My Windows 10 desktop PC will not boot if the displays are connected to the dock. If I plug one of the displays into the PC, it will resume booting (looks like it’s hung on the post or bios screen). I can then replug the display into the dock. This makes it hard to use because I cannot ever reboot the PC without manually unplugging / replugging the display cables. Dock is connected via usb-c 3.0 port using the supplied cable. Issue also exists if using the included usb-a to usb-c cable. Help?
Hi,
Thanks for reaching out to us, I am sorry the system is not booting when there are no directly connected displays.
When the system is hung at the BIOS/loading screen and you reconnect the display directly to the computer are there any messages displayed on the screen or is it just the manufacturer’s logo ( for example the Dell Logo ) on the display? If so can you let me know what the messages say?
Most desktop computers are capable of booting to the operating system if there is no display detected, they will normally assume a display is connected and not responding and output a low resolution signal to the “phantom” display that doesn’t exist but it is assumed to exist. A few systems will hang the Power On Self Test (POST) process until a display is detected, it may be possible to change UEFI/BIOS settings to allow loading the operating system without a display connected directly to the system. Please let me know the manufacturer name and model number of the computer and I will look up the specifications and see if I can find any settings that may help to get this system working as desired.
Thank you,
Pat
Plugable Technology
support@plugable.com
When I plug the display in, it’s hung at the manufacturer’s logo. After a few moments, it continues to load and then starts Windows.
I think you’re correct about the ‘phantom display’ because once I connect to the dock and then modify display settings so I can use both monitors, Windows actually shows THREE displays, even though I only have two. One of them is inaccessible, so that’s probably the ‘phantom’ one that it created.
When I look up the info using systeminfo.exe, it says the BIOS is “American Megatrends INC. FA, 7/11/2016”, and system manufacturer is “Gigabyte Technology” (it was a homebuilt PC.) I’ll take a look in the BIOS settings and see if there’s an option that would work.
Hi,
Thanks for the additional details, we can also disconnect the docking station from the computer entirely and power on the system with the display disconnected to see if the system loads to the login/desktop, or if it still hangs at the Gigabyte logo without the docking station.
The BIOS setting may include words like ‘halt’ or ‘wait’ but could be buried in an unexpected location.
Thank you,
In the USB Support settings in the BIOS, there’s an option to make all USB ports/devices available at POST and OS. The default setting is partial initial, which only enables USB support for certain types of devices such as storage devices at POST. Changing it to full initial made it so that it can boot/restart with the dock installed (albeit it’s slow to boot now), so that’s good!!
What’s not so good is that with the dock installed, I can’t boot into the BIOS - the first thing that displays on the screens is the Windows startup graphics. I still have to connect a display directly to the PC in order to access the BIOS, but that’s not a big deal because I rarely have to do that.
The ‘phantom display’ still shows up in the Windows display properties as ‘display 1’, though the ‘resolution’ is blank and grayed out, so it’s clearly not a real display. I don’t think that’s a problem, it’s just a little odd.
So I should be good now. Thanks - I wouldn’t have thought to go into the BIOS.
Hi,
That’s great, I am glad the system is booting with the docking station attached now!
The BIOS will only be visible on a monitor directly connected to the computer, the DisplayLink software that controls the external displays through the docking station is not loaded until after the BIOS hands off to Windows, this is the expected behavior.
As long as the ‘phantom’ display is disabled or showing up as you described it should be no problem, the system will always want to have a display connected directly to the graphics controller but it looks like the settings are all correct and only the displays connected to the docking station are active.
Please let me know if you have any additional questions, I am happy to help!
I will go ahead and mark this thread as closed in a couple of days, if you have any questions after that please feel free to open a new thread or send us an email at ‘support@plugable.com’ and we will be happy to help!
Thank you,
Pat
Plugable Technology
support@plugable.com
Thanks for your help. The BIOS thing makes sense, but it’s not a big deal since it’s so rare that I need to go in there. Right now it’s taking a long time for it to wake from sleep when connected to the dock, and it seems to do some display calibration every time it wakes up. I am going to play around with the power/sleep settings and see if there’s just something that’s out of wack there. Probably just need to change some setting.
Yep - found a power setting in Windows. Everything’s fine now. Thanks again!!
Hi,
Thanks for letting me know you have everything working as desired!
If you have a moment, do you mind if I ask what power setting helped?
I will go ahead and close this thread in a couple of days in case you have any additional questions.
Thank you!
Pat
Plugable Technology
support@plugable.com
I had to set it to never go to sleep, so ‘high performance’ rather than ‘balanced’ or ‘power saver’
Hi,
Thanks for the additional details, I am glad that everything is working as desired now and I will go ahead and close the thread. Please feel free to reach out to us again if you have any additional questions, either through this forum or directly via email at ‘support@plugable.com’.
Thank you,
Pat
Plugable Technology
support@plugable.com
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