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Thread: Laptop not connecting to docking station monitor :[

  1. #1
    Alister's Avatar
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    Laptop not connecting to docking station monitor :[

    Hey all, I'm having an extremely annoying issue with my laptop and docking station that I can't resolve. There's a lot of people much more adept with computers than me here so I thought I'd post on the off-chance anyone has had the same issue or can advise a solution because I am on the verge of losing my mind.

    I use a Plugable USB 3.0 docking station that I connect to my personal laptop, an HP Spectre x360. As of last week, my computer will not display screen on the external monitor also hooked up to the docking station. The keyboard and mouse plugged into the docking station work fine. The monitor displays just fine when I use the docking station with my work laptop. It is something seemingly isolated to just my personal laptop, and just the monitor.

    Any time I plug my laptop into the dock, the monitor displays a "Entering power save mode" alert and then just goes dark. I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling drivers, rebooted a million times, system restored. Nothing works consistently. Twice over the past week, the monitor has displayed properly after about a hundred tries of re-plugging in the cable. It's extremely intermittent and I don't think I've done anything special when it did work, it seems to be dumb luck.

    If anyone has any ideas on what is wrong or what a fix could be, I'd be so grateful for the advice.

    (I wasn't sure if this should go here in Technology or be posted under Help; apologies if I picked the wrong spot)

  2. #2
    Batgirl's Avatar
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    I know this sounds incredibly simple, but I've had a similar problem with my work laptop and docking station. For some reason, the display setting will change the display to inactive. I recommend messing with the multiple displays area of the display settings, like choose "Detect" then unplug and replug the DP or HDMI, and then "Detect" again. Seems super simple but I had a week long ticket open with my IT department to figure that out....we both felt really dumb, lol.

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    Alister (10-31-2020)

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    Alister's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Batgirl View Post
    I know this sounds incredibly simple, but I've had a similar problem with my work laptop and docking station. For some reason, the display setting will change the display to inactive. I recommend messing with the multiple displays area of the display settings, like choose "Detect" then unplug and replug the DP or HDMI, and then "Detect" again. Seems super simple but I had a week long ticket open with my IT department to figure that out....we both felt really dumb, lol.
    Thank you for the tip! Unfortunately my computer is absolutely adamant that it can't detect a display even after messing around with it a few different ways but I think you're right, it has to be something involving this.

    My hunt for a fix led me down the path of downloading some system fix program called Restero and now my PC is running like a dream right now other than the monitor issue, silver linings lol

    - deleting update, false alarm, it's still not working -

    11/2 update - Okay mystery solved, it was my docking station itself after all. This morning it started acting finnicky with my work computer so I got clearance to run back up to work and grab a different Lenova station...and now it works perfectly.

    I was ranting to a friend in IT about this problem and she told me that docking stations often don't have the juice to power a monitor properly and tend to die a slow death. In this case, the monitor stopped having sufficient power sent to it even though the other applications were fine. So in the event anyone ever stumbles across this board and is having the same problem, try testing with a second dock and see if that helps.
    Last edited by Alister; 11-02-2020 at 06:19 PM. Reason: fixed!

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    Batgirl (10-31-2020)

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