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

Anonymous
2020-08-24T04:46:23+00:00

I'm trying to connect a new Pro 7 to two external monitors (Acer) through the Surface Dock. I'm using two USB C to HDMI cables. 

The Surface can detect the monitors and assigns them numbers (2 and 3) but the screens remain black and no numbers (or other display) shows up.

If I disconnect one of the monitors, the other one immediately turns on. It's quite bizarre.

I have updated the driver, downloaded firmware updates, disconnected/reconnected everything, and generally done everything that it says on the support page. 

I would be grateful if someone could let me know what I need to do to fix this.

Surface | Accessories | Surface Dock

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  1. Anonymous
    2021-01-27T21:41:52+00:00

    Hello, DC 222,

    Your solution - to daisy chain my two monitors using DisplayPort MST - seems to have permanently fixed the issue. I did not need new, expensive cables.

    Solution:

    1. USB-C to DisplayPort to Monitor #1 (Dell UP2516D)
    • This requires activating MST in the menu system of Monitor #1.
    1. DisplayPort out from Monitor #1 to miniDisplayPort in Monitor #2 (Dell U2518D).

    Restarting the Surface Pro, or power cycling the Surface Pro, results in both monitors working fine, from boot to login screen and beyond (previously this caused one monitor to fail). I do NOT need to power cycle the dock itself to get both monitors to work.

    This is pretty annoying and I understand why you would move to another solution. That being said, this simple workaround works for me. I have no video issues, no intermittent Ethernet, etc.

    Thanks a lot!

    Andrew

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  2. Anonymous
    2021-01-27T22:05:24+00:00

    Hi, Robert,

    Thank you for your help. See my comments above about how I fixed the issue.

    While buying more expensive cables might help, I don't think this is really about that. I think it's a Windows OS problem.

    Old setup: PC (Surface Pro 7) > Surface Dock 2 > 2 cheap USB-C to DisplayPort cables > 2 Dell monitors.

    On startup, the Surface logo appears on BOTH screens. So it's working fine at this point. By the time you get to login, one screen is no longer working. Windows apparently thinks it is sending the signal to the non-working screen though (for example, the wallpaper is stretched the right way, and the mouse disappears over the edge of the screen as you'd expect if both screens were working). Rebooting the dock fixes the issue. After clearing my registry for the Dock 2, simply undocking-redocking with the Surface Connect reverse also worked.

    New setup: PC > Surface Dock 2 > 1 cheap USB-C to DisplayPort > Monitor #1 (with MST, i.e., DisplayPort daisy chaining enabled) > 1 cheap DisplayPort to DisplayPort > Monitor #2.

    Works perfectly fine. No need to power cycle the dock, no toggling Shift-CTRL-Alt-B, no undock-redock, no new cables.

    While this is a dumb issue that I think MS should fix, I can't say I'm not happy.

    But my point is that it looks like it has something to do with the OS, not (just) the hardware.

    Anyway, I'm glad you also found a solution. I just want to leave this one in the comments for those for whom the MST/daisy chaining solution might be the ticket.

    Andrew

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  3. Barb Bowman 80,805 Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2021-01-28T10:40:37+00:00

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  4. Anonymous
    2021-02-06T18:03:57+00:00

    I have the exact opposite issue happening where my direct cable is not working but the one with an adapter is.

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  5. Anonymous
    2021-02-07T03:56:58+00:00

    Possible fix.

    Current  setup Surface Dock 2 with Surface Laptop 3.

    Same issue: both monitors detected by Windows but no display on one of them. 

    Went thru tech support with Microsoft. Did the round of updating everything, rebooting, reinstalling, etc.

    Had the original Surface Dock that works with no issues with both monitors. Also tested the usb-c cables to ensure they are not the problem.

    After being annoyed at the problem i actually returned the Surface Dock 2 and bought a new one but had the same exact issue!!

    What I did to fix?

    Reading some of the posts here I found that the Windows Intel Iris driver was bad so tried to install the latest directly from Intel but the problem persisted. However it did point me at playing around with the driver. I found out that setting up the refresh rate to 75 HZ actually made both monitors respond.

    I have been doing tests. Disconnecting and rebooting, while leaving the display rate at 75 HZ has made the dock work with both monitors. At this point I truly believe this is a bug. I'm still a bit hesitant about keeping the dock as I don't know what other issues it may have.

    Lastly, I know other monitors support different refresh rates but the point is that the dock may have issues with the default setup. Try changing the refresh rates to see if they are picked up.

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