Troubleshooting multiple monitors on a Surface Dock 2 (Surface Pro 7)

I have the same setup at work and at home: Surface Dock 2 with the Microsoft adapters and dual monitors. The monitor brands are different at the 2 locations. I take my Surface Book 3 between both locations.

I continue to have random glitching and blackouts among the monitors in both locations. I first posted about this here a long time ago, and I've observed most of the proposed fixes people have offered. Nothing seems to work, and I've given up trying to make a diagnosis. This instability needs to be fixed. (Not cheap to purchase 2 Microsoft docks and 4 Microsoft adapters, BTW.) It is not working as advertised, and I did not have this problem with the original dock and a similar setup.

Thanks. Perhaps I'm thinking too much like the engineer here, but the real issue is that the product is unstable - it works, and then it doesn't. All of the aforementioned "fixes" like using active cables, active adapters, lowering the refresh rate, and standing on your head with a finger in the air are simply kluges and workarounds that we shouldn't have to suffer.

What's telling is that there doesn't seem to be one clear silver bullet that works to fix the problem every time. That said I have yet to try using active HDMI adapters, but I hope that swapping out my Dock 2 for a new one will solve my issues. Although that said perhaps someone can tell me why standard HDMI cables with an active HDMI-USBC adapter would be any different than an active HDMI-USBC cable?

Microsoft has a problem with this product, and I suspect they know it. At least now I have a wealth of kluges to work with to try and work around their dysfunctional product :)

I have a reliable workaround, and I don't think it matters what types of cables you use (mine are USB-C from Surface Dock 2 to both external Dell monitors).

The conclusion is that the Surface Dock 2 is unable to handle the load of 2 external monitors at 60Hz.

One of my monitors is only used for emails and to-do lists, so I changed that one to 30Hz. The other monitor is actively used, along with my Surface Book 3 screen, so they remain at 60Hz. With one of the monitors at 30Hz and the others at 60Hz, the Surface Dock 2 works reliably. This is definitely false advertising from Microsoft, and the firmware should be updated (or the device recalled) to work as advertised.

For those that don't know how to change this setting, in Windows 10:

• Go into "Display Settings"
• Select the monitor
• Go to "Advanced Display Settings"
• Change the Refresh Rate to 29.562 Hz (if that value doesn't appear, click on "Display adapter properties for Display [X]" and "List All Modes" to see the different modes supported by your monitor).

Hope this helps others get through this frustrating issue!

Thanks. This is why it's so frustrating - it works, then it doesn't, then it does, and now it doesn't. If it didn't ever work at all it would almost be better! At this point I have my second monitor plugged directly into my S7 which works fine so that I can have my 2 monitors working.

So do I understand correctly that you're using MS USBC-HDMI adapters with standard (not active) HDMI-HDMI cables then? And no issues with all of those S7's? I just want to know for future reference because ...

After the 3rd or 4th time working with MS support they are sending me a new Dock 2, which is great, but I remain cautiously optimistic it's going to work without issue. FWIW they maintain that none of this superfluous hardware (active cables and/or adapter) is necessary and that it should work fine with just HDMI-USBC cables.

Hi RobbAlarcon,
That sounds really weird. My school has over 300 Surface Pro 6 , 7 and 7+. Updates are pushed out regularly and I've never heard of an update affecting a genuine Microsoft Active USBC-HDMI adapter. My school Surface Pro 7+ had massive issues with two brand new top-of-the-line HP 27" monitors when I first installed them. After firmware for the 7+ and all Windows updates and genuine MS adapters, everything worked well (that was in March I think). Since then I've applied all Windows updates and update the firmware for the SP7+ regularly (they constantly update their firmware download).

If the updates are the cause then the problem may be your individual device; possibly worth opening a ticket with MS.
If you can prove that the monitors worked before the update but not after, you might be up for a replacement device. We do replace the SPs regularly - common faults include battery failure or inability to boot to Network drives for imaging.

Good luck.

Regards

Scott