Anyone else having issues with the Surface Dock not working with 2 screens?

[apoc527]

Surface Pro 4, both current Insider build and current retail release, plus new Surface Dock and 2 monitors. Using Amazon Basics MiniDP to HDMI adapters (also tried a Belkin). Will not drive both screens--lots of screen flickering craziness. SOMETIMES works, mostly doesn't. Fully updated too. Rather frustrating.

 

[Aaron Hollingsworth]

I am running a Surface Book, Dock and 2 monitors and have the exact same issue. I can get one to work most of the time, but once I connect the 2nd monitor things get a little crazy. Twice so far I was able to unplug one monitor, get things working and then plug the second in and things seemed fine. Doing a restart or unplugging the Dock connector resets things to crazy. Note that I am using insignia brand 6' MiniDP to HDMI....and have tried a different cable and still the same results.

Very frustrating....I invested a pretty penny into dual monitors, Surface Book & Dock.....

At this point this is NOT working...

 

[raggededge]

We have 2 Surface Pro 4s with docking stations and neither works with dual monitors. Very disappointing. Hopefully a firmware update will be forthcoming. I just don't understand how something like this could ship out without it working.

 

[John Cornelius]

I have the surface Book with the Dock. The Dock is useless - it has an intermittent connection with my external monitor and the USB does not work consistently - my wireless logitech keyboard dongle is useless on the dock. Both the usb dongle and monitor work if connected directly to the surface book. :angry:

 

[jb007b]

I created an account to chime in with my experience and what is working for me. SP4 256/8 with dock connected to two identical Acer 22" running 1680 x 1050. I tried both hooked up with Monoprice DVI to MiniDP and several other adapter variations. One would work fine and the second was flaky and never worked correctly. I then tried hooking the second up with vga to MiniDP and it worked perfectly. Used it this way all day the last two days successfully.

This is certainly not ideal, but it beat the heck out of going back to one monitor until driver/hardware issues are resolved. I also ran this same setup with the SP4 acting as a 3rd monitor and this worked fine as well.

 

[Peter Nerbun]

I worked around the issue by connecting my Display Port to HDMI adapter directly to the display port on my SP4. That allows me to drive both my SP4 screen and my HDTV screen simultaneously. I can still use my Surface Dock to connect my cable internet box via an ethernet cable; that way I get 170 Mbps internet. So the Surface Dock does have some important utility even though it won't drive 2 screens until they work out a firmware fix.

 

[William Westfall]

I am not sure this will help this thread but my experience relates to the new dock and my SP3 instead. When I plug the mini adaptor to DVI directly to SP3, my monitor works fine. When plugged through the new dock, the screen flashes a messages that the resolution needs to changes to what it is already set at. Seems to be something with the new dock as someone else posted that their SP3 external monitor wasn't working coming out of sleep or hibernation when plugged through the new dock.

 

[anon(5348535)]

Quite disappointing. Dock for SP3 was also very fiddly. Some miniDP-to-DVI adapters that would work directly on SP3 miniDP port just didn't work on dock, and in the most spectacular way - SP3 would freeze during the boot process every now and then. But at least Apple's miniDP-to-DVI did work well - kind of ironic, isn't it? Anyway... with SP3 dock, we figured out dual screen with any two DVI monitors with little help of EVGA DisplayPort hub, and reasonably straight cabling including generic miniDP-DP cable (between dock and hub) and 2x DP-DVI cables between hub and monitors. SP3 screen could be used as 3rd screen, so there was extra benefit. Hub also had 3rd DP output, but we never tried 3 desktop screens. Should work, though - maybe at expense of SP3's native screen.

Now with SP4 dock... we were hoping that MS will improve on multi-screen support, but alas. We have tried all sort of minDP-DVI adapters, no success. With Apple's adapter, we could get one screen work and clone or extend with default SP4 screen; but adding 2nd desktop screen would actually dissable the one that work and SP4 would see only one screen - its own.

Dock for SP4 costs NZ$260 and is, at this stage, nothing but $260 brick. Beside that, MS choice of ports is annoying. Situation is likely better in US, but some other parts of the world, NZ included - it is hard to find miniDP-DVI cables, as well as reasonably priced monitors with DP... so we have to use additional adapters that add to price and complexity. MS would really do us all a favor if they made brick a bit bigger and put two full size DP ports. MiniDP has place on Surface itself, where real estate is limited... but dock, not at all. Every other dock I have seen recently - HP, Acer, Lenovo - have standard VGA, DVI, full size DP... even HDMI on some of them.

 

[Derman]

Chiming in here...

Mine is a brick, too. I have an Acer touchscreen, a Dell 23" monitor and I've tried plugging in to the docking station, then the SP4, etc. using a multitude of cables/connections. I've tried everything and mine will only drive one monitor. I went back to my old Pluggable USB docking station and - while the touchscreen won't work - everything else is wonderful.

MS Customer support was pretty useless - they tried, but I got frustrated after 45 minutes and didn't want to invest any more time into a piece of hardware that should just work. I mean c'mon, it can't drive two external monitors right out of the box?

All in all, my overall Surface Pro 4 experience has been pretty trying - I like it, but I have to try pretty hard at it.

 

[Lilliputti]

So "happy" to read this information. Thank you so much for this information and my apologies to you who have allready bought the brick! I will definitely look some other option and just found one that could work (plugable ud-3900). Does anyone have any experience whit this kind of USB docking stations? Are they worth investing? I am mostly doing mobile app developement.

 

[sott3]

I will chime in with my experiences:
SP4 i7 with dock: Connected to two Dell monitors using DVI-to-MiniDP adapter. Seems to work fairly reliably. Sometimes I have to close the Typecover for the Dell monitors to work. Other times all three screens (the two Dells plus the Surface screen itself) work. Seems iffy if I undock and redock the Surface. Either the Dell screens won't come on or they come on at the wrong resolution.

