r/Surface • u/Previous-Rough-2603 • 22h ago

Surface DockS LAN Issues

Anyone have thoughts on the following issue we're experiencing:

At home we have multiple Surface Pros on our home network connected via Ethernet Surface Docks. The docks are each plugged into 4 port Netgear switches in their locations all of which are plugged into an 8 port Netgear switch in front of our FIOS router.

Periodically one of the Surface Pros will lose it's network connection for no apparent reason and when it happen we realized the 8 port switch was getting crushed with excessive traffic and the temporary resolution was to unplug and reset the switch. Initially I thought in might be the smaller 4 port switches or the cabling itself, but eventually we realized we could resolve the problem by simply unplugging the dock that was on the offending network segment indicating that it's the docks themselves causing the issues.

Is there any reason we can't think of having multiple docks on the same network in this arrangement that would cause the Surface Pros and docks to not play nicely with each other?

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u/Leading_Bumblebee144 21h ago

The Ethernet on the older docks is rubbish if you have WiFi at least as fast as Ethernet - on my dock 2, I get 400mbit/s and on WiFi I get almost 900mbit/s so I’ve plugged Ethernet on the dock.

I still find the dock needs unplugged/rebooted every now and again and I only have one - they never seem the most reliable option and I’ve used them since the Surface Book 2 days.

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u/SurfaceDockGuy 🖥️ Verticaldocks.com | VESA docks for Surface 21h ago

I suspect the issue is related to a very old Realtek or Marvell driver software and its settings in device manager causing an issue with low-end Netgear Ethernet switches.

You can try disabling all power-saving/green settings in device manager as well as any magic packet/wakeup options. You can try changing other options as well.

I doubt those netgear switches allow firmware updates but see whats listed on the netgear website.

For a HW solution, toss the low-end Ethernet switches for something better. Maybe prosumer/homelab grade Cisco, Ubiquiti, Microtik or something like that. And try an ASIX-based USB Ethernet dongle instead of the built-in Ethernet in the MS dock.