USB32HDES adapter wierdness

Docks, Hubs, Display Adapters
1

I’ve used this USB to HDMI adapter for years on the same Dell Win10Pro laptop. The Dell uses the motherboard HDMI for one monitor, and the second monitor is driven through the adapter. (Both monitors are Asus VN248H-P).

In the last couple months bizarre behavior is always exhibited: The adapter must be disconnected upon laptop bootup, then physically connected with the 2nd monitor turned OFF. (If the 2nd monitor is ON, the laptop reverts to ONLY its screen and even the HDMI port monitor disconnects.)

Then, after a minute or so, the 2nd monitor can be turned on and all three screens work as normal. This is true even after putting the laptop to sleep.

Windows updates are current, and the adapter software has been reinstalled. Another bizarre behavior is sometimes all the icons are staged on the right side of the screen.

While I suspect something in Windows updates caused all this, is there anything else which could be the cause? Gary

2

Hello @GWLent,

Thank you for taking the time to post on the StarTech.com Community!

This sort of behavior is definitely strange but we have seen this kind of thing come up from time to time. We may not be able to find the root cause, but we can certainly offer some suggestions to help get you up and running with a less painful bootup procedure.

Windows will normally retain information about the displays and their arrangement in the registry but it does seem that this information can occasionally get disrupted.

Updates

We appreciate that you first confirmed that the Windows updates are current. For the USB32HDES that should be version 21.02.1112.3679 when this was written. You can always find the most up-to-date drivers on all of our current products on the drivers & downloads section of the product page.

USB-based display adapters like the USB32HDES will also depend on the graphics system on the computer. Do check with Dell support or the manufacturer of the graphics adapter for recent drivers.

Dell Support:

Steps

If the issue persists after you are sure that everything is up to date there are a few different ways that we can proceed.

Windows Display Settings

My first suggestion is to proceed with a standard boot-up with the USB32HDES and display connected. Then check the display settings to see if the onboard display and HDMI-connected display are recognized there. They may show up as disconnected. We have some instructions here:

Also, try booting with the USB32HDES disconnected an review the displays connected in the display settings there too.

Occasionally, We have found it helpful to change the settings a couple of times. For example, set each display to mirrored mode, then set each to your preferred extended display settings. Even though this step seems irrelevant, I suspect it may help to ensure that bad settings that are saved in the registry are overwritten.

Try restarting between changes to see if the correct information is retained.

USB Power

Depending on the computer power settings it may be helpful to disable some features to reduce any disruptions.

USB Selective Suspend

Here is a link to instructions on how to disable USB Selective Suspend:

USB Power Management

  1. If you have administrative permissions on your computer you can go to the device manager and check the USB32HDES and each USB device in the connection tree back to the USB controller to see if you can disable the USB Power Management on each entry. This may help alleviate some power issues.

    To find the connection tree:

    Open the device manager

  2. In Windows 10 you can right-click on the start menu and select the 6th entry from the top
  3. Go to the Display adapters section
  4. select the USB32HDES device
  5. The entry may be named based on the chipset that we use in the adapter (Trigger, MCT)
  6. In the Device Manger menu bar select View > Devices by connection
  7. This will rearrange the device manager list in a tree view by connection

    8. by_connection.png

    You can now view each hub where the USB32HDES is connected back to the USB controller. Check the properties of each entry in that tree for any Power Management features that can be disabled.

    I have found this step to be helpful in some circumstances.

    Hardware Troubleshooting

    • A few hardware steps to try:

      Temporarily swap the HDMI displays between the onboard HDMI port and the USB32HDES

    • Swap the HDMI cables
    • Try a different HDMI display (or TV) on either the onboard HDMI or the USB32HDES
    • Try different HDMI cables

    Each of these steps can help us both diagnose and perhaps even resolve the display arrangement issues that you are seeing.

    Next Steps

    1. If you continue to see trouble with this please do let us know! Any additional details that you can provide for troubleshooting the USB32HDES or any of our products can help us best understand what is happening including:

      The number of products.

    2. Do you have another USB32HDES adapter available to you for testing, or are other adapters experiencing similar issues?
    3. Model information for the devices used with the USB32HDES. (thank you for the monitor models)
    4. Any changes that occurred before the product stopped working
    5. Any troubleshooting steps and the effects they had

    I hope that this information is helpful and we look forward to your reply!

    David F

3

SOLVED! Reloading the Dell drivers and or, then selecting “extend desktop to this display” allowed everything to work. WhooHoo! Thanks, Gary

4

Appreciate you updating us on your findings Gary @GWLent !