We have other Surface user who had two older Dell monitors. We could not get those monitors to work at all (same DVI adapter). We hooked him up with a new monitor and it worked fine. So the lucky guy gets two new screens.

Most of my issues have been getting the Surface to wake up properly from sleep mode. Or the Typecover not working after coming out of sleep mode.

 

[waihibeachian]

Bought a Surface Dock today to use with my SFP3 and it works well with two monitors using passive mini display port to HDMI connectors. However, with my wifes SFP3 it wont even recognise it.. USB, Sound, all no go. I will investigate it tonight but I suspect it is to do with the drivers so will most likely manually remove the old docking station's drivers from device manager and see how it goes...

 

[Plonkler]

I recently updated from the Surface Pro 3 Docking Station to the new Surface Dock as I use a dual monitor setup but was sick of having to plug the second monitor into the Surface itself. What a waste of money it turned out to be. I now have to unplug one of the monitors (HDMI to MiniDP cable) then plug the Surface into the dock, wait for it to connect and settle down then re-plug the second monitor back in. If I don't do this then the Surface goes into a Loop of connecting and disconnecting with the screen flashing which usually ends in a blue screen sad face. My surface is fully updated but still has this problem. You would think that if Microsoft have added the dual Display Ports on the new dock then they would actually make sure they worked properly.

The only benefit of this Dock over the Surface Pro 3 one is the fact I can have my surface flat on my desk so I can take notes with onenote.

 

[sott3]

I found that you need to get "active" DVI-to-MiniDP adapters to have monitors work successfully with the dock. I have previously bought non-active adapters. These adapters on Amazon worked: "Cable Matters? Gold Plated Active Mini DisplayPort to DVI Male to Female Adapter - Eyefinity Compatible"

 

[Matthew Warrilow]

I had this exact same issue with my surface book, I got 2 identical monitors and the new surface dock, I bought 2 HDMI to MiniDisplayPort and hooked it up, sure enough, flickering, bouncing between screens etc. Just by chance I tried changing one of my HDMI to MiniDisplayPorts out for a VGA to MiniDisplayPort (my screens had HDM and VGA in) and this fixed it! I do not know why it made a difference, so now one of my screens is connected to the surface dock using HDMItoMiniDisplayPort, and one using VGAtoMiniDisplayPort, and this has fixed the issue. all 3 screens are now working. Anyone else had this fix work for them?

 

[eggmanzz]

I had the same issue where I was hooking up two HDMI to MD port and it didn't work. Swapped out one of the monitors for a VGA to MD port cable and this worked! I now have 2 external displays working with my SP4.

 

[Roger Mills1]

I bought a Surface Pro 4 from the Microsoft Store. 2500+ dollars. I bought a Surface Dock fro BestBuy. The ethernet connection DOES not work with the dock and I replaced it. Also bought the USB ethernet connector does not work. Also, when I plug/unplug the Surface from the dock my screen icon arrange on the left. I exhausted all internet trouble shooting on both issues. So I started to work with Microsoft Support. They are clueless. After scheduling callbacks and blowing me off I finally got to a supervisor who said they would just replace the machine without even asking about issue details. So, fine, when I talked the the return people they said my only option was to send the machine back and they would determine if a replacement was needed. This is my work machine and I can't do that since my old machine has been recycled. I was told that was my only option. I have had this machine for 2 weeks. I really fail to see how this could be a hardware issue and really seems like a driver problem. I would have no problem waiting for an update would that be the case. Anyway, be forewarned. Had I bought this from BestBuy I could drive over and exchange it or prove it is a software issue. So it turns out my actual option is to return the computer, which I am going to do. I will buy something from a company that has a real support group.

 

[azack]

I just had this issue today.

My fix was to only plug one monitor in and change the output to mirror screen then apply.
Next with the display window open still plug in your 2nd external monitor you will notice on the multiple displays drop down you see the two external monitors both showing disconnect this display. Hit the drop down and change them both to extend display BAMMMM!!! Back in action 2 external monitors and surface screen all showing up!! One is a 4k 40" the other is a 1920x1080 24".
Not sure why they get changed to disconnect this display, but it happens worth trying for sure if you're having issues.

 

[Michael Huber1]

I am using a Surface Book + Dock with 2 Dell P2314H monitors. Both are connected with mDP-DP cables to Surface Dock. My set up is that the Surface Book screen is off and everything is on the two external monitors only.

While I had some reliability issues in the past, it generally worked out. But things took a bad turn following the 1/27/16 firmware update. Very frequently I lose the connection to the 2 external monitors and everything reverts back to the Surface Book display. In order to get the 2 monitors to work again, I need to unplug and plug back in the power cord the Surface Dock. But this is only a temporary fix.

Very frustrating.... Do others have similar issues?

 

[Lee Paul1]

I just got the Surface Book 1TB with the Surface Dock. I am not able to get the dock to work with both my Dell P2715Q 4K Monitors. It works with either one of that at a time, but not both at the same time. all 3 monitors (Surface book and to externals) show up and both Video cards are fully operational in the device manager. On the Display setting, the 3rd monitor appears there, but it is very small and is set to disconnected. When I try to duplicate or extend it, it does not work.

I have tried using mDP to DP, mDP to mDP, and mDP to HDMI and various combinations of those. All with the similar results - I cannot get both monitors to work at the same time.

I spent about 4 hours with Microsoft support as they looked into it. They ultimately decided to send another Surface Dock. Just got that in and hooked it up only to have the same problem.

Has anyone found a resolution to this? I hate to spend another 4 hours with MS support. That was painful enough the first go around and didn't solve the issue.