Surface Pro 3 external monitor / display port issues

My Surface Pro 3 worked great for about a month, then the "i really don't want to completely wake up from sleep" mode kicked in.

my monitors have never been a problem, as i use the mini dv on the docking station and on the SP3 for my dual setup.

however, my wireless keyboard/mouse and even the touch screen does not respond to anything.

sometimes i can see the 8.1 screen, but nothing is active, just the view, no touch screen, no mouse, no keyboard, no nothing.  Nothing i do wakes it up.  i have to manually power off the SP3, reboot (when it let's me) does not release the sleep either.  once it's powered off/on, it works.

very frustrating when files and process were active.

anyone?????

HOWEVER, just this week I've had issues where I can't get the Surface to detect the displays / output to them when I first plug in to the dock in the morning OR sometimes when it's waking up from going to sleep (like at lunchtime). No amount of fiddling / plugging / unplugging things seems to consistently fix it.  The 'Detect' button in the Screen Resolution window doesn't help.  Doing a shutdown / restart of the Surface also doesn't consistently work. Note that when the Surface gets like this, even plugging the Hub directly into the mini display port on the Surface itself (with it not docked) won't work.

[............]

The general process I usually get to work after a couple tries:

-Use Windows-P keys to set the surface to use only the internal display

-Shutdown the surface and undock

-Unplug the dock and hub

-Plug hub back in

-Power Surface back up while undocked and login

-Dock surface

-Plug dock back in

-I'll know it works at this point because the displays will automatically come on (no need to use windows-P key to toggle them)

The song and dance posted above is frustratingly familiar to me.

I'm not using an MST hub; I just have a Lenovo monitor connected via the Surface Dock mini DisplayPort.

Haven't been able to find a common "fix" from the above list - it's usually a messed up 5-10 minute combination of those things.  Eventually I get it working again.

I've found the most success by ensuring I power up and login to the Surface PRIOR to docking.

If I accidentally dock while it's powered down/sleeping and/or logged off I'm almost always in for a bad start to the morning.

I also have a third monitor connected via a USB DisplayLink adapter.  That was working fine until I added the Microsoft Wireless Display Adapter (at least that's the only system change I can think of that may have affected the DisplayLink adapter).  That issue is discussed here:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/forum/surfpro3-surfdevice/surface-pro-3-not-working-with-displaylink/341175ff-f3ea-4dc9-a346-f28a09bbda58

I've never had so many driver/firmware issues...  SP3 has been a very frustrating device in that regard.

I too have been having similar issues with my SP3 i5. I have been using the daisy chain from SP3 to Acer K272HUL and Asus PB278 (both are using DisplayPort). This configuration was working perfectly for the first 3 months with no issues at all. About 2 months I started getting the same issues as described. Monitors not detected, phantom monitors, and flickering monitors.

I have do the same dances to get them to work but rarely is it ever stable for an entire work day. It has gotten to the point recently that it's no longer workable. 

I am convinced it MUST be the SP3/Windows driver software. Otherwise, why would it work perfectly for months? I have tried using just the dock, just the SP3 and tried the trick of connecting to the dock and SP3 ports separately. I still get the issues no matter what.

I also tried DP to HDMI and DB DVI and that didn't resolve the issue either. And yes, different cables were tried too.

I am NOT a happy camper with this situation.

Chalker2, this did the trick.

SP3 i7. 2 Dells U2715H

I am not using a hub, rather 2 monitors daisy chained from the dock ( dock => **** (First Monitor) => mDP (Second monitor).

Applied all updates in the dock. Followed your steps. Worked the first time.

I wonder if unplugging the dock from power (for over 30 seconds) is the key step here, I have read in another post that should be done.

Thanks, you have saved me a headache and a number of wasted hours. I love my SP3, and this was a show stopper.

So, I'm not sure if the fix for this lies with Microsoft, Intel's graphics, or the makers of the MST hubs, but it's very frustrating that we can't use dual external monitors with the Surface dock without a menagerie of workarounds and hubs.  Every other business-grade laptop dock supports dual external monitors out of the box (well, at least Dell, which is what we used before this).

TL;DR - Try an EVGA 200-****-1301-L2 hub.

So here's my experience.

I purchased a Surface Pro 3 (i7/512GB) to replace my main workstation (I code). Since my existing monitors were of the Korean type (Yamanashi 30") I had to either purchase two active DisplayPort to DualLink DVI adapters for around a hundred bucks each, OR, replace the monitors for something with native ****.

I choose the second option. However, due to my criteria for monitors I couldn't get anything which supported daisy-chaining out of the box. I ended up grabbing a couple Benq BL3200PT monitors and after a little searching around on forums a StarTech MSTMDP123DP MST hub.

My god what a f$%#ing nightmare that turned out to be. From the outset I had nothing but problems with screens flickering, disconnecting and reconnecting by themselves and last but by no means least BSoDs.

I kept trying to get this setup working for about a month, but finally gave in and returned the StarTech to Amazon for a refund.

I then purchased a couple no-name MiniDP-**** cables and ran docking-station to one monitor and SP3 to the other. I continued this until it became a chore having to reconnect cables every time I re-docked my SP3.

At this point I considered getting rid of the SP3 completely and going back to my old rig still sitting idle under my desk, but stubborn as I am I figured I'd give it one more chance. I took the plunge on a EVGA 200-****-1301-L2 MST hub. As soon as I plugged this in, still using the no-name mDP-**** cable connected to my docking station my SP3 recognized both external monitors and I was able to extend my desktop no problem.

So, basically, if you're all still having issues, try replacing your existing hub with the EVGA one (apparently there are chipset differences between the L2 and non L2 versions so get the L2) and it should work out of the box.