Surface Dock Detaching Issue

[ABswl13]

I have a Surface Book (i7, 256gb, 8gb ram) and recently purchased the Surface dock for it to connect to one external monitor. The issue I'm having is that when I unplug the surface dock's cord from my Surface Book's charging port, the screen on my Surface Book turns off and I can't get it started unless I do a hard reboot. Needless to say, this is quite irritating.

Does anyone know what I can do to prevent my Surface Book's screen from shutting off when I disconnect it from the Surface dock? Thanks!

 

[Nuspieds]

I do not have a solution but rest assured you are not alone.

Perhaps it is the SB firmware or Display Drivers or a combination of both or something, but I, too, continually experience the frustrating issue of disconnecting the Dock power from the SB only to end up rendering the screen blank and completely useless.

It is so infuriating!

 

[ABswl13]

Thanks for the reply Nuspieds and at least I'm not the only one with this issue. It really is quite annoying!

 

[ctballos]

Well I thought I had it fixed. I powered down mid afternoon and just powered back up, about three hours later, only to find a 40% drain in the battery while the machine was powered off. So I tested the detach button only to find it had some needing to be resolved issues. I like the SB but I only have a week left before I can return it. I'll try working it a little longer but I fear it's going back to Best Buy until I read this nearly $3k tool with taxes actually works. I don't mind being a Beta tester but not if I need to pay for the non pleasure.

 

[ctballos]

Well folks for what its worth here is what is stopping me from detaching the clipboard from the base. The elevated process has to do the Surface detach process and the other two are related to the OneDrive upload process. I have no files pending for upload and for some reason I have to go into Task Manager to stop the three every time I push the detach button. After I clear them it detaches. When I reboot the same problem comes back. I've already wiped and reinstalled Win 10 and my programs twice with no avail.

 

[Nuspieds]

Bizarre.

Have you tried a safe boot? As in disable all non-MS startup apps and services and see if it works in that mode?

 

[ctballos]

Bizarre.

Have you tried a safe boot? As in disable all non-MS startup apps and services and see if it works in that mode?

Hi Nuspieds, no I haven't. I just tried and have to find my Bitlocker key or it won't let me back in. I'll figure out where the key is, try it out, and report back later. Thanks.

 

[ctballos]

Hi Nuspieds, I tried booting in Safe Mode and the Clipboard disconnected normally without any error messages, twice. But when I reconnected the Clipboard, twice, I got an Internal Power Source Error and the device rebooted. I've got a few more days before I can return it and wait until MS works out the bugs. It took a year before they got the SP3 to work as advertised, I'm not waiting a year for the SB problems to work out. Thanks for your input.

 

[Nuspieds]

Hi Nuspieds, no I haven't. I just tried and have to find my Bitlocker key or it won't let me back in. I'll figure out where the key is, try it out, and report back later. Thanks.

I believe you are thinking about Safe Mode, which is not what I meant; however, it is still a valid troubleshooting procedure, but something I would only pursue after testing out safe boot.

Do this:

1. Press Win+R
2. Type msconfig and press Enter
3. Click on the Services tab
4. Select the "Hide all Microsoft Services" option
5. Press the "Disable all" button
6. Click on the Startup tab
7. Click on the link inside for Task Manager to show the Startup apps
8. Disable all your custom apps
9. Click the Apply button
10. Reboot

Steps 6-8 are a bit tedious, so consider splitting the above into two phases: First, try with just the non-MS services disabled and if that still gives you the same issue, go one step further and disable your custom Startup apps.

If after disabling all non-MS services and custom startup apps you are still experiencing the issue, then boot into Safe Mode and see what happens there. Note that Safe Mode is limited so some troubleshooting techniques will not work because certain basic functionality of the OS has not been loaded.

 

[Nuspieds]

Hi Nuspieds, I tried booting in Safe Mode and the Clipboard disconnected normally without any error messages, twice. But when I reconnected the Clipboard, twice, I got an Internal Power Source Error and the device rebooted. I've got a few more days before I can return it and wait until MS works out the bugs. It took a year before they got the SP3 to work as advertised, I'm not waiting a year for the SB problems to work out. Thanks for your input.

Well, if it booted into Safe Mode and the eject worked, then it certainly signals that some additional OS/custom app is interfering.

I wouldn't be too concerned about reconnecting and Safe Mode because as I stated above, Safe Mode is restricted, so certain OS functionalities are not loaded. However, the fact that it works in Safe Mode means that it should work with the non-MS services loaded; if that holds true, then you can start narrowing things down to one or more of your custom apps.

 

[ctballos]

Well, if it booted into Safe Mode and the eject worked, then it certainly signals that some additional OS/custom app is interfering.

I wouldn't be too concerned about reconnecting and Safe Mode because as I stated above, Safe Mode is restricted, so certain OS functionalities are not loaded. However, the fact that it works in Safe Mode means that it should work with the non-MS services loaded; if that holds true, then you can start narrowing things down to one or more of your custom apps.

Thanks Nuspieds. Looks straight forward I'll start eliminating possibilities and report back soon. Again thanks for your help.

 

[ctballos]

Nuspieds, the culprit was TurboCad 2015. I wasn't able to detect it by disabling the apps so this morning I wiped Windows 10 and started over. Then installed one app at a time. Everything worked perfectly, except for the battery life, and the last app I installed was TurboCad which gave me the same problems over again. Uninstalling TurboCad did not fix the problem so I am again reinstalling Windows. I appreciate your help, thank you.