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This story is about a boy. A young man who lost his innocence; his dignity shattered after falling victim to an evil scheme perpetrated by one of the largest manufacturers of incompetence in the world: Microsoft.
This is not a sad story. Nay, 'tis a happy one. For the boy grew older and wiser, and with the help of the great heroes at Cable Matters, was able to triumph over the fiendish plot by the corrupt company-that-must-not-be-named to siphon away his money.
I am that boy. This is my story.
Some time ago, I decided that I would like to upgrade my home office setup to have dual monitors. I have a dual-monitor setup at work, and had gotten spoiled by the amount of multi-tasking I was able to accomplish. When the idea first came to me, I instantly became giddy as a schoolgirl; grinning ear-to-ear from the speed and efficiency which I would be able to meme, lurk on reddit, melt my brain with more dumb videos, get lost in a 5-hour rabbit hole of wikipedia links...you know. Standard responsible adult stuff.
I ventured to the Land of Best Buy, where I set out to find a docking station and a set of monitors for my Surface Book (original). I managed to settle on the Surface Dock 2, and a set of HP 25es monitors (which were on sale at the time, and had decent reviews).
Since the monitors are a little older and on the lower-end of the budget spectrum, they did not come with HDMI to MiniDisplayPort cables. Just the standard, ubiquitous dual-ended HDMI cables. It became clear that unless I wanted to go back to the drawing board, I had to find a pair of MiniDisplayPort to HDMI adapters, so the monitors could be hooked up to the Surface Dock.
In my naive thinking, I assumed that purchasing a set of Microsoft's MiniDisplayPort to HDMI adapters ($40 each, by the way) should have zero issues working for my setup. After all, everything would be from Microsoft! Of course things should play nicely together.
WRONG. DEAD WRONG.
At first, everything seemed to be working just fine. No real issues with any part of the setup. After a couple months, things started getting weird. A monitor would occasionally shut off randomly, or wouldn't wake up after the computer went to sleep, etc. I got by for another couple months by just unplugging the "dead" monitor's MiniDisplayPort adapter from the Surface Dock, then plugging it back in. Not too bad.
Then the real issues started coming up. The unplugging and plugging became more frequent. It became necessary to unplug and plug several times just to make things work. After a while, it was almost a certainty that one of the monitors would not be detected after I woke up my computer, or it would be incorrectly detected as some "Digital Flat Panel (640x480 60Hz)" screen.
"This clearly must be some sort of bug that was accidentally introduced in one of the Windows updates" I thought to myself. If only I had known the depth and extent of my ignorance...
I spent hours upon hours researching the various drivers associated with my Intel 520 graphics card, the dedicated Nvidia GPU, the monitors, and eventually my entire hardware setup just to ensure that everything had been updated. I checked for anything new on Windows Update daily. I even downloaded the latest Windows ISO images for my Surface Book after each major Windows update, in a paranoid attempt to make sure my drivers, software, and firmware were on the absolute bleeding edge of technology available to my setup.
I realized that I had truly started to creep into the fringes of insanity when I found myself doing all sorts of voodoo computer magic. I started plugging the monitors into the dock one at a time, very slowly, over and over again until it would detect both. I stood the dock up vertically. I flipped the dock connector around on my computer. I basically lobotomized the keys in my registry related to my graphics drivers and monitors. I would then proceed to try all sorts of various combinations of these things until finally I could use both monitors.
This death spiral continued for months. Why was this happening to me? Did I offend the deity of Connectivity? Is this karma punishing me for some past transgression? WHY GOD? WHY?
This madness came to an apex a few days ago, when I caught myself spending 6 hours...six. SIX. Six whole hours just trying to get the damn thing to work. I couldn't take it anymore. After torturous hours of shameful, single-monitored googling, I finally found the source of my agony.
Microsoft was recommending that MiniDisplayPort to HDMI adapters should be "active" if using both MiniDisplayPort slots on the Surface Dock. The Microsoft ones I had purchased, the only adapters they made at that time, were passive.
Level of betrayal: Egregious.
I purchased these adapters from Cable Matters, and now have my setup working flawlessly again. Crystal clear, work just as expected, and got both of them for $36 (as opposed to shelling out $80+ for a set of Microsoft's NEW adapters V2.0, which are active, but only got released after they realized how royally they screwed up in the first place). And lived happily ever after.
That day, the Day of the Second Docking, the boy realized he was no longer a boy. He had become a man. He was now wise to the ways of the wicked: a glittery, inviting exterior, hiding seven layers of Hell underneath.
My reasons for telling you this tale are twofold: Heed the warnings from this lesson, lest ye succumb to the black magics of the Brand, and Praise Be to the great folks at Cable Matters for extending their heavenly hands to pull me from my pit of misery.
Cable Matters, you are my Rick Astley. Thank you.
TL;DR: buy this adapter. it works.
| Brand | Cable Matters |
|---|---|
| Item model number | 101021 |
| Item Weight | 0.64 ounces |
| Product Dimensions | 7.28 x 1.73 x 0.59 inches |
| Item Dimensions LxWxH | 7.28 x 1.73 x 0.59 inches |
| Color | black |
| Manufacturer | Cable Matters |
| ASIN | B00PJ3LSIG |
| Country of Origin | China |
| Is Discontinued By Manufacturer | No |
| Date First Available | December 2, 2013 |
