External Monitors Disconnect

[Dennis E]

Surface Book i7 w/ discrete graphics card
2x Dell U2715H monitors
1x Docking station

I'm experiencing issues where my monitors will black in and out randomly for 1-2 seconds and come back on. Could be one, the other, or both. Other times Windows 10 stops detecting them, they blank out, all my windows move to the clipboard screen, and sometimes the SB recovers from this and they come back. When they don't come back, I'm stuck trying to detect displays in the display settings, unplug/replug the docking station from the SB, unplug/replug the DisplayPort cables, turning off power to the monitors for a period of time, and eventually reboot if necessary (which doesn't always work).

When all of the above fail, I discover that Windows sees the monitors but just won't extend the display (as its current settings are set to). So I end up having to duplicate displays to each monitor individually and then configure them to extend again.

There are days that this failure only happens once or twice, other days it happens multiple times over the course of an hour. I reboot regular in hopes of that fixing it but my work is constantly interrupted as a result.

I've spoken with Microsoft support and here are some things we've covered:
- Ensure windows is up to date
- I've applied the firmware update from 11/2 (which oddly enough, later that day, showed up again in the windows update and I applied it again?)
- Scanned the file system for errors (sfc /scannow)
- This found some errors and fixed them

My initial setup when experiencing this was:
- clipboard mounted in reverse on the keyboard base
- plugged in to docking station
- mDP out from docking station to first U2715H monitor
- DP out from that monitor to mDP in on the second monitor
- Both monitors had their DisplayPort 1.2 setting enabled to make this work

With some fidgeting, I was able to get this setup working, so DP daisy chaining works, but I had the aforementioned instability issues.

With even more effort, I reconfigured the displays out of the daisy chaining configuration. Both cables' mDP coming out from the brick and running to each monitor independently. I still experienced the aforementioned instability issues.

One thing I have not tried, mentioned in the thread: /microsoft-surface-book/390664-issues-dock-external-monitor.html (I guess I can't post links?), is turning the clipboard back around to the traditional laptop configuration; however, in a recent visit to a Microsoft Store, we were able to duplicate the instability issues while having the SB in a docking station with two external monitors and the SB clipboard facing in towards the keyboard. So I'm not overly confident that this is the issue.

I expect to be able to undock/redock the docking station from the SB and undock/redock the clipboard from the keyboard base without there being any display issues. Undocking/redocking with the docking station is usually fine, but undocking/redocking the clipboard from the base definitely causes issues.

Again, I've applied all windows updates (including firmware) and I don't have any other crazy software installed (displayfusion, etc...) Just apps like Visual Studio, Office 2016, Firefox, Chrome, ConEmu, GitExtensions, SublimeText2, etc...

Online help with Microsoft support and in store support both have been unable to find the issue so I'm posting here to, at the very least, raise awareness, and maybe run across someone who's experienced this and has figured out a stable configuration that could work until Microsoft releases more updates.

-Dennis

 

[pablosbrain]

Same issue... i7 512gb dGPU and my external displays connected via the new surface dock will only stay connected for a few minutes at a time and then they disconnect and i have to unplug everything to get them to work.:angry:

 

[zombie0]

I too have the monitor blanking out and back on issue with my 4K monitor. And as I have written elsewhere on this forum, I actually have two 4K monitors, but the Surface Dock does not yet appear to actually support two 4K monitors.

It's a bit odd?essentially all of my problems with my Surface Book are being caused by the dock. The Surface Book itself seems solid, but the dock is basically a prototype being passed off as production equipment.

 

[Dennis E]

I, too, feel like I paid to beta test these products. It's exceptionally frustrating to try and use it as a work PC right now. Monitors cutting in and out, the occasional bluescreen from undocking/docking the clipboard, crash/reboots after locking the machine and coming back to it after some time. Half my work day ends up being spent on recovering from these scenarios, checking for updates, and rebooting. In a job that requires ramping up my focus, this is a huge productivity killer.

 

[Chuck Foltz]

I had issues with my Dock as well. I was using mDP -> DVI adapters. I just changed them out today for mDP -> DP and it works flawlessly. I have seen posts about passive display adapters etc. With a strait cable it works perfect. I would try to use strait cable and see if the issue goes away.

