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Is there any way for the Surface Laptop Studio to support 3 external monitors?

Anonymous
2023-02-04T16:33:36+00:00

I am currently using a Surface Laptop 4 with Surface Dock 2. This setup will not support 3 external monitors. I am thinking of upgrading to a Surface Studio Laptop and would like to know if the Studio combined with a Surface Dock would allow for 3 external monitors.

Surface | Surface Laptop | Display and screen

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  1. Anonymous
    2023-03-20T22:16:18+00:00

    Hi,

    Ever since I bought the Dock 1 for my Surface Book 1, I have been successfully using my system with 3 external monitors (all 2560x1600) and the internal monitor, so 4 active monitors in total!

    When I upgraded to the SB2, same setup.

    When I upgraded to the SLS, same setup, except that I also upgraded to the Dock 2.

    The setup has always remained the same: Two monitors connected to the two monitor ports on the Dock and the third monitor connected to a USB port on the Dock via a DisplayLink adapter.

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  2. btbt 11,826 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2023-02-07T22:38:45+00:00

    Laptops with dual GPUs (and this includes the SLS) don't use the dedicated GPU for the screen. Even when apps and games are using the Nvidia GPU to render content, the monitor connections still comes through the Intel GPU, and is therefore subject to its max monitor count.

    Think of it this way:

    Nvidia GPU: Can be used to render content only.

    Intel GPU: Can both render and display content.

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  3. Anonymous
    2023-08-12T15:56:59+00:00

    Hi,

    Sorry, I was away for quite a while, but I use this adapter.

    Were you able to get the 3 externals working in the meantime?

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  4. Anonymous
    2023-02-11T12:27:04+00:00

    Thank you for the detailed explanation.

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  5. btbt 11,826 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2023-02-04T16:56:07+00:00

    The SLS is limited by the Intel Xe Graphics chip, which only supports 3 monitors.

    It may be possible to get 3 external by turning off the internal display, but since the Surface Dock 2 only has two video output USB-C ports (they are not Thunderbolt!), the third monitor would be have to be directly connected to the laptop. But I cannot guarantee that this setup would work.

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