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

Anonymous

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.

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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Anonymous

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:

Make and model of external displays
Make/model of adapters if present
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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Answer accepted by question author

Anonymous

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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315 additional answers

Anonymous

2015-10-28T13:27:13+00:00

I've experienced similar problems, documented here:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/forum/surfacc-surfvidadapt/surface-dock-latest-does-not-output-to-2-monitors/964991fa-7882-4814-a09e-aa9adcfd8e81?tm=1446002385038

The dock seems very unreliable. I have a friend with one, and he has the same issues. It is even blue-screening his SP4 in certain configurations.
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Anonymous

2015-10-28T05:55:03+00:00
I see a lot of various dock issue threads, but I'm getting an interesting combination. I'm trying to work through the likelihood that a driver/firmware update will correct it in the not too distant future. I'm having the following issues with my Surface Book and dock:
- Intermittently only one of my two monitors comes up when plugging in the dock or rebooting.
- Intermittently neither monitors come up after plugging in the dock or after rebooting.
- Intermittently USB items (keyboard/mouse) fail to come up after plugging in the dock or rebooting
- Intermittently the primary SB screen flickers while dock is plugged in or after dock has been used until reboot
- Intermittently the dock is failing to actually charge the Surface Book
- Even though I set the Surface Book to "do nothing" when the screen is closed and powered, the act of it trying to adjust to only the two active screens (I assume this is what is doing it) can cause any of the above problems, but usually results in the left and right monitor flipping positions.
- My monitors are set to go to sleep after a certain inactivity time. They get to that point and constantly go to sleep, and then wake up to "no signal" then go back to sleep. I have a Windows 10 desktop I've used with these monitors and this problem did not occur.
I also had an issue where both of my external monitors were blurry. I ended up using a tool to change to Windows 8.1 DPI scaling to correct that problem (though that did degrade the laptop only use somewhat). At that time I had already seen most or all of the above issues. These problem can occur in combination or just one of the above. Usually if I undock and dock again 2 or 3 times the problem is corrected. I've also noticed reboots are frequently required if I disconnect the clipboard and try to connect it into the dock, otherwise I tend to get the primary screen flickering to the point of not being usable, docked or not, and no monitor comes up.

I have the i7/16GB/512GB SB.

2xLG 25UM64-S monitors
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Anonymous

2015-10-28T03:07:36+00:00

One thing I had luck with was using the old style control panel interface to enable the monitors vs. the new Windows10 Settings. I was able to enable and then extend to each monitor whereas the new settings page was saying it couldn't identify more than 1.

Control Panel\Appearance and Personalization\Display\Screen Resolution

Wow, that worked! Interesting, the control panel had "Disconnect this display" as the selected option for my second monitor. That could be a clue to the problem. Thanks for the fix!

Edit: seems temporary, actually. Logging out and in again lost both displays. Both show up as "disconnected", and trying to change the configuration results in an error.
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