Surface Pro 3 dock not detecting external monitor

Anonymous
2014-08-13T15:12:33+00:00

I have a new surface pro 3 and I purchased two docking stations. 1 for the office and one for home. Neither docking stations allows the pro3 to detect a monitor that is plugged into it.   I can plug the monitor directly into the pro3 and it detects if fine both at home and at the office.   I can tell you that its a serious interruption professionally, and personally and does not bode well for MS's desires to serve the business community.   What I need is a solution.

Surface | Accessories | Surface Dock

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Anonymous
2015-10-25T14:03:15+00:00

I have a new surface pro 3 and I purchased two docking stations. 1 for the office and one for home. Neither docking stations allows the pro3 to detect a monitor that is plugged into it.   I can plug the monitor directly into the pro3 and it detects if fine both at home and at the office.   I can tell you that its a serious interruption professionally, and personally and does not bode well for MS's desires to serve the business community.   What I need is a solution.

hey guys

I had exact same issue and I did this and the issue magically solved!!

a two button restart:

  • Power off the Surface Pro
  • Hold Volume Up and the Power button for 10 seconds
  • Release buttons
  • Wait 5-10 seconds
  • Power on the Surface

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Anonymous
2014-08-13T23:38:43+00:00

Hi will-eman,

Thank you for visiting the Microsoft Community! Sorry to know that your Docking Stations are not detecting your external displays. I can certainly understand why this is an inconvenience, especially when, as you mention, it is used in a business environment and for professional purposes. I’d like to help and hopefully provide the best possible solution!

Please try the following:

  • With the Surface and external display connected to the Docking Station, unplug the Docking Station from the power outlet, leave it unplugged for 30 seconds to a minute, then plug it back and see if the displays are recognized.
  • Please make sure all and latest Windows updates are installed. If so, verify all updates were taken while the Docking Station was connected to the Surface.
  • When you connect the external monitor, do you have any other devices connected to the Docking Station as well? And if so, have you tried removing all devices and connecting the external monitor only?
  • Have you tried connecting other external displays to the docking Station? Are ALL displays or devices not recognized?
  • Have you tried the what Ed Bott - MVP suggests?

 Additionally, please read the following support article:

We hope this information works! Please keep us posted!

We are always here to help!

Best Wishes,

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  1. Anonymous
    2014-10-10T15:03:21+00:00

    For what it's worth, I have a Pro 3 running the Tech preview of Windows 10 and I have the same issue. I can generally get mine to work if I undock and then redock just after the device disconnection sound. Then it usually recognizes my second monitor.

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-10-13T21:43:00+00:00

    I purchased a docking station and a few Surface Pro 3's in Portland, Oregon about 3 weeks ago in order to test the setup before rolling it out company wide. My experiences with the dock were NOT favorable. I tried connecting via miniDisplay to DVI using two different adapters and in both cases the on-board mini displayport would work, but the dock would not. I ended up returning the dock to the MS store (they did not seem surprised).

    It's really too bad that there is such a blatant hardware incompatibility and/or software bug, since I was pretty excited about replacing our desktop systems with surface pro 3's for the majority of the company. That, combined with the fact that most of them do not charge when I pulled them out of the box and I had to hold power-volume-up, do firmware updates (oh but wait just kidding, you can't do firmware updates until you have a full charge too bad), etc., really pulled the plug on a massive deployment. There's no way that if I have such trouble getting it to work that my users will mysteriously figure it out.

    It's like MS has taken all these strides to be better only to trip over their own feet at the finish line... I hope they get it together soon.

    We have 7x SP3 (3 I7 and 4 I5). We have 8 SP3 Docks whereof 3 have been bought in United States and 5 have been delivered from Germany. All SP3's updated fully with all updates (and yes, no fan noice).

    Have both Samsung 4K monitor and multiple other. Dock flickers and shows a picture for 0.5 seconds and blinks regularly (every 15-20 seconds or so turns on and then off again immediately after 0.5 second). In 100% of all cases not been able to show a picture from any dock or any device when using mini-displayport to displayport consistently. We have tried with both adapters and mini displayport to displayport cables.

    Result no matter type of 4K monitor is as written by others that you with a mini displayport to displayport, directly in the SP3 (no dock) in 100% of cases will always get a maximum resolution of 2560x1600.

    You can directly through the SP3's own mini displayport with any 4K monitor get a 4K picture in 30Hz (not 60Hz as supported by displayport 1.2), if you attach a mini displayport to HDMI adapter to HDMI on monitor.

    We can in 100% of cases get a 1920x1080 picture with any monitor, connecting a mini displayport to VGA cable to the dock.

    We have tried everything from combining different docks with different SP3's, different cables, different brands of monitors and drivers from manufacturers. Situation and conclusion as it stands now is that 100% of all SP3 Docking stations delivered from both united States and Germany does not support mini displayport to displayport connections.

    Hoping and praying its a software issue.

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  3. Anonymous
    2014-10-24T04:34:06+00:00

    Took almost 3 days to run into this fix.....

    http://www.displaylink.com/support/ticket.php?id=297

    Completely removed the DisplayLink drivers.  The Mini displayport to HDMI adapter now works as well as the 2 additional USB DisplayLink adapters.

    Problem solved.  Where I thought it was a Docking Station it definitely isn't.

    Good luck!!

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