Surface Book mini-DP to external monitor not working

[CedricRoggwiller]

Hello dear community,

it is the first time that I ask a question in a forum like this because normally I can find all the answers to my questions on google or forums like this but not with my current problem.

My setup:
Surface Book (manufacturer number: CR7-00014)
Surface Docking Station (man. nr.: PD9-00004)
Asus VS278Q or Samsung U28E590D (man. nr.: LU28E590DS/EN)
Available adapters/Cables:
- Active mini-DP to HDMI adapter (man. nr.: CAC-1070
- Microsoft mini-DP to HDMI adapter 1553
- HDMI 2.0 or 1.4
- mini-DP to DP cable 1.4
- Plugable USB 3.0 Dual 4K HDMI 2.0 Adapter (man. nr.: USB3-6950-HDMI)

My problem:

Since I've bought my Surface Book 1.5 years ago, I've never been able to connect a external monitor through my mini-DP port. In the assumption that my mini-DP port was defective, I've bought a Surface Docking Station and tried to connect through one of those two mini-DP. Same result - no secondary monitor detected.

When I connect it with the Plugable adapter and the HMDI cable, the monitor receives a signal but I can't work with it because there is too much lag as the Windows Driver Foundation is eating around 40% of my CPU.

What I've tried so far:
General:
- Installing newest Windows Updates
- And yes I've checked the display settings on my monitor and if the cables are plugged in correctly.
- Tried connecting the Surface Book directly to one of the monitors by using either the mini-DP to DP cable or the active mini-DP to HDMI adapter with the HDMI cable. Also tried the same with the Surface Docking Station.
- Tried my setup (Monitor and Surface Docking Station) with another Surface Book - It worked perfectly

Display adapters:
- Updated the two display adapters with the newest drivers available (Intel HD Graphics 520 (Driverdate: 23.09.2017, Driverversion: 22.20.16.4811), NVIDIA GeForce GPU (23.01.2018, 23.21.13.9077)
- Uninstalled the display adapter drivers, rebooted my system and installed all the drivers again

Surface docking station:
- Docking Station is charging my Surface Book when plugged in and my sound system also works (connected through the 3.5mm audio port)
- Cleared the display cache by running the surface dock registry.reg.
- Tried to update the firmware of the Surface Docking Station with the Surface Dock Update (Surface_Dock_Updater_v2.12.136.0.msi) but this updater always ends prematurely.

What I haven't tried so far:

One of my last options would be a complete factory reset of my Surface in the assumption that one of the installed programs causes this problem. I do not like this option because it would cost a lot of time to install all my programs again and it is not guaranteed that it would work.

My questions:

- Does anyone has or had similar problems? Could you solve them? And if yes, how?
- Apart from reinstalling/updating the display adapters, what else can I do? As it is not working either with or without the Surface Docking Station, I assume that the problem lays with the Surface Book itself.
- Is there a possibility to reduce the amount of CPU used by the Windows Driver Foundation? If I can reduce this amount, it would be an acceptable workaround.

Thanks for your help and best wishes

Cedric

 

[EHoskinson]

I do not have a Surface Book but I would suspect the mini DP / HDMI adapters as one doesn't work and the other is slow. From what I read you have tried them from both the SB and the dock with the same result. I would try a different cable or adapter.

 

[CedricRoggwiller]

Hi EHoskinson

Thank you for answering. I've already tried multiple adaptors/cables but none of them worked. I've sent the Surface Book to a repair station and they said that my port was defect, that explains why another Surface worked with my setup and mine didn't.

Thanks anyways and best wishes.
Cedric