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jnjroach

Administrator
Staff member
I am having issues being able to extend the desktop to 2 external screens.

I just purchased a surface book 2 - 15" with the following specs:

- 16GB RAM 1866Mhz LPDDR3

- 8th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-8650U quad-core processor

- 4.2GHz Max Turbo and NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1060 discrete GPU with 6GB GDDR5 graphics memory.

I also purchased a surface dock. The surface dock has 2 x mini DP ports and 2 x USB 3.0 ports.

I also have a Dell Ultra Sharp 34” Curved Ultrawide Monitor (U3415W). The Dell U3415W monitor has the following video inputs: 1 x mini DP, 1 x DP, 1 x HDMI and 1 x MHL. And has the capability of displaying 4 discrete video inputs simultaneously (supposedly).

I connected the surface dock to the monitor with 2 cables. The first connection is from the surface dock mini DP port to the monitor's HDMI video input using a mini DP to DP cable and a DP to HDMI converter. The second connection is from the surface dock mini DP port to the monitor’s DP video input using a mini DP to DP cable.

When I try to extend the desktop to utilize the monitor as 2 independent screens, Windows 10 only recognizes one of the screens (the HDMI input on the monitor). Windows 10 does not recognize the screen via the DP input on the monitor. Also, the screen displays the HDMI input, but the monitor tells me there is no signal from the DP input (although it knows there is a cable plugged into the DP input).

Can anyone help me? I would like to leave the surface book connected to the surface dock (with the surface book closed) and have the desktop extended to 2 screens on the single monitor. Thanks for any help you can provide.
Please don't cross-post, you started another thread...
 

BenJM

New Member
I'm having problems connecting my Surface Laptop to my LG 29UM58 ultrawide display.
The strange thing is I've just upgraded from a Surface Pro 3 and that worked absolutely fine, and I'm using the same HDMI and MiniDP > HDMI cables
It will only display at 1920x1080
Thanks
 

Kennung1

New Member
I have a 15" SB2 and have a weird issue with my monitor:

I have connected an Eizo EV2785 4k monitor via the Surface Dock. My problem is, that I only get full 4k resolution when I extend the display. When I want to show the screen just on the external monitor, I only get 1024x768.
So:
- Extended screen: Surface Display at full res, external display at full 4k res.
- only external screen: (internal display off) external display at 1024 x 768

I tried with:
- miniDP -> HDMI cable
- two types of miniDP -> DP cable

System: W10Pro, all latest updates, nVidia 419.67, latest surface dock firmware (just checked again).

Any idea what the reason might be?

[edit]
Could the reson be different output frequencies (SB display @60hz, external @30hz)?
 
Last edited:

Paul Duxbury

New Member
Hi, this thread looks really useful. Please does anyone have experience of using a Surface Book with the Dell ultrawide 49" monitor? I cannot get my Surface Book to deliver resolution greater than 3000 x 2000 and I need more!
 

jcole

New Member
Been using a Type C USB hub for several years now with two additional monitors plugged in via HDMI. Works great! Monday worked just fine. Tuesday I powered up and neither external monitor displayed. Fooled around with plugging, unplugging, restarting and one monitor would work at a time, but not both. So I coped. Wednesday I powered up and neither
 

jcole

New Member
Been using a Type C USB hub for several years now with two additional monitors plugged in via HDMI. Works great! Monday worked just fine. Tuesday I powered up and neither external monitor displayed. Fooled around with plugging, unplugging, restarting and one monitor would work at a time, but not both. So I coped. Wednesday I powered up and neither external monitor will display in any way.

Interestingly, if I go to System/Display, it showed the SB screen and the two monitors on Tuesday, but only one external will show today. And when clicking on Advanced Settings and selecting the external, it shows "Display 2 isn't active". I don't see any way to "activate" it.
1697730451000.png

Any suggestions? I have to wonder if it's an automatic driver update that messed things up.

I took the whole USB hub with the two HDMIs and ethernet port attached, plugged them into a cheap Dell I bought about a year ago, and both monitors display just fine! So I don't think it's the hub or cables. Also, it doesn't seem like it would be a failing Type C port on the SB2, because *something* is reading through if the display shows as "not active", and also because the ethernet works fine. I would love anyone's recommendations!
 
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