Surface Dock cycles DP monitor and keyboard on/off while Surface suspended or not connected

Hello EricSoAndSo,

Thank you for reaching out to the Microsoft Surface community. I am sorry that you are having an issue with your Surface Dock. I have a few questions I'd like to ask in order to better troubleshoot this issue. Please answer the following questions:

How long has this been happening?

What is the make and model of the DP cable you are using?
What is the make and model of the monitor?
Have you tried using your Surface Dock and Surface Pro 3 with a different monitor?
If so, does the problem still occur?

Best Regards

Thanks for your reply LaurenzB,

The dock was in the mail this week, so it happens for as long as I remember ;) Let me focus on the situation where the tablet is not connected for now.

I just started chopping the cables in fact. Just to eliminate factors... And it happens to be the keyboard RF receiver that isn't being treated well by the dock. With just power and DP connected to the dock, the monitor is steady off just right. Adding only the USB RF receiver, it'll go party mode with the lights on the receiver flashing and the monitor power cycling forever.

If I connect the keyboard RF to the tablet, it won't turn on all its lights, not even to show it's turning on. It'll light up just those that reveal the status of the special keys. So e.g. just F and Num Lock right now. 

The monitor timing I believe is deterministic, it runs a simple check before turning off for lack of proper signal. The dock could be continuously sending whatever it does. Not a video image certainly.

The RF receiver is a Logitech Cordless Mouse and Keyboard Receiver P/N 830680-0000. It's old but reliable. ...it's *extremely* reliable ...just check how old it is. Logitech doesn't remember my keyboard from that set even...

I'm happy to give you the other info, it's an Asus PB287Q connected with an mDP to DP cable E326508 AWM style 20276 80C 30V VW-1 Amphenol F. The only other mini-DP option I have is a Surface HDMI adapter but only I now find out it doesn't fit... Bad idea to let it fit so perfectly to the bezel of the tablet itself. Cute, yes, but...

Thanks again, Eric

Hello EricSoAndSo,

Just to clarify, if the RF receiver is not plugged in, does the Surface Dock and your monitor function properly (without power cycling), even when the Surface is plugged into the dock as well?

Thank You

Hello EricSoAndSo,

Thank you for sharing such specific details. We will pass this feedback on to the appropriate teams. But considering the troubleshooting steps you've already taken, you should probably use a different keyboard and mouse setup to avoid the power cycling issue.

Best Regards

Thanks Lauren,

That is disappointing. I'm attached to my keyboard and nothing quite like it is being sold anymore. The question that remains is whether my dock is OK or not. If it's broken, should I get it replaced and ask for another? Or is this software and is Surface Dock lame icw Surface Pro 3?

It's easy to forget to remove it, but the problems might not be resolved buying another keyboard and not connecting this one anymore. Because even if I think about removing the keyboard receiver from the USB slot, I have been finding my Surface unresponsive at least interactively, when I return.

Yesterday for example I disconnected the receiver before I went to sleep, but upon returning, trying to wake the Surface, the only thing it'd show is a gray screen (over DP when the dock was connected, and on the integrated display when not) and the mouse cursor which I was able to move around. I had to use another computer to let my Surface restart before it'd show Windows UI again. Meaning it's fine, responsive etc, just not showing it.

Let me know..

Regards, Eric

Hello Eric,

The best way to know if the receiver is the culprit or not is by using a different USB keyboard for a while and monitor the behavior of the dock. As for the other issue you mentioned, when you were trying to wake your Surface back up, were you plugging in the same receiver again to do so? If so then it still could be contributing to that problem as well. Best bet is to try a different USB keyboard and mouse combo and see if it behaves properly. If it doesn't, then let us know.

Best Regards

Hello Lauren,

Can you confirm to me how to definitely reset the dock, getting rid of any internal state? Is powering it off for a minute or so enough? What else could I do to do that? If I am to see if it is OK, I'll need a way to know it is clean factory reset apart perhaps from having the latest firmware on it..

Since I first reported this, I'm seeing a host of issues. I have been using the same receiver still, but I have disconnected it most of the time when leaving my Surface connected to the dock for a long time (hours). This appears not to be an issue if it is for a few hours, but I arrive to a rebooted Surface fairly often after nights of inactivity.

There were 11 stop errors since May 26th, 6x 0x14f and none before that date although I returned from build 14332 to 10586 just a few days before that. I saw only one happen, related to INTCDAUD complaining about the driver being unloaded without stopping pending operations first. That one happened when disconnecting the dock cable while in a Skype video call. I'm not quite sure what the date was. The others must've happened somewhere during the night. The last one dated June 21st happened just ago, while trying to reboot the Surface it appeared to turn off instead. I saved the MEMORY.DMP on OneDrive, if you're interested let me know how to share it with you.

