SP7 is plugged in. Now I will wait to see what happens next Patch Tuesday. After Patch Tuesday, (Wednesday in Australia), I will check the network adaptor driver to see if it has been updated and, if not, will probably manually update the driver from the Intel site.

CARE – NOW FIXED VIA WINDOWS UPDATE OF DRIVER  See my post https://whysun.com/computers-and-the-internet/surface-pro-7-wi-fi-failing-to-turn-on-after-sleep-fixed/

I recently upgraded my Surface Pro 4 (SP4) to a Surface Pro 7 (SP7).

The SP4 was purchased in 2015  – Core i5,  256 GB HDD,  8 GB RAM, Win 10 pro – and apart from one issue I have been very satisfied.

At that time I also bought the dock, keyboard cover, blue tooth mouse, Display Port to HDMI adaptor plus a 128 GB SD card to expand the storage. The Pen came with it – I seem to remember.

It had good battery life, is a usable tablet, an excellent and portable laptop, the SD card slot is out of the way under the hinge so the card can be left in permanently and has a touch screen with a stylus to write on the screen and use with PhotoShop Elements. Best of all, it has the Windows Hello camera for sign in via face recognition.

The only negative is that from time to time it would get screen shake. This occurred infrequently and initially I was firmly in “Team Software” as the cause.

The internet was divided into those who thought it was a software/driver problem and those who thought it was a hardware/over heating problem. I joined “Team Software” as it seemed to happen after a major update and could be fixed by re-installing the graphics driver from Intel.

As the SP4 was coming up to about 5 years old, I had planned to update but was waiting for a Surface Pro model with USB C Thunderbolt. Needless to say, when SP7 came out with USB C in place of the Display Port, I was initially pleased then disappointed when I found out it was not Thunderbolt.

However, a few months back the screen shake started to become more frequent and updating the driver did not work but putting in in the refrigerator did. So much for “Team Software”, it seemed that “Team Heat” was right after all.  Then coming up to Christmas when the weather was getting warmer, the screen shake got so bad that the computer became almost unusable unless it was connected to a second monitor. Putting it in the fridge worked but the cure did not last long.

Naturally I was not a happy camper and was even more disappointed when, looking for a solution on line, I discovered that Microsoft had been offering a free fix (by replacing with a similar re-furbished model) BUT the offer HAD EXPIRED.

Normally, with something like this it is a case of ‘once bitten twice shy’ but I really like the Surface Pro and also, as JB HiFi had the SP7 on discount, I gave in and bought one. It is the same specs apart from the OS. The SP7 has Win 10 Home and the SP4 had Win 10 Pro. However, I wasn’t using any of the Win 10 Pro features so this was not an issue. Also – and importantly – all of the accessories would continue to work with the latest model.

It is a pity that the USB C is not Thunderbolt but I have a NUC with Thunderbolt and have yet to use even the USB C port. (Thunderbolt was really just ‘future proofing”)

In summary I am very happy with my new SP7 (without screen shake) and I really like the Windows Hello camera to the point that I would not buy a laptop without it.  My iPhone also has facial recognition and the only reason I have not purchased a new Web Cam for my NUC is that the Windows Hello Web Cams are still a bit too expensive.  U Mart has the Logitech Brio 4K marked down but only by $15.