New Surface Dock Does Not Work via mini displayport to HDMI & DVI

Anonymous
2015-10-27T17:18:04+00:00

The specific device I am referring to, is the new Surface Dock for Surface Pro 3/4 and Surface Book. I have described the issue here on Reddit, and a number of others are also experiencing the same problem. Basically, the new dock doesn't work when the monitor is connected using mini displayport to HDMI. The monitor is detected correctly and the correct resolution is set, but the screen remains black. In my case, I randomly get some image on the monitor, but it's compressed to one side of the screen and garbled. The mini displayport to HDMI adapter works properly when connected directly to the Surface, so the adapter itself is fine. If I instead connect the mini displayport to VGA adapter to the dock, the monitor displays correctly. I have tried using a straight mini displayport to DVI cable and the issue remains. Additionally, I have connected a Surface Pro 3 to the dock and experience the same issue.

So to summarize, the dock does not function correctly when using a mini displayport to HDMI adapter to connect the monitor, but does work with a mini displayport to VGA adapter. This problem is repeatable using both a Surface Book and Surface Pro 3.

Surface | Accessories | Surface Dock

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Anonymous
2015-10-29T17:45:57+00:00

I purchased an active mDP to HDMI adapter from Amazon (Plugable is the brand) and so far the external monitor is working correctly through the dock.

Moderator Edit (11/3/2015):  If you are using a passive MDP to DVI adapter and experiencing difficulties, you may need to switch to using an active adapter.

If you switched from a passive to active adapter and continue to experience difficulties using Surface Dock to display to external monitors please consider making some changes to your cabling: different lengths, different quality, different adapters, etc.  If adjusting your cabling fails to resolve please consider sharing the following:

  1. Make and model of external displays
  2. Make/model of adapters if present
  3. Make/model of cables

For more troubleshooting info and steps to confirm your Dock is updated, please view our Troubleshoot Surface Dock article.

Thank you,

Josh

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Anonymous
2017-05-22T09:18:50+00:00

Hi,

 We suggest that you contact our Surface Answer Desk team for further assistance or visit the nearest Microsoft Store if you are in the US. In case you're offshore, contact our Global Customer Service team.

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  1. Anonymous
    2016-01-28T11:15:16+00:00

    Ugh, went and installed the update and now it's WORSE. I was merrily going along using the built in connector with great success until a resolution for the dock craziness.

    Saw the information about the update and now it's all **** up. Black screen on both external monitor and surface when I boot, pull out monitor cable and re-insert and I get a picture but it's some weird non-native scaled resolution (used to be 1920x1080) and it doesn't fill the edges of the screen. This is nuts.

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-01-28T03:37:22+00:00

    Firmware for SB and SP4 released tonight! Download, it may help with other issues

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-01-27T14:41:16+00:00

    Hello fellow Dock victims owners... not too much seems to have changed in a few months.

    Thought I would mark down a few more oddities with the Dock I've found since last commenting here.

    I bought and used those Pluggable Active HDMI adapters for a while with my 2-monitor setup at home (both Acer 1080p monitors). They worked fine, until the dock started to intermittently hiccup with the display connection to one of the monitors (randomly). After the display flickered, it would come back horribly corrupted. The corruption would last until I unplugged and reconnected the monitor itself. I ended up removing the active adapters and going back to passive cables, and while the dock still dropped connection randomly, at least the monitors would come back ok. And, magically, they stopped flickering and complaining on startup, despite that they had been when I used passive cables before-- something must have gotten fixed?

    I also have a dual 1080p setup at work (Asus monitors). I asked IT to get me a dock with active adapters to try. Now with the active adapters (same brand/model), the monitors would freak out for up to 3 minutes on initial plugin. Half the time this resulted in catastrophic failure-- unrecoverable black screen, or blue screen. Not to mention I got a light show every time I docked in the morning. So, at some point after countless blue screens, I had the brilliant idea to also revert to passive adapters (this time MDP to DVI, just what I had on hand). Now there are no problems.

    Meanwhile, at home, I now have a Dell 34" ultrawide 1440p monitor connected with the provided MDP->DP cable. It started out working flawlessly, but recently when I come home and dock, it won't get any signal at all. The device isn't even shown in Device Manager. I have to go through a dance for about 10 minutes, trying everything under the sun... power cycling monitor/dock, restarting computer, booting up with dock connected or unconnected. I think what finally seems to do the trick is detaching the clipboard while base is docked and reattaching. Of course this triggers the bug which makes the device stop charging from the dock, so I have to repeat this twice to get the thing to settle down and use the monitor.

    Anyway, now I have 4 useless active HDMI adapters.

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