Surface Pro 3 WiFi connectivity issues acknowledged by Microsoft, a fix on the way

Hammad Saleem

Surface Pro 3

Surface Pro 3 has received a warm welcome from the tech community, but the tablet is not perfect. It comes with its own set of problems — every device does — which have been affecting early Surface Pro 3 owners. One problem faced by many Surface Pro 3 owners is the poor WiFi performance, especially for those who are using advanced WiFi 802.11ac standard.

While it could be a driver issue, but it seems there might be more to it. The WiFi connection drivers go missing when the tablet comes back from the low power state known as InstantGo. On battery power, users say the speeds go down to as low as 6mbps, thus, affecting the browsing experience. ZDNet’s Ed Bott also reported the same problem over the weekend and mentioned it was present in the review unit sent to him. Most users started seeing this problem after the June update, which was rolled out a day before the tablet went on sale.

What’s the solution? Well, some users did manage to find a temporary solution to the problem by downgrading their drivers which came with the June update to the ones that were installed in the first place, while others say that changing the wireless adapter power settings to max performance also resolves the issue. 

These are not permanent fixes, but a Microsoft support staff member has acknowledged the issue, and said it has been forwarded to the Surface team. He further added that a fix would be released to rectify the problem, but failed to give an exact date of availability.

“Thanks for sharing your experiences. If I understand correctly, after your devices sleep for any amount of time the network and possibly the Bluetooth devices no longer appear in Device Manager and this results in no network connectivity, etc. Your feedback, including suggested workarounds (successful or otherwise) has been shared. We are working to address this and will have an update available soon,” Microsoft support staff member Josh F said.

Are you facing any WiFi performance issues on your Surface Pro 3? If yes, did you get in touch with Microsoft support? Let us know using the comments section below.