Alas, I reached a day where I thought I was done with my Surface. It powered on when plugged in just fine but was at 0% battery and would, of course, instantly shut off when disconnected from AC power. When I hovered over the battery indicator in the task bar, it told me it was “plugged in, not charging.” The nerve!
After some troubleshooting and trying:
- Making sure devices, particularly under “Batteries”, were all updated
- Uninstalling and reinstalling power related devices via Device manager
- Running anti-virus checks
- Installing latest Windows updates
I found out that if I plugged my surface dock into the surface “upside down” it worked fine and charged as usual. So, long story short, if your Surface isn’t charging just try connecting the power source in the opposite direction.
Also, once it “remembers how to charge itself,” you can reverse this and put the charger in the normal direction (just double-check that it still says charging). Think of it as a quick “refresh” of the surface power connector.
