On my 3rd Docking Station, and this one ain't working either

[tuchas]

I am still having docking station problems - two of them that are unacceptable. Let me preface this by saying Microsoft just sent me my 3rd dock and told me to get rid of the second one. And this is my second SP3, and I tested it with a friend's SP3 - all of which have the same issues. Customer and technical support are worthless - they are like lemmings reading from a script and their supervisors aren't capable of helping. The only issue fixed was video problems I had with the first one.

So the two lingering issues are as follows:

1. I cannot boot up the SP3 in the dock. It freezes at the "Surface" screen. I have to do a hard power down before rebooting, which is probably wreaking havoc on the OS. Booting unlocked first is the only workaround, but why should we have to do this nonsense?
2. I have a Logitech wireless keyboard and mouse with a USB dongle. If the dongle is plugged into the dock, I get a message about too many USB resources. It is not specific to this brand of keyboard - I also tried a MS brand of keyboard and mouse with the same issue. The only workaround is to plug the dongle right in the USB port ON the SP3, which defeats the purpose of the dock to a degree.

Any thoughts? Anyone with similar issues? Any comments will be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[leeshor]

I had a customer with a boot problem just this week and his system would not start. He called me and all I could suggest was trying to start with nothing plugged into the USB ports. That worked. In his case we plugged in one thing at a time and restarted until we determined his wired mouse was causing the problem. Obviously not your problem, but it does sound like either something that's plugged in or a power issue on an external device. I have seen this problem on everything from mice to monitors.

 

[GreyFox7]

Do you have the cover attached I seem to recall someone having an issue with that.

 

[David NC]

Unfortunately the MS Dock is woefully underpowered for USB devices. I know, I tried two of them. Pretty much any type of wireless dongle will put it over the edge immediately. The best solution, since you probably are using these devices when the SP3 is docked, is to buy a powered USB hub (I picked one up at BestBuy with 7 ports, plenty for my needs), plug everything into that , and then plug the hub into the SP3 dock. Ridiculous, I know, but the convenience of the dock itself makes up for the money the powered hub costs.

 

[HarnessTech]

Interesting, as I have an external drive, a Microsoft LifeCam, and Logitech Unifying Receiver powering a mouse and keyboard all plugged into my MS Docking Station USB ports and I have precisely zero issues. I also have a 3440x1440 ultrawide monitor plugged into the miniDisplay port. All that said, this is my second dock and the first one was total crap. The new one they sent is working beautifully. I'm not trying to rub it in, just saying that the experience I'm having is exactly the experience you should be having as well.

 

[tuchas]

Unfortunately the MS Dock is woefully underpowered for USB devices. I know, I tried two of them. Pretty much any type of wireless dongle will put it over the edge immediately. The best solution, since you probably are using these devices when the SP3 is docked, is to buy a powered USB hub (I picked one up at BestBuy with 7 ports, plenty for my needs), plug everything into that , and then plug the hub into the SP3 dock. Ridiculous, I know, but the convenience of the dock itself makes up for the money the powered hub costs.

David, that is actually a novel idea. I may just do that to get over the hump, but still, this needs to be fixed by MS. Question - before I spend the money on a USB 3.0 hub, how do we know that will solve the problem with the wireless dongle?

 

[tuchas]

Interesting, as I have an external drive, a Microsoft LifeCam, and Logitech Unifying Receiver powering a mouse and keyboard all plugged into my MS Docking Station USB ports and I have precisely zero issues. I also have a 3440x1440 ultrawide monitor plugged into the miniDisplay port. All that said, this is my second dock and the first one was total crap. The new one they sent is working beautifully. I'm not trying to rub it in, just saying that the experience I'm having is exactly the experience you should be having as well.

I don't know, HarnessTech, but you seem to be one of the few with a working dock. Is there a batch number of some sort on the box that you can reference? Just curious because the batch number of the third one that MS just sent me is a LOWER number than the 2nd one they gave me. Don't know if that's the issue but worth a shot.

 

[agt499]

I don't know, HarnessTech, but you seem to be one of the few with a working dock. Is there a batch number of some sort on the box that you can reference? Just curious because the batch number of the third one that MS just sent me is a LOWER number than the 2nd one they gave me. Don't know if that's the issue but worth a shot.

For what it's worth I have a working dock too,so maybe it's me and HarnessTech.
I have a logitech dongle for mouse, and a Microsoft one for keyboard attached, plus sometimes external HDD.
I have had 'keyboard doesnt work' about 6 times in as many months, usually solved by undock/redock, and the external monitors do something weird (it varies) about 1 in 10 times.
However 90% reliable sounds heaps better than yours.
It's a shame MS support are useless: Your issue with being unable to boot, and having too many USB resources reported, sound like there is something stuffed with the internal USB hub in the dock. Have you tried disabling boot from USB in BIOS? If that made any difference, it might point to the internal hub somehow misrepresenting to BIOS that there were an external device to boot from.
Also, if you could post what USB devices are reported in Device Manager when docked, maybe some of us can compare and look for a clue?

 

[tuchas]

For what it's worth I have a working dock too,so maybe it's me and HarnessTech.
I have a logitech dongle for mouse, and a Microsoft one for keyboard attached, plus sometimes external HDD.
I have had 'keyboard doesnt work' about 6 times in as many months, usually solved by undock/redock, and the external monitors do something weird (it varies) about 1 in 10 times.
However 90% reliable sounds heaps better than yours.
It's a shame MS support are useless: Your issue with being unable to boot, and having too many USB resources reported, sound like there is something stuffed with the internal USB hub in the dock. Have you tried disabling boot from USB in BIOS? If that made any difference, it might point to the internal hub somehow misrepresenting to BIOS that there were an external device to boot from.
Also, if you could post what USB devices are reported in Device Manager when docked, maybe some of us can compare and look for a clue?

Interesting suggestion, but turning the BIOS to boot to USB only does NOT fix the boot up problem. In the meantime I did try David NC's idea with a powered USB hub and that fixed the wireless dongle problem. It shouldn't have to be that way, but it's fine for now. Thanks.

 

[GegeNY]

I have the same problem, I'm at my second docking station, the only thing that work is charging.
I stopped at the Microsoft store, they tried everything, no luck.
Apparently it's the contacts from the dock to the tablet, something in the tablet plug is bad. They ask me to reset the surface pro 3 to find more about the problem, but first I want to be sure everything is backup, then if that doesn't work, they will exchange the Surface. So I will know more during the coming week.

 

[GreyFox7]

I'm on my FIRST Targus USB 3.0 Docking Station and it works beautifully on my Surface and Laptops.

 

[tuchas]

I'm on my FIRST Targus USB 3.0 Docking Station and it works beautifully on my Surface and Laptops.

While I appreciate the fact that your Targus dock is working fine, your comment is not about the MS branded dock - save for the fact that now I know what to buy if this crap cannot be solved.