External speakers don't work when plugged into Plugable

When I plug my external speakers directly into my Dell laptop, they work fine. When I plug them into my Plugable USB 3.0 docking station, they don’t work. Everything else plugged into the dock works fine. I am on Windows 10. Any suggestions for getting the speakers to work when plugged into my dock?

Hi Evonne,

Thanks for posting, and I would be happy to help you with your docking station!

Based on your description, it sounds like (no pun intended) we just need to make sure that the Default Audio Playback device in Windows is set to ‘Plugable Audio’. I actually made a short video that shows how to check and change this setting here -> https://youtu.be/6iUQxuN2AXwAlthough the video shows Windows 8.1, the steps are the same for Windows 10.

Please let us know if that helps!

Bob
Plugable Technologies
www.plugable.com/support

The fix was simple and worked perfectly! All set now. Thanks a bunch!

Ugh!!! I went to test the playback when using iTunes and now it’s switched back to only playing over the laptop, even though the plugable speaker is default! :frowning:

Hi Evonne,

Thanks for getting back, and while I am glad we made some progress I am sorry iTunes is not working as expected. If the Windows Default Playback Device is still confirmed to be set to ‘Plugable Audio’, the first thing to do is to completely shutdown and then restart your system. Once restarted, check to make sure 'Plugable Audio is still the Default Playback device and then test the behavior with iTunes again.

Please let us know if that helps!

Bob

Thanks, Bob. That’s essentially what I’ve been doing…turning things and and off to try to reset. It works sporadically, so even though it shows plugable as the default, it plays over the laptop until I turn off/on a few times. But eventually it always goes back to the laptop. Ugh!!!

Hi Evonne,

Thanks for getting back, and apologies for the continued frustration. Sporadic issues can be tricky to pin down, and there can be many potential causes including items outside of the dock or its driver. That said, the best way to proceed is to be pragmatic and perform a ‘clean’ install of the required DisplayLink driver for the dock (which includes the audio driver component) to help ensure it is in a good state and not contributing to the current behavior. If you would, please follow these steps:

  1. Disconnect the dock from the system and please remove the power cable from the dock so it turns off completely (this is important so the unit resets). Please keep it disconnected until the last step.
  2. Uninstall any and all software with ‘DisplayLink’ in the title that is present from within the Control Panel -> Programs and Features. Don’t worry if these entries are not present or if the process does not work, just move onto the next step
  3. Download, extract and run the DisplayLink cleaner tool, found here –> https://s3.amazonaws.com/plugable/bin… and ensure it displays “Cleaning Complete” when done (video walk-through if you need it -> https://youtu.be/AcVV1gD_FvI)
  4. Once the Cleaner has been run, reboot (even if not prompted to)
  5. Now download and install the 8.2 M3 DisplayLink software, found here –> https://s3.amazonaws.com/plugable/bin…
  6. Reattach the power cable to the dock first. Once the dock is powered on, reconnect it to your system. If the device is not detected, please reboot the system.

Once complete, please make sure that the ‘Plugable Audio’ device is still set to be the Default Playback Device and test the behavior again. Please let us know if that helps when you have time, and thank you again for your patience!

Bob