SP3 will not recognize monitor plugged into Dock

[mtalinm]

been working well for months, but last night the screen started flickering on and off and eventually I had to hold the power button for 20 sec to power it off. when it came back on, it wouldn't recognize the monitor plugged into the Dock, though the one plugged into the Surface itself was fine. swapped the monitors and sure enough, whichever one was plugged into the Dock was blank.

I thought maybe the Dock was broken, but when I got to work I plugged it in to the Dock I have here and got the exact same behavior. so I am pretty sure something is wrong with the SP3.

probably no one has seen this, but any ideas?

 

[agt499]

As much as I think the industrial design of the dock is excellent compared to any other ultrabook dock, the drivers/software/whatever that sends signals to the display has been inconsistent for me.
In order of preference, I suggest:

1. Fully Shutdown Everything
   Shut windows down with the command shutdown /f /s /t 0 (that's a zero on the end), and power the dock and monitors right off at the mains.
   
2. Try installing latest Intel Drivers
   
3. Reset your SP3

My guess is that each of those at some level force windows to really think about your monitors.
In my case when I did the Win10 upgrade everything was perfect except it would not see external monitors. Full reinstall fixed it.

 

[agt499]

Since posting this my wife's SP3 finished its Win10 upgrade and had the exact problems I'd had.
I noted that Device Manager was showing 3 monitors, with Hardware IDs matching the externals.
I downloaded monitor drivers (Dell in my case), to no obvious advantage other than the driver install program definitely detected the monitors.
The monitors still wouldn't detect in the Windows Screen resolutions dialog, or with Win+P Extend.
Next I tried Advanced Display Settings at the bottom of the Windows Screen resolutions dialog, and despite detecting only 1 monitor it had an option to extend display. Messed around with these a bit and eventually if came right.
Frustrating, but working.

 

[mtalinm]

As much as I think the industrial design of the dock is excellent compared to any other ultrabook dock, the drivers/software/whatever that sends signals to the display has been inconsistent for me.
In order of preference, I suggest:

1. Fully Shutdown Everything
   Shut windows down with the command shutdown /f /s /t 0 (that's a zero on the end), and power the dock and monitors right off at the mains.
   
2. Try installing latest Intel Drivers
   
3. Reset your SP3

My guess is that each of those at some level force windows to really think about your monitors.
In my case when I did the Win10 upgrade everything was perfect except it would not see external monitors. Full reinstall fixed it.

thanks for these suggestions. #1 did not help, and when I tried #2 the intel drivers said you-must-use-the-driver-customized-for-your-device. I think I will stop by the MSFT store before resorting to #3, though it seems inevitable (and may not even work).

 

[agt499]

thanks for these suggestions. #1 did not help, and when I tried #2 the intel drivers said you-must-use-the-driver-customized-for-your-device. I think I will stop by the MSFT store before resorting to #3, though it seems inevitable (and may not even work).

Hi - check my second post, as I managed to get my wife's one in a similar situation to yours working, by futzing with things in Advanced Display Settings.
Before you return to the MSFT store it's at least worth confirming:

1. Does Device Manager show multiple monitors? (My wife's did)
2. If so does 'Detect' in the Advanced Display Settings find them? (My wife's didn't initially)

Those two bits of info are likely to be useful to support staff.

Good luck!

 

[mtalinm]

thanks i did try that but with no luck. maybe the setting is more helpful in win10 than win8, not sure. Detect does nothing, unfortunately.

went to MSFT store and they said this was a problem some months back but not anymore so they don't know what to do. they said upgrading to win10 (yuck) might help, so I may hold my nose and try that. or might just do the dreaded reset and then resync 200G of files (double yuck).

thanks again for the tips

 

[agt499]

It's probably little consolation, but I'm finding Windows 10 pretty good, especially with regard to setting difference display scaling for the external monitors.
As you say the file resync thing after reset is retarded: I have partitioned mine to keep my files off the C: drive, and I use sync options where I can just wake up that local copy rather than resync everything, which makes it pretty painless by comparison.

 

[mtalinm]

full reset finally did the trick. not pleasant.

I've either reset my Surface or had to exchange it for a new one half a dozen times.