Microsoft wireless display adapter not connecting to Surface Pro 3

Anonymous
2014-11-17T20:04:52+00:00

I have a surface pro 3, all updates are complete, I have a new Microsoft wireless display adapter bought in the US, tried to use it on 2 different HDTV's today and I can't get the surface to connect to the adapter. I can see it paired, its on my surface as a device, I can see the adapter setup on the TV's HDMI channel, but when i try to connect the screen tries to connect, but then fails, no error not message, just says can not connect on the surface..

The name of the adapter on the TV and on the device list on the surface is MicrosoftDisplayAdapter_E8

I have tried it on a samsung and finlux TV, both only a few years old, and have powered USB so not sure what proble is

Surface | Accessories | Wireless display adapter

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
2014-11-17T20:28:49+00:00

Found the issue in my firewall, just need to figure out now how to apply a rule

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Anonymous
2014-12-27T00:42:40+00:00

Here's how I fixed the problem without a system reset.

  1. Go into Device Manager and from View make sure show hidden devices s selected.
  2. There should now be an item that has an exclamation point. Remove it and all of the devices with the same name followed by #1 #2 etc if there are any.  I'm sorry that I didn't make a note of what it was and I can't remember. But if this is your problem, it will be there. Make sure to uninstall all of the same named devices.
  3. Restart. Do not rescan. I tried that and it didn't work. I had to restart to make it work.
  4. After a restart I slide in from the right side and selected Devices from Charms. I selected project and the Add a Wireless Display was back. I tapped it and it found the MS Wireless Display Adapter. I connected and it worked fine.

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Anonymous
2015-03-22T22:01:03+00:00

I'm sure this has been resolved already...however...I had the same issue with my Surface Pro 3 and would like to share what resolved the issue.  It seems this is an inherent Microsoft issue that haunts them since Windows 98.  I remember having graphic card issues back then and I quite simply deleted the graphics driver from the Device Manager.  That's right deleted - then reboot.

The MS Display Adapter works beautifully with my BlackBerry Z30...two clicks and I was connected.  Therefore, it's not the adapter.  The fix is the following with Surface Pro 3:

Search for Device Manager > Double click Display Adapters > Right click Intel HD Graphics Family > Click Unistall > Check "Delete driver software for this device" > Click Ok > Reboot > Once fully rebooted, follow instructions to install MS Display Adapter (open right charms > Devices > Project > MS Display Adapter...) then bingo! You are now connected.

Worked like a charm!  ;)

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Anonymous
2015-03-05T17:55:50+00:00

"If you have a firewall, temporarily disable it. If you have AVG, open the program and click on "Firewall". Click on "change" to the right of the "Firewall Mode, Automatic". Select the bottom button that says "Disable Firewall (not recommended)" and click "apply". (This made me nervous, but AVG assured me that my virus scan was still active, and said that I could reactivate my firewall when finished with my display). I attempted to pair the devices and the projector works PERFECTLY. I can't speak to other firewalls, but my hunch is that by temporarily disabling them, the devices should connect. Hopefully this information is helpful. Please let me know if this works for you!"

The info on conflicts with  firewalls and AV programs is including in the Wiki article on Trouble Shooting Miracast.http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wiki/windows8_1-networking/trouble-shooting-miracast/51d24be3-8d15-4c29-8e13-767ec365fbd8

  • item #3.

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Anonymous
2015-01-30T11:32:37+00:00

I've had the same issue: MWDA was detected by SP3, but when I tried to connect, the SP3 screen flickered and connection was lost...

I was doing this as a non-admin... After I logged in as administrator it worked. Now it also works on my non-admin account. Might be a coincidence, but I'm glad it works now ;-)

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  1. Anonymous
    2015-01-23T08:48:05+00:00

    I would like to thank everyone for their participation in this thread, it was very helpful in getting this problem fixed.  I did end up going to the Microsoft store and a very helpful employee by the name of Eric helped in getting the MWDA working.  For the benefit of everyone experiencing this, I would like to relate my full story, and it is very interesting, but long, and if you would like to skip it to find the solution, please go to the end of this and I will have it in the last paragraph in bold.

    I had been several days trying to get the MWDA connected to a new Visio 55" 4K TV and the same problem of it showing it was "connecting" and then after several black screens, the TV would revert back to the "ready to connect" status.  I was able to get a Samsung Note 3 to connect, so I knew it wasn't the TV.  So I decided to take it to the Microsoft Store and see what they could do.

    I have to say, after I told him what was happening, Eric was very confident he would be able to get me connected.   A different problem occurred though, my Surface Pro 3 would not turn on.  He tried everything for about 5 minutes and eventually, I was able to get it booted  (this had started to happen, but usually after holding the power button for about a minute and pressing other keys, it would boot).  Well, we then tried to connect three times to a Dell 28" 4K monitor and it failed each time as it always did for me.  He suspected that the problem might be with it not wanting to power up, and considered that I had a hardware problem.  He checked on "error" messages and found the "cores" of the processor were limited to only 5% at each attempt to connect to the MWDA, which confirmed to him that something was failing in the Surface Pro 3.  He offered to replace it and do a "mirror" image onto a new Surface Pro 3, but it would take about 4 hours.  I told him to do that and he called back in about 3 hours and said the new Surface Pro 3 was doing the same thing as my old one. 

    Eric had completely read this thread, called Microsoft Support, and was convinced it had something to do with Kaspersky Pure 3.0, and wanted to uninstall it from the new "mirrored" Surface Pro 3.  I told him to wait and I would be there in 30 minutes.  We both worked together on it and we used my old Surface Pro 3 as a guinea pig (I didn't want to remove Kaspersky as I had all of my passwords in their password manager and I wasn't sure if I could get them back easily).  So on the old Surface, he started removing programs.  First the Kaspersky, then Acronis, then Dragon Naturally Speaking, and he also went into "processes" and disabled everything he could see that might affect the MWDA.  Still no connection after each process, and he tried one more thing, he removed the Intel(R) HD Graphics display adapter, and rebooted.  He tried again, and it connected to their monitor at the store.

    He then went into Device Manager and removed the "Intel(R) HD Graphics Family" display adapter, and immediately rebooted the new Surface Pro 3(that still had everything on it "mirrored" from my old Surface, so nothing else was removed), and it connected first try after reboot.  It also connected at home to the Visio 4K TV and the picture is amazing, compared to my old TV that I would connect with a HDMI cable.  So hopefully his fix will help some, as it appears there may be multiple issues that could cause this to happen, but for me, it took removing the Intel Display Adapter to fix the problem.

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