Surface Pro won't work with my new Dell monitor (after 4/9 update) - HELP puh-lease

[steveashe]

Pulling my hair out; well not literally. Bought the SP a couple of months ago, love it but for whatever reason it refuses to work with my Dell S2440L monitor. I bought the monitor specifically for the SP on 3/29, worked beautifully until I did Surface Pro update (including firmware) on 4/9. The monitor is now no longer returnable to BestBuy (their new 15 day return policy) and I'm sort of stuck with a monitor for my SP that simply doesn't work with the SP. I exchanged the SP for a new one last weekend, Microsoft was really very nice about that, and the new one worked fine again until it automatically went through all the updates from Microsoft....(I guess I now know to keep automatic updates off). Microsoft has no good answer even after I escalated the issue last week; the answer I just received from my escalation is "Unfortunately, we do not have specific insight into bugs and software updates once we report the issue but hopefully, the issue will be resolved in a near update".

I've decreased the resolution, I've tried 2 different mini display port to HDMI cables. Anyone else running into this problem with this particular monitor? Thoughts and workarounds? Thanks very much,

Steve

 

[tonyz3]

How about somemore details on what it's doing or nor doing.

 

[steveashe]

When plugged in to the mini display port on the SP, the Dell S2440l goes right into power saver mode. does not detect a monitor is plugged in. otherwise the screen is just blank (black). The Dell monitor works fine with my Lenovo x230s laptop when plugged into Lenovo VGA port so don't think its a problem monitor. And the SP mini displayport to HDMI works fine with my Samsung hdtv. Just seems that the SP does not like the Dell after the 4/9 update.

 

[mitchellvii]

Well, so far the update that has been wrecking havoc in general with the SP is KB2822241.

Go into your installed updates and uninstall it. Reboot and then go back into updates, search for updates, select it from the list, uncheck then right click and hide it so it doesn't install again. Also, turn off automatic updating. Safer to do it manually.

If that doesn't work you can always do a full wipe restore then install the non-virus definition updates (those can all be installed) one by one until you find the one that is breaking things then do the same to it. It is painstaking but if you want your monitor to work, then it's a way to go.

I am assuming you have already exhaustively searched online for anyone else having a similar problem so I won't recommend that.

ONE OTHER THOUGHT: Are you running the latest HD 4000 drivers from Intel? Try setting up your monitors from the HD 4000 Control Panel instead of Screen Resolution. Make sure all the settings for your monitor in the Control Panel are correct.

I have noticed that major updates kind of mess up the HD 4000 Control Panel. Try re-installing it after the update.

 

[steveashe]

Thank you for the advice! I appreciate the time you took to understand and respond. I had an idea earlier today; I went to Best Buy with my SP, and one of my mini display port cables. They had the Dell monitor on display. I tried it with my cable, thought maybe my monitor's HDMI port was defective. Well the SP did not work with the monitor on display either. So..figured one last shot, while I was there, I'd try a Rocketfish mini display port to HDMI adapter and then connect to HDMI through that. Worked great. Bought the adapter and am writing this note from my SP connected to the Dell monitor at home. I have absolutely no idea why this works but a straight cable connection does not (but did before 4/9), maybe there is an active something or other in the adapter. The part number of the adapter is RF-AP305. If this helps someone else with the same issue, that would be great.

 

[machistmo]

Bad cables happen. They are not very common but they do happen. I had one just the other day. Annoying.

 

[Jaxon]

My surface 3 screen goes black when I pug my external monitor into mini display port. Anyone have any ideas what to do??