There are issues with my Surface upon returning to it after the night or after more than a few hours which I cannot solve without a reboot at times. At least regularly that is with the RF receiver not connected - I usually think of disconnecting it before leaving. Today for example, my Type Cover wouldn't work - it'd turn the lights on, but I couldn't type my PIN with it to unlock, the display would power cycle even without the RF receiver in the USB and the flashing lights on the RF receiver were there whenever I connected it, even with the Surface connected and showing DP output, until I rebooted my Surface. Right now, all works fine again.

I also several times noticed upon returning that Windows was complaining about being low on virtual memory. Which is odd if I would have a look, because although I often have some heavy programs open (VS most notably), I have rarely had more than 6GB in use in these situations. Maybe I should've looked at committed and not just the graph in Task Manager though.

Here's the details of the stop errors:

PS C:\Users\Eric> Get-EventLog -LogName System -EntryType Error -Source BugCheck | foreach { [pscustomobject]@{ Time = $_.TimeGenerated; Message = $_.Message.SubString(289) } } | ft

Time               Message
----               -------
21-6-2016 15:45:22 0x0000009f (0x0000000000000004, 0x000000000000012c, 0xffffe001ae593800, 0xffffd000954db9b0)', 'C:\WINDOWS\MEMORY.DMP', '9d7b7b72-6219-4e03-ae7f-679aa51c704f'
20-6-2016 04:47:23 0x000000ce (0xfffff80065584f6e, 0x0000000000000010, 0xfffff80065584f6e, 0x0000000000000000)', 'C:\WINDOWS\MEMORY.DMP', '1f69eaaf-4ff2-4d4d-a547-e5e5385e17c4'
19-6-2016 12:03:20 0x0000014f (0x0000000000000000, 0x0000000000000100, 0x0000000000000000, 0x0000000050434c45)', 'C:\WINDOWS\MEMORY.DMP', '9cdc9f15-1104-419e-abbf-fa8ee6837f81'
16-6-2016 22:51:03 0x0000014f (0x0000000000000004, 0x0000000000000001, 0xffffc000c799fd30, 0xffffd0015013eb60)', 'C:\WINDOWS\MEMORY.DMP', 'd1f0ab6e-25dd-4508-99a5-17ec93974b45'
13-6-2016 13:40:18 0x0000007e (0xffffffffc0000005, 0xfffff801c3d30c0a, 0xffffd001bb71eae8, 0xffffd001bb71e300)', 'C:\WINDOWS\MEMORY.DMP', '1c7f7356-e42c-4a0a-9d24-c423e1cc9ea2'
7-6-2016 15:01:58  0x0000014f (0x0000000000000000, 0x0000000000000100, 0x0000000000000000, 0x0000000050434c45)', 'C:\WINDOWS\MEMORY.DMP', '6a9b3f7c-6a69-49d6-a6c6-7102c3083ab0'
5-6-2016 16:23:09  0x0000000a (0x000000000000026c, 0x0000000000000002, 0x0000000000000000, 0xfffff8015e9581a9)', 'C:\WINDOWS\MEMORY.DMP', '70814454-6aab-430a-9c66-011e34d75ea6'
27-5-2016 22:47:54 0x0000014f (0x0000000000000000, 0x0000000000000100, 0x0000000000000000, 0x0000000050434c45)', 'C:\WINDOWS\MEMORY.DMP', '875104f2-c5e5-4280-a57e-3f08625a0c47'
27-5-2016 14:33:59 0x0000014f (0x0000000000000000, 0x0000000000000100, 0x0000000000000000, 0x0000000050434c45)', 'C:\WINDOWS\MEMORY.DMP', '825fef7f-208c-4d64-8429-02557b868959'
26-5-2016 23:56:02 0x000000ce (0xfffff80092d14f6e, 0x0000000000000010, 0xfffff80092d14f6e, 0x0000000000000000)', 'C:\WINDOWS\MEMORY.DMP', '18812621-b77a-4e0e-9838-d0ec74ce30f3'
26-5-2016 03:15:55 0x0000014f (0x0000000000000000, 0x0000000000000100, 0x0000000000000000, 0x0000000050434c45)', 'C:\WINDOWS\MEMORY.DMP', '6eaa829a-9dd6-4e2d-b3d1-a50601355793'

The GUIDs are the report id's - PowerShell can't format the messages for some reason - they show fine in Event Log though. 289 characters are spent on telling me that and it is followed by a listing of the data recorded with the event.

I have an annoyingly large unergonomic Microsoft Keyboard 6000 v2.0 which I will start using with some regret now. I'll ping back in a week or two perhaps to tell you how that went, okay?

Regards, Eric

Dear EricSoAndSo,

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