How do you disable Displaylink on “Plugable USB 2.0 Universal Docking Station with DisplayLink DVI/VGA up to 1920x1080, Audio, Ethernet, and 4 Available High-Speed USB 2.0 Ports” purchased on Amazon on May 17, 2011.
My wife has a new Acer Aspire laptop with Windows 8 and no longer wants to use her VGA display. I would like to continue to use all of the ports except the video. However, the Displaylink is confusing the computer and using processing resources, slowing things down, even with no monitor attached.
Can I disable it completely or do I need to buy a new port replicator?
Thanks for posting - I understand, and yes you can do that.
The UD-160-A dock you have (http://plugable.com/products/ud-160-a ) has independent controllers for the display, ethernet, audio, and hub. So you can disable one without disabling the others.
What I’d recommend is two steps:
- Disable the USB Graphics device in device manager
To do this, hit the Windows-R hotkey and type devmgmt.msc. Find the “Plugable UD-160-A” entry under “USB Display Adapter”. Right click to bring up the menu for that device and select “Disable”
!](https://d37wxxhohlp07s.cloudfront.net/s3_images/870684/win7-disable-plugable-ud-160-a_inline.PNG?1363113801)](https://d37wxxhohlp07s.cloudfront.net/s3_images/870684/win7-disable-plugable-ud-160-a.PNG?1363113801)
Disabling the device first will stop Windows Update from re-installing the driver later.
- Uninstall “DisplayLink Core Softare” from Windows Programs and Features.
To do this, hit the Windows-R hotkey and type appwiz.cpl. Find the entry for “DisplayLink Core Software” and hit uninstall.
!](https://d37wxxhohlp07s.cloudfront.net/s3_images/870685/win7-programs-and-features-displaylink_inline.PNG?1363113868)](https://d37wxxhohlp07s.cloudfront.net/s3_images/870685/win7-programs-and-features-displaylink.PNG?1363113868)
This will completely uninstall the DisplayLink software.
Only the DVI port on the UD-160-A will be disabled … everything else will continue to work as usual.
Note that on our USB 3.0 docks like the UD-3000 (http://plugable.com/products/ud-3000/ ) the situation is different – for USB 3.0, the DisplayLink chip also provides the Ethernet and Audio functions, so we can’t just uninstall the DisplayLink software in that case.
My apologies for the frustration. But thanks for asking and hope that helps!
Bernie
Thanks for the quick reply. Unfortunately, Windows 8 keeps discovering the device and installing the software the restart.
Any other suggestions?
Thanks for letting us know.
When you did step one to disable the “Plugable UD-160-A” device in device manager - did that appear to work? Could you use Windows built-in “snipping tool” to take a picture of device manager and attach it, so we can see if the device is showing as disabled?
It’s that step that would keep Windows Update from re-installing the driver again.
Thanks!
Bernie
I had the same problem and this is how I fixed it.
After I disabled the USB Display Adapter and uninstalled DisplayLink I did a reboot. On the Start up USB Display Adapter was enabled again, and DisplayLink was asking to be reinstalled. So I hit Cancel on DisplayLink and disabled the USB Display Adapter again. Now when I reboot the USB Display Adapter does to re-enable anymore.
Now my computer is running to much faster.
I have the Sabrent 3.0 Universal Docking Station. When I bought it it looked like the perfect solution for me. I have the Surface Pro 2 and at the time I had 1 monitor for work and homework, and wiring nightmare. The Surface only has one USB port so I had 3 USB hubs to run everything, plus I had to keep changing out the HDMI when I wanted to play games on my TV. The Sabrent 3.0 Universal Docking Station looks great, and I probably wouldn’t have purchased it if it didn’t have the HDMI and DVI ports, but for this to work I think you have to have one hell of a tablet. I am still using it with the display adapter disabled and it is one awesome USB hub (all my wires are hidden and organized), but it is a piece of crap docking station. To play my games I use the SteamLink for my third screen now and it is great unless I play a game that uses all of my ram.
