I have an old Surface Pro 3 that will only power on if I’ve left it unplugged for a few weeks, and it only stays on for a few minutes (with power plugged in and notifications indicating it is charging). I’ve tried all the button combinations (with the various wait " seconds then hold this other button combo for Y seconds) for doing a hard power cycle, no help. Don’t think it’s a heatsink issue (is cool to the touch and shouldn’t take weeks to cool off). Just want to do an OS reset and dispose.
Sound like the one I have that the hard drive went bad in. Had to Dremel through the back of the case to replace it. It also has a bad battery and won’t boot without external power.
I was able to boot it and run Linux from a USB drive to find out what was wrong with it.
@black_flag_astronaut I have made a Windows recovery USB drive, will see if it can stay powered up booted from that for any length of time maybe this weekend.