14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft Surface Pro 3 buyers have started reporting a new issue after applying this month’s Patch Tuesday update, this time affecting download speeds via Wi-Fi.
As you might know, this isn’t the first time the Wi-Fi adapter is causing trouble on the Surface Pro 3, but this time it appears that the recently released drivers are making downloads painfully slow on some tablets.
The number of complaints posted on Microsoft’s Community forums gets bigger every day, which is pretty much a confirmation that something’s going on with the new drivers which have been shipped to all tablets via Windows Update on Patch Tuesday.
At this point, Microsoft hasn’t released a statement on what causes the problem, but everyone is waiting for a workaround to find out how to fix it.
What causes the issue?
According to forum posts, it all comes down to the Wi-Fi adapter drivers that Microsoft rolled out this month, with several users complaining that after installing the new version, Wi-Fi speed has dropped dramatically.
Here’s one of the messages posted after this month’s Patch Tuesday:
“I've checked some of the posts and it seems there are some wifi issues. From speedtest.net, I have downloads speeds of 12mbps, while my friends windows 8 computers have around 40. Also, for some reason, my upload speed on speedtest.net is 75mpbs, so I don't understand why downloading is so much slower than uploading.”
“I've installed all the firmware updates, most recently one just a couple of days ago that seemed to fixed my upload speed from 12-->75. Any reason why download speed is so slow? In practice it's even slower than 12mpbs, I was downloading a 400MB for 20 minutes.”
At this point, some claim that there’s an issue with the 2.4 GHz band that impacts the Surface Pro 3 tablet, but there’s absolutely no indication from Microsoft whether this causes the issue or not.
Not the only Wi-Fi adapter problem
Soon after the Surface Pro 3 went on sale, users started reporting limited Wi-Fi connectivity issues, which is pretty much the same problem that some found in older models of the tablet, including the Surface RT and the Pro.
Since then, Microsoft has rolled out several fixes and firmware updates, but until now there’s no fully working patch for this problem.
The next time Microsoft will try to address this problem will most likely be next month’s Patch Tuesday, when a brand new firmware version, also comprising Wi-Fi improvements, could be released to users.