Surface Pro 2 Dual Monitor Setup Help

[javispedro]

I bought the Plugable UD-3900 and a mini Display Port to HDMI converter to power my two monitors on the SP2. I have been experiencing poor performance when doing something as simple as typing an email or searching for something online. Does anyone know if there is a reason for this? This slow performance doens't happen all the time either and I can't figure out why. On a previous post it warned of slower performace but I didn't think it would this bad. If anyone has any suggestions on how to fix it that would be great.

It may happen when you're using any other USB device on the SFPro? Such as the SD card, Wi-Fi, ...?

 

[joeysargent]

Use the Charms menu: Select Devices, then Project. You will then see the available options, one of which is Extend.

To set your primary monitor, right-click on the Desktop and select "Screen Resolution". Then select your to-be primary monitor from the "Display:" dropdown (or click on its icon in the area above the dropdown). Then select "Make this my main display" checkbox. As you can see from the dropdown above the checkbox, you can also set multi-monitor display settings on this screen as well.

Thank you for the response. This does work to some extent, but I am still faced with the Surface seeing my 2 Dell monitors as a single monitor. If I press detect then both monitors display "2". I am able to move extend from the Surface to the 2 Dell monitors and set the Dell monitors as the default monitor. I then see the same image duplicated on both Dell monitors with the Surface showing the extended desktop as it should.

What I want to accomplish is the following...
Have Dell monitor 1 be the primary showing the default desktop
Have Dell monitor 2 be the secondary monitor showing the "extended desktop"
Have Surface be blank or show the "extended desktop" or just show a duplicate of what Dell monitor 2 shows.

I am using Displayport chaining directly from the surface and not the docking station. I would like to purchase the dock but I do not see the need if I cannot actually use 2 external monitors that will work as I have stated above.

Thank you,
Joe

 

[Nuspieds]

Thank you for the response. This does work to some extent, but I am still faced with the Surface seeing my 2 Dell monitors as a single monitor. If I press detect then both monitors display "2". I am able to move extend from the Surface to the 2 Dell monitors and set the Dell monitors as the default monitor. I then see the same image duplicated on both Dell monitors with the Surface showing the extended desktop as it should.

What I want to accomplish is the following...
Have Dell monitor 1 be the primary showing the default desktop
Have Dell monitor 2 be the secondary monitor showing the "extended desktop"
Have Surface be blank or show the "extended desktop" or just show a duplicate of what Dell monitor 2 shows.

I am using Displayport chaining directly from the surface and not the docking station. I would like to purchase the dock but I do not see the need if I cannot actually use 2 external monitors that will work as I have stated above.

Thank you,
Joe

By default, your Dell monitor will have DP 1.2 disabled, which is required for daisy-chaining. Go into your menu options for your Monitor 1 and enable DP 1.2, then your Surface will see two external monitors.

 

[joeysargent]

That fixed it!

By default, your Dell monitor will have DP 1.2 disabled, which is required for daisy-chaining. Go into your menu options for your Monitor 1 and enable DP 1.2, then your Surface will see two external monitors.

Thank you for your response and not pointing what should have been an obvious thing on my part. I am working now and the monitors are behaving as I desire. Thanks again for your help.
-Joe

 

[Nuspieds]

Thank you for your response and not pointing what should have been an obvious thing on my part. I am working now and the monitors are behaving as I desire. Thanks again for your help.
-Joe

Fantastic!

Glad things are now working as you wanted and you're very welcome!

 

[JesseDiaz]

The Surface Pro 2 features mini Display Port 1.2, which allows you to daisy chain up to 4x monitors at 1920x1200 together from 1 plug.
However, your monitors needs to support this. You can use a special type of splitter (properly called: Multi Stream Transport (MST) Hub), but miles will vary if it works well for you or not.

You stated that DP 1.2 supports 4 monitors....Im no expert and what you say might be true...but for the SP3, you can only support 3 monitors...I have tried several times to get 4 displays going ( one being my sp3 ) but it is not supported. I think the GPU is the limitation

 

[jnjroach]

You stated that DP 1.2 supports 4 monitors....Im no expert and what you say might be true...but for the SP3, you can only support 3 monitors...I have tried several times to get 4 displays going ( one being my sp3 ) but it is not supported. I think the GPU is the limitation

This is due to the higher resolution of the Surface Pro 3....

 

[GoodBytes]

That is right. It's 4 display in total, at 1920x1200/1920x1080.
Higher the resolution, the less displays you can plug. If each screen is 800x600, you can plug a bunch of them.

DisplayPort shows this table:

 

[JesseDiaz]

That is right. It's 4 display in total, at 1920x1200/1920x1080.
Higher the resolution, the less displays you can plug. If each screen is 800x600, you can plug a bunch of them.

DisplayPort shows this table:

But would I be correct in saying that the limitation is not the DP...its the SP3 GPU.....hence only 3 displays can be active due to the 4300 GPU

 

[GoodBytes]

Hard to say. Intel HD4400 (what is in the U4300 CPU), can only do 4K 30Hz, not 4K 60Hz, like what DisplayPort 1.2 can do. So, the limited bandwidth from the Intel GPU can play a part.