The panic is intense when your Surface, Surface Laptop or Surface Book won’t turn on or start. There could be so many things wrong with the device, and you might not have any idea as to what went wrong. When you can’t even get your Windows Surface to boot you cannot do anything to figure out what is wrong. There might not be many people who are familiar with your device. So, do you need to rush to a service center? Hold on. If your Surface running Windows 11/10 does not turn on, start, boot, or wake from sleep, here are a few things you can do to fix the problem.
Surface won’t Turn on, Start up or Wake from Sleep
This is for Surface boot problem on Windows 11/10 in particular. When you see that Surface has turned off and it won’t turn back on when you press the Power button and that nothing changes with the unresponsive black screen like in an off state or power-saving mode, here are the things you could try.
If your Microsoft Surface won’t turn on, start up or wake from Sleep, follow these steps:
- Press power button
- Charge the device
- Use hotkeys to wake Surface
- Try the forced restart method
- Clean Surface Book connectors
- Run reboot command in a Windows PE session
To learn more about these steps, continue reading.
1] Press power button
Yes, this is too obvious even to mention but do give it some time and then try switching it back on by pressing the power button just once. Wait for a minute or two just in case it works. Sometimes it does. If it doesn’t, read on.
Read: Windows doesn’t Load or Stops responding on Surface
2] Charge the device
Sometimes the charge drops so low that the device just won’t turn back on. If the battery is completely drained, put the device on charge for 10 minutes before trying to turn it on again. It might show the charging sign for up to 15 minutes before responding to the power button.
Read: Surface Battery not charging when plugged in
3] Use hotkeys to wake Surface
If you have a keyboard connected, use this hotkey combination. Press the Win+Ctrl+Shift+B keys all at once.
If you don’t have the keyboard connected, there is a way for the tablet mode too. Quickly press the Volume Up+Volume Down buttons simultaneously thrice. It should be brisk, and you will need to press both the volume buttons thrice within 2 seconds.
If you hear a short beep after this, and Windows is refreshing, this solution worked. If it didn’t, try the next one.
4] Try the forced restart method
Force shutdown Surface and restart by pressing down on the power button for 30 seconds. Do not release the power button before 30 seconds even if the screen starts responding. If this works, charge your device up to at least 40% and then install the latest updates for Windows and Surface so that the device functions perfectly. If this solution doesn’t work, there is another way to go about it.
5] Clean Surface Book connectors
You need to try cleaning every connector between the keyboard and the Clipboard.
- First, you will need to detach the Clipboard from your keyboard.
- Then you will have to clean all the pins on the connector with the help of an eraser.
- Finally, you need to clean the pins with a cotton dipped in rubbing alcohol. Clean the part of the pin that goes into the narrow Surface socket. Dry every bit out thoroughly before plugging the Clipboard back with the keyboard.
6] Run reboot command in a Windows PE session
You can still try the last resort for DIY though. Here’s how.
- Create a bootable USB image from any PC.
- Boot Surface from the USB drive in the off state.
- Press Shift + F10 when you see the Windows setup box.
- Write wpeutil reboot in the command prompt.
- Hit Enter and remove the USB drive immediately.
Your device will reboot and restart normally if this works out right.
Read: Surface hangs or stuck on Surface screen
How do I get my Surface Pro out of sleep mode?
Getting your Surface device out of the Sleep mode is quite easy and not much time-consuming. There are multiple things you could do to get your Surface Pro out of Sleep mode. For example, you can press the Power button, charge your device, etc. Apart from that, you could try the force restart method as well.
How do I force a Surface Pro to turn on?
When there are some issues with your Surface Pro, you can use the force turn on the method to get it running again. To force a Surface Pro to turn on, you need to press and hold the Power button for 30 seconds. It won’t work if you release the Power button in between.
What do I do if my Surface Pro 3/4 won’t turn on?
All the aforementioned workarounds are solutions to fix the issue as stated here. In other terms, you could use the force restart option, use the hotkeys to wake your Surface device, clean your Surface Book connectors, etc. If nothing is working, you need to head to the service center to get it fixed.
If nothing works for you, you may need to take the device to a service center.
Related reads:
- Windows will not wake up from Sleep Mode
- How to Restore, Refresh, Reset Surface Pro devices
- Windows fails to boot.
