Surface Dock Keeps Disconnecting Intermittently

Anonymous
2020-01-10T16:44:40+00:00

Microsoft,

What is going on with this thing?

I have had the Surface Dock for two months now. Purchased it to go with my Surface Laptop 1. 

Every day.... and I mean every day, this thing disconnects itself from my Surface Laptop, my monitor goes black, my usb peripherals disconnect, and my network goes down... and then in one second everything magically reconnects. 

Sometimes it only happens 5 times a day. Other days it happens like a gazillion.

Once it first started happening, I scoured the internet looking for a solution. I replaced the dock, I updated the firmware, I connected it to a different power source, I've power cycled, I've turned the cord around - etc. No matter what I do it keeps happening. 

And there is no good answers on this message board that seems to fix this issue. I have read them all. 

What is going on with this thing?

Right now, just so y'all know, this thing is only acting as a power source for my laptop. I am plugging the monitor directly into the Surface Laptop, I have upgraded to a bluetooth keyboard and mouse, and my Ethernet is going into the system over usb. Even with NOTHING else plugged into the Surface Dock.... nothing. Just power. It is STILL disconnecting and reconnecting intermittently. What the H?!?

This is unacceptable and you guys really need to figure out a solution for this. My boss has a Surface Book 1 and he also experiences these issues daily, as well. Since he's using dual monitors, he just puts up with them going out and turning back on five to twenty times a day. The only ones in the office with the dock that aren't experiencing these issues are the two that have Surface Pro 4's...

What can we do to fix this? The Surface Dock is currently the most expensive laptop charger I've ever purchased (since that's all it seems to be decent at). 

Sincerely, 

Microsoft Enthusiast

Surface | Accessories | Surface Dock

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  1. Anonymous
    2020-08-03T09:40:18+00:00

    Hi,

    Just to add my experience to the increasing bulk of these complaints. A surface book 1 user, unable to use the surface dock for quite some time now. It seems to me that it is software/power related. If I am careful not to open too many windows at once, the laptop "calms down" and I can usually get by. If I start a youtube video at the wrong time, follow a link that opens Excel or other application (rather than opening the application first) it can go into overdrive.

    Given that the surface dock is clearly the issue, is there another option that will allow me to connect my surface book 1 to a couple of monitors, ethernet and a couple of USB ports? I don't care about whether it's a microsoft product, obviously, and the existing dock will be fired into the sea. I can use my exsting charger to power the surface book, so don't need to provide power via the peripheral. Anyone got any recommendations? I love the Surface Book, but this is an absolute fundamental. It's unacceptably bad, and for some reason doesn't make it into any product reviews. Once this one dies, I can't justify another microsoft laptop unfortunately. It shouldn't be possible for 8 pages of complaints to exist on a microsoft forum without response. That's a company that can't provide a service.

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-08-03T10:29:12+00:00

    Same problem here, every time I reconnect the dock I have about 10 minutes of it switching from additional screens and back to surfacebook. Running latest firmware.

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  3. Anonymous
    2020-08-06T09:08:48+00:00

    Given that the surface dock is clearly the issue, is there another option that will allow me to connect my surface book 1 to a couple of monitors, ethernet and a couple of USB ports? I don't care about whether it's a microsoft product, obviously, and the existing dock will be fired into the sea. I can use my exsting charger to power the surface book, so don't need to provide power via the peripheral. Anyone got any recommendations?

    In case anybody is looking for similar, I ended up buying a Startech, mini displayport -> displayport x 3 splitter. It's great, works perfectly. The Surface doesn't sound like it's about to take off and there is no lag. I've only got 2 monitors plugged into it, but may move to 3 in the future, hence the additional port. I have one monitor on a displayport->hdmi (Ivanky on Amazon, fantastic!) cable from the splitter as I didn't have two displayport->displayport cables, and it works absolutely fine.

    Downsides are the obvious ones. The splitter needs its own power, you'll need a separate ethernet connector and you're stuck with just the two USB ports if you need to connect more stuff (I have a bluetooth surface keyboard, and I would like to just say how phenomenal it is!). With two displayport monitors, a bluetooth keyboard and mouse and just a wireless internet connection, I'm finding this setup works great for me. The silence is golden! Hope this helps others. This is what the surface dock experience should have been. My dock is going in the bin. Microsoft should be embarrassed by this piece of kit, and their response to this thread. Good luck folks.

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  4. Anonymous
    2020-08-10T06:05:43+00:00

    I have also had the same issues with my dock. I even went out and bought another dock and as you can well appreciate they are ridiculously over priced.

    Microsoft gave me NO assistance in the matter.

    I had to go through with some specialist engineer and they played around with my software etc.

    Guess, what, IT STILL HAPPENS!!!!!

    I am running a Microsoft Book 2 15" and i wont be buying another Microsoft Book thats for sure.

    I had better luck with my surface pro 3 and 4!!

    Absolutely ridiculous from Microsoft. They are happy to take our money, not happy to fix their issues!

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  5. Anonymous
    2020-08-21T08:48:49+00:00

    This also happened to me on two Surface Docks.

    I have the impression in my case it is related to heavy use of graphics and the use of Chrome or Edge Chromium. 

    Yesterday, I suddenly suffered from the disconnecting Surface dock after a stable period of several months.

    This morning I updated the firmware, but that did not help. 

    Then I found that Edge Chromium Canary build 86.0.614.0 was kind of misbehaving and the Application log was flooded with Windows Error Reporting Events with the event name crashpad_exp from Edge. I had just updatedt to the lastest build as of yesterday. The Surface Dock issues started right after the upgrade. So I decided to uninstall the Canary build for Edge Chromium and move to the current release on build 84.0.522.63. 

    Now it has been a few hours since I removed the Canary build and started using the current version of Edge, and no Surface Dock disconnects have occurred since.

    Keeping my fingers crossed. But for now I will focus on graphics load when the Surface Dock starts misbehaving again.

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