I have been running with the Multi-Display adapter (USB 3.0 to DVI) for several months with no issues, but as of last week, either some update or other culprit has stopped powering the Plugable DisplayLink adapter (no blue light) from the Surface Dock. I have rebooted, reseated, switched to all the other USB ports on the dock, but no power. However, when I plug it into the only one, highly valuable, USB 3.0 port on the Surface Pro 4 itself, it works fine. I would like to know how to get it to work again on the Dock with ample USB 3.0 ports rather than suck up the only available port on the Surface Pro 4.
NOTE: I have verified all the USB 3.0 ports work on the Dock using other devices.
Hi Ian, thanks for posting! Sorry to hear that our dock is not working while connected to your Surface Dock and I will be happy to help!
I am not quite understanding what is happening based off of the behavior you describe. Just to clarify, the Blue LED power light is not lit when you connect our dock to the power adapter that came with the dock and then connect the USB cable from our dock to the Surface Pro dock? However, when you connect our dock directly to the USB port that is on the Surface Pro 4, it works and the Blue LED light is illuminated? I have not heard of this happening before so I am curious what we may find.
From here, we’ll want to examine some log files to see if they can tell us what is happening. To help us do so please download and run our diagnostic utility PlugDebug –> http://plugable.com/support/plugdebug with our dock connected to your Surface Docking station (even though it is not working). Please send us the file that is created on your Desktop by attaching it to an email to our direct support email at support@plugable.com with ‘Ticket Number 157174’ in the subject line so we can match everything up. We will examine the logs and determine next steps from there.
I sent the diag logs. One more thing I observed. It started working from the Surface Dock today again, but when I removed the Dock connector to leave my desk with my Surface, the monitor attached to the Display Adapter remained powered showing a still frame of the last thing it was displaying right before I disconnected the Dock connector. When I reconnected the Dock connector, the frozen screen still remained and was not an active extension of my desktop. I had to unplug the Display Adapter from the USB port on the Dock to reset the connection, but after that it now does not power up again (blue LED off) and nothing on the monitor when plugged into the Dock. Of course, plugging it into the one USB port on the Surface works as previously noted.