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I just bought a surface 2 last night and there is an issue, I plug in the power cable, but when I see the battery indicator, it shows “plugged in, not charging”. The tablet turns off if I unplug the power cable.. I’ve tried the following workarounds that I found online:

  1. shut down the tablet, unplug the power cable and leave it for few minutes, plug in back the power cable and let it charge for few minutes, turn it on.
  2. shut down the tablet, press volume up + power button for 10 seconds, leave it charging for few minutes, turn it on.
  3. Performed a full system recovery. But sadly these didn’t help. I would like to ask is there any other workaround I can try? I have tried multiple outlets as well as multiple chargers. Thank you.

I ended up finding a solution on a few forums. When the error massage (battery not detected) is showing in the desktop icon on tast bar, unplug the charger (tablet will shut off) hold down power button about 10 seconds and while still holding it plug the charger back in. When the surface logo appears let go of power button. That will then give you the “plugged in, not charging” message. Repeat the steps and it will eventually work. After it was at 45% i unplugged it and plugged it back in. It worked and was charging well but after unplugging and plugging back in several times i noticed sometimes it would not charge. It is just a matter of plugging in and unplugging the charger in my experience. Ive heard many other people having the same problem and getting around it doing the steps i suggested.

hello, Have you only a plug in symbol without the battery symbol ? please follow tha steps in this link surface-battery-wont-charge !. if you done that and no result ,then is one of three your charge kabel maybe is broken or Check the connectors on both the power supply’s connector and on the charging port (on the side of Surface itself) ! at the end of IS THE BATTERY ! IS BROKEN ! . Please go exactly according to the instructions on the page! and tell me about it if what needs to be repaired, I’ll help you. I’d bet more on the battery it is broken! sorry for my bad english! best regards, murrx

Hi, I had this issue as well. After much searching and conflicting info (even on Microsoft site) I eventually found the answer. Problem. Charger connected, right swipe showed power connected but empty battery. Unplugging charger meant Surface 2 RT shut down. Connect charger and power up, got repair message. Solution that worked for me. Went into Device Manager (Search Device Manager), deleted the second entry under the Battery section. Shut down the Surface completely. Plugged in charger, waited 20 minutes and now there is a white line showing in the battery icon. Waited another 20 minutes and the white line is thicker - enough to allow updates to download and install. As part of the problem solving over some hours, I had reset the Surface to factory default - which was probably not a bad idea anyway as a rebuild often corrects most problems (but not in this case). Hopefully this will help others.

I got the same problem before And I was plugging the charger plug up side down and that was the reason when I return it to the right position the problem was fininsh the lamp in the charger must be up and the wire down when you plug it to your tab best wishes

Hi all, I found that this was a bug related to the detachable screen. Have you tried to detach the screen? In case you have below 10% charge you can do it manually. Here is a video how to handle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fVGQPQ3…. Once you have attached it back up try to plug in the charger and see if the status is changed back to “plugged in and charging”. Regards, Bo

I have a surface pro 2.5 windows 10 with 2 charging issues Issue 1. charger will light up for a few seconds then stop charging: Cause: AC cord from wall to brick, I’m in the Philippines and I don’t want to pay for shipping, easier to make or buy a new one. My Solution: I had to shave the plastic and rubber parts of the male plug that goes into the brick so its in deep. I now get a steady charge light but after windows load i gets Issue 2 Issue 2. Plugged in Not charging: Cause: windows 10 auto update of drivers (even if disabled, no go, it will still update) My Solution: (temporary, still looking for a better one) Before every shutdown, uninstall all battery and bluetooth drivers (device manager, put check on delete drivers) after shutdown, vol up + power button till it blinks twice(full shutdown), disconnect charger (don’t power-up right away!). Before power-up, reconnect charger and power on, on boot-up windows will auto install default drivers so the bluetooth and charger will work. Once you go online new drivers will auto download and install and once restarted or shut, a full install will happen and you will again get the same issue. To avoid that I do the same said shutdown and power on procedures I formulated thru hours of trials and reading. Hoping that a new update will finally resolve this.

This site sucks…I filled out an answer but then was prompted to create an account. After creating my account my thoughtful explanation was nowhere to be found. Anyways, in short, the internal battery connector on my Surface LTE is loose / disconnected. It would say it’s plugged in, not charging. The light on the charger turns on, the screen brightness changes according to my power plan…the computer knows it’s plugged in….but power just isn’t getting where it needs to. I just pressed on the back around where the power connector is and it instantly started working. When I open it up, if this is the case, I’ll slip a few pieces of paper to keep the connector snug and connected so this doesn’t continue to happen.

I just tried the below from https://windowsreport.com/detach-surface… and it then started charging battery 1. To perform a two-button shutdown on your Surface Book, do the following: Turn your Surface Book off. After your Surface turns off, press and hold the volume-up button and the power button at the same time for at least 15 seconds, then release both (The screen might flash the Surface logo, but don’t release the buttons for at least 15 seconds). After you release the buttons, wait for 10 seconds, and then press the power button again to turn on your device. One you performed a two-button shutdown, try to detach your Surface Book from the keyboard, and it should work without any problems. In case you’re still unable to detach it, try some of the following solutions.

This is a alternate solution. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/surface… When battery limit is enabled in UEFI the surface with only charge to 50% If the surface charges higher then 50% then it will rapidly discharge the battery to 50% This was my issue after a firmware update.

I recently brought one Surface Book 2. Got home only seeing 2 batteries both on 0 percent. At first it says not charging but later after some software update, not charging is gone but still had no way to charge it up. With it turned off and plugged in the whole night and both showing 0. Looked around but not seeing any solution worked for me, i.e. 2 button reset , installed firmware update. What works for me is that I looked up a way to manually detected the keyboard. (it is not that hard as someone mentioned will damage it as long as you follow a good guide on YouTube. This is what helped me. https://youtu.be/eZAVZClrNmM) After detected the screen, I applied charger at the bottom of the tablet part and viola!!!! it is charging. So my assumption is that the unit has been sit on the shelf for such a long time and the battery got completely drained. Using the normal way, charging through the dock/keyboard, is not working AT ALL. I hope that helps!!!

I went to device manage, chose batteries, right clicked on microsoft acpi and chose the scan for hardware changes option the batter icon instantly shows thats its now charging! hope this helps