 

[zombie0]

I can't really speak for Dennis E, but I suspect he's using plain DisplayPort cables. I know that I am: plain mini-DP to full-DP cables. I have tried six different manufacturers' DisplayPort cables with my two 4K Philips BDM4065UC monitors. In all cases, the Surface Book via the dock cannot power more than one of the two 4K monitors at a time. And I experience periodic (but brief) video drops from the one that it is powering. The monitors and cables work perfectly with other 4K-capable workstations and laptops.

 

[Dennis E]

That is correct, I have straight mDP-to-DP going to my monitors, no adapters. I need to try and take the docking station out of the equation when I have time to test. It seems like it may be the culprit in all this. When I'm at home, I'm not docked in to anything, and the experience is pretty smooth. I also get failures when locking my computer. In some cases, I come back, unlock the computer, and all the apps have closed (crashed rebooted probably). Today, I locked it, went to lunch, came back, and it wouldn't respond and the fans were going crazy. Feeling the back of the clipboard, it was almost too hot to touch, which worries me since that's where the batteries are. I'm sure it's the CPU but that level of hot that close to batteries is not a good thing. This all seems to be docking station related.

Tomorrow I think I'm going to bring my default charger in and run off of that, and go back to the DP MST configuration (daisychain). If I don't get any issues, I'll be comfortable in saying it's the docking station.

 

[Dennis E]

This morning I removed the docking station out of the equation and things seemed to work a lot better. Not sure if I need to get the docking station replaced or if it's a software/OS/driver issue.

At this point I'm pretty confident in saying that this is was all a docking station issue.

Update:
Just installed the latest update (big patch) from Windows Updates. This did not seem to resolve the issue.

 

[sichowation]

just wondering if there was an update on this.

i got my i7/512gb/16gb surface book a couple weeks ago and been trying to get external dual monitors working with the surface dock.

ive been working with MS chat support for a few days off and on.

my issue though is that whenever i resume from the night before, only 1 monitor displays from resume in the morning. it's always the right one too. so every morning i have to disconnect the mDP connection in the dock and move the nonworking one to the working port and then the other one over. then it detects correctly. it also has to be in that order. if i take the owrking mDP port to the other port first, it doesnt work.

i am using (2) Dell U2515H monitors mDP-DP on both.

Otherwise i dont have any issues with flickering, or any of that sort.

I also use the surface book display as the 3rd screen.

 

[orlbuckeye]

Is the flickering caused by the Intel Video driver crash? Mine does that and it don't connect to external monitors. I do have the MS Wireless Display cable and I have to reconnect everytime I switch from TV to the HDMI port I have the adapter.

 

[Mike Hammer1]

I've been having the same problem with the dock as soon as I received it. Very unfortunate as it is a key component to the entire package. A sweet portable versatile laptop convertible in the Surface Book combined with a dock that requires only one connection for charging and docking turning it into a full desktop pc experience.

One interesting thing to note: the dock always seems to connect power, but the remaining connections (usb, etc) all turn off and on intermittently. It seems to happen sometimes when there is movement on the tablet. It might be a connection issue. The magnetic proprietary connector wiggles a bit which might be the issue. I ordered another to test and see if it works well. Could be half are defective in this way.

 

[jandref]

Possible the display driver is crashing? I have similar behavior on an old Dell T7400 with an Nvidia 290 and Win10 - screens cut out momentarily, then back. Sometimes this is followed by a notification that the driver crashed, sometimes not. You should be able to check the system log to see if that's the case.

 

[zombie0]

One interesting thing to note: the dock always seems to connect power, but the remaining connections (usb, etc) all turn off and on intermittently. It seems to happen sometimes when there is movement on the tablet. It might be a connection issue. The magnetic proprietary connector wiggles a bit which might be the issue. I ordered another to test and see if it works well. Could be half are defective in this way.

That is interesting to me, principally because in my experience, the dock often connects the USB devices and external monitor(s) but does not charge the Surface Book. That is, the dock is providing access to its devices, but the Surface Book is running on its battery. I'm not sure if this is a Dock or Book issue.

It usually is resolved by disconnecting and then rebooting the Surface Book.

Incidentally, for what it's worth, I have decided to call off my experiment to use a Surface Book as a workstation replacement. I no longer have any confidence that the device will support two concurrent 4K monitors properly, based on a support page that Microsoft has published. I know it provides no comfort to the rest here, but I must say it is a bit relieving to no longer feel like I care about the dock being a supremely flaky device. The daily routine of Surface Dock frustration really starts to feel like a tax.