Windows Surface Tablet doesn’t like Ethernet

Posted by ReactNativeIsTooHard@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 8 comments

Hey fellow sys-admins! I’m in a little bit of a pickle here. I have an employee that uses a Surface Pro 4 Tablet w/ a docking station. The tablet doesn’t want to connect using Ethernet. I would be okay with just using WiFi but the location he’s in - can be a little spotty. All of our computers are Daisy-chained with Ethernet through our phones. So most of our PC’s have a Ethernet cord running to the phone. I’ve tried rebooting the phone, making sure it was on the correct VLAN, changing out the docking station, changing out the Ethernet cord, bypassing the phone and going straight into known-working wall port. I even gave it a static IP reservation just for the fucks of it, it wouldn’t take it at all. Any ideas?

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8 Comments

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mats_o42@reddit

I would try with a usb to ethernet adapter plugged directly into the tablet to verify that the os and network stack is ok

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jma89@reddit

Process of elimination: Does the Surface work on Ethernet using a different dock? Does that dock work with a different Surface? How about at a different desk? Does a different dock/Surface/phone work at that desk? (tl;dr: Test more failure points - Hardware hasn't been ruled out yet.)

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Moontoya@reddit

concur - most of the eth problems I get with surfaces, are down to janky as fuck adaptors/dongles/docks shove a different (simple) usb to ethernet (with added usb ports) into it and see how it behaves.

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BlackV@reddit

Make sure you have the latest firmware (for surface AND surface dock) and latest drivers You didn't say it was a surface dock or not, so might need to do that separately

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ReactNativeIsTooHard@reddit (OP)

It is a surface dock! I should’ve specified! My bad! Thank you for the ideas!

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BlackV@reddit

Oh do the manual driver pack not the one form the surface hub app

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Sajem@reddit

Never had any problems with ethernet connection on any of my Surface Pro's. Have you updated to new or tried older network drivers? If this was in my organization I would be recommending a new device for the user. It's 8 years old now and time to be replaced.

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ReactNativeIsTooHard@reddit (OP)

I’ll try updates tomorrow, they’re very old tablets. But sadly that’s what the CISO orders 😪