Skip to main content

Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

March updates for Surface Book and Surface Pro 4 offer better stability

Surface Book Pro
Bill Roberson/Digital Trends
If you own one of Microsoft’s Surface devices, then you’re likely accustomed to waiting patiently for new driver and firmware updates that might solve a problem or two. Certainly, while Microsoft’s Surface line is full of great options and has sold well, the company has struggled at times with getting the machines to perform in a stable fashion.

Many of the worst battery and sleep issues were resolved with firmware updates in 2016 but that is not stopping Microsoft from making additional adjustments and improvements. On Wednesday, Microsoft issued the March 2017 update for both the Surface Book and Surface Pro 4 and provided the details in a TechNet blog post rather than the usual Surface update pages.

Recommended Videos

For the

Surface Pro 4

, a number of key components received new driver software versions. Of particular interest is the update to the solid-state drive controller that promises improved storage performance. Here are the details:

  • Surface UEFI (V106.1427.768.0) improves system stability and performance.
  • Surface Display (V1.0.6.1) updates the display panel driver.
  • Surface NVM Express Controller (V11.0.0.1) improves storage performance.
  • Intel Management Engine Interface (V11.6.0.1042) improves system stability on startup.
Please enable Javascript to view this content

The Surface Book received some of the same and some different driver update, with an apparent focus across the board on improved performance and stability. Here is what has been updated:

  • NVIDIA GeForce GTX 965M (v21.21.13.7667) improves system stability.
  • Surface UEFI (v90.1427.768.0) improves system stability and performance.
  • Surface NVM Express Controller (v11.0.0.1) improves storage performance.
  • Intel(R) Management Engine Interface (v11.6.0.1042) improves system stability on startup.
  • Surface Integration (v1.1.328.0) improves battery life during sleep.
  • Surface Integration Service Device (v1.0.241.0) improves device stability.
  • Surface USB Hub Firmware Update (v1.0.519.0) improves stability and power utilization of the USB hub in the device base.

As usual, the update should roll along and update itself automatically and then ask to reboot the system. You can download the updates in MSI format from Microsoft’s Surface Book and Surface Pro 4 drivers and firmware page if you want to install them manually.

Mark Coppock
Mark Coppock is a Freelance Writer at Digital Trends covering primarily laptop and other computing technologies. He has…
Leaked M4 MacBook Pro benchmarks reveal incredible performance
MacBook Pro with M4

The M4 MacBook Pros launched this week with plenty to talk about. Performance, however, wasn't the focus of all the attention. Apple didn't provide many direct comparisons of how much more powerful the M4 MacBook Pro is over the previous generation of chips.

But now some leaked benchmarks for the M4 series have been put online, and they reveal just how significant of an uplift the M4 Max and M4 Pro bring. Over on X (formerly Twitter) user James Atkinson discovered some results from a Geekbench 6 benchmark for the M4 Max chip, which revealed 4,060 single-core and 26,675 multi-core scores.

Read more
The new M4 MacBook Pro comes with these 7 major changes
MacBook Pro with M4

Apple has officially announced the M4 MacBook Pro in both 14-inch and 16-inch screen sizes. In addition to the base M4 model, they also come in M4 Pro and M4 Max configurations in both sizes.

But let's be real: the M3 MacBook Pro was already a fantastic laptop. Is it really worth upgrading to the new model? I won't know for sure until I've tested them myself, but here are the six major changes you need to know about when it comes to the next generation of MacBook Pros.

Read more
The M4 Mac launch is incoming, but not how you might expect
The 14-inch MacBook Pro with M3 Max chip seen from behind.

The past few months have been full of speculation, anticipation, and pretty wild rumors concerning the upcoming M4 Macs -- and now the predicted release date of November 1 is just a week or so away. Despite the lack of an event announcement, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman still believes the launch is "imminent," with an announcement reportedly coming on October 30.

According to him, Apple Stores are running very low on iMac, Mac mini, MacBook Pro, Magic Keyboard, Magic Mouse, and Magic Trackpad units -- and this usually happens when updates are about to be released.

Read more