Tag: surface

Microsoft Surface Pro 3 hangs on black “Surface” boot screen

On several occasions, I had my Surface Pro 3 freeze up on me on the boot screen. When I would turn on the surface, it would get to the black screen with the Surface logo, but it would not get any further. No spinner, no activity, nothing.

The following procedure fixes my issue every time:

  • if the Surface is turned on, turn it off by holding the power button for at least 30 seconds
  • press and hold the volume up button and the power button simultaneously for 15 seconds, then release the buttons
  • screen will flash and the Surface will shut down (sometimes it gets stuck at the bios screen, just exit then)
  • turn the device back on. Things should be ok now.

Check the following link for more troubleshooting tips.

Function keys on a Microsoft Surface Type Cover

surface_type_coverI knew you have to press the Fn key on the Type Cover of a Surface to get to the function keys on the keyboard. But what I did not know:

  • If you want to “lock” the top row of keys to their corresponding function key: press Fn + Caps Lock. To unlock, press the same keyboard combination again.
  • Pressing Fn + Spacebar corresponds to the Print Screen button on a regular keyboard. Now that is much more convenient than pressing the Home – Volume down on the device…

More info and tips on this link.

Microsoft Surface can’t connect to ad hoc network

I was trying to connect my Microsoft Surface to a wireless network created with my mobile (using Joikuspot), but this didn’t work.

Turns out that Windows RT cannot connect to ad hoc wireless networks. More info here. Quite disappointing, as the surface does not have 3G/4G built in.