hmdi port does not work on usb 3.0 docking station

#1

I have a Dell Venue 8 Pro connected to a Pluggable USB 3.0 Dual Monitor Docking Station. I am trying to connect it to a Dell HDTV monitor. I can only get it to work through the DVI/VGA port adapter. Even then, I cannot duplicate the display. It wiil work in “second screen only mode”. The HDMI port will not work at all even though I set TV input to HDMI1, here the HDMI cable terminates. Consequently, I have no sound and poor pitre quality.

#2

Hi Janette,

Thanks for posting! Sorry for the frustration - we’ll work to help.

Some background on mirroring first: Windows mirroring duplicates the exact same resolution on both screens. The Dell Venue 8 Pro and USB graphics drivers don’t support mirroring the Venue 8’s (relatively small 1280x800) screen. If they did, the result on the large 1920x1080 screen would have issues (poor image, stretching), or in many cases might not work. “Extended” or “projector only” mode (from the quick Windows-P projector config hotkey) are the recommended options, as they allow you to use the large display at full, native resolution.

Let’s try to solve the HDMI problem. The video quality is the same for DVI and HDMI, but as you say, HDMI carries audio so we really want to get that working, since the HDTV is going to have much better speakers than the Dell Venue 8 Pro.

The most common challenge with connecting to TVs, is some TVs are designed with the assumption that PCs are only to be connected to their VGA port (only that port returns EDID information on the capability of the monitor, and USB graphics drivers depend on getting that information to enable the port). Or, it could be some other connectivity issue (specific to HDMI, since we know DVI/VGA works).

To figure out next steps for that:

  1. Could you let us know what the exact model of Dell HDTV it is? We’ll look up the manual for information about whether the inputs behave differently.
  2. Could you say roughly how long the HDMI cable is? HDMI cables < 15 feet are usually fine, but some longer ones have trouble returning EDID.

Thanks for these two pieces of information, and thanks for your patience while we work to help!
Bernie

#3