When I attempt to connect my Toshiba Encore 8 to an external display I cannot duplicate (mirror) what is on the tablet with the screen. I can extend the desktop or have one screen displayed at a time but not get the same thing on both screens. Here’s why this is a problem:
Problem
The Encore 8 is a touch screen tablet, it doesn’t ship with a keyboard nor mouse so presumably this is designed to be used with your fingers. But if you connect a display using the provide micro HDMI port there is no way of using the touch display what’s at the end of the HDMI cable using your finger. This is all because it is not possible to duplicate the screen.
Work around
You can plug in a USB mouse and control what’s happening on the other screen with it. It doesn’t have to be USB as you can connect a Bluetooth mouse and achieve the same result. The problem is no one seems to have mentioned this to Toshiba.
Toshiba doesn’t appear to know this is an issue
When looking at their marketing material Toshiba are keen to point out how you can use the micro HDMI port to share your media. When I’ve raised the issue with support they have advised the following.
Thank you for your recent reply. We’re sorry to hear this not help you with duplicating your screen to your TV. Please follow these steps to try and get your screen to duplicate to your TV:
- Connect the TV and the tablet using your HDMI cable, and make sure the TV is on the relevant HDMI input
- Make sure both devices are on
- On the start (on the tablet), swipe your finger in from the right to show the Charms bar
- Select ‘Search’ and type display in the search box
- Select ‘Project to a second screen’
- Select ‘Duplicate’
You should now get a duplicate of your tablet screen on your TV, you may have to rotate your screen/tablet to get a better picture fit.
Of course I’ve tried this and sent them back a copy of the error message “The display settings could not be saved. Please try a different combination of Display Settings.” I get when trying to follow their advice. Oh and I forgot to mention that it takes days for them to return an email despite me responding within hours of theirs.
Dell Drivers
Dell appears to have updated drivers for the Z3700 series system on a chip but having tried these (as suggested in various forums) they have not made any difference.
Pup
I feel that I’ve bought a pup with support not knowing how to handle my queries and there being no effort to actually try and find out if there is an underlying problem. Sure the tablet is a bargain but it should be able to function as advertised.
Update
Toshiba have got back in touch and acknowledged the issue with the following message:
Thank you for your recent enquiry. We are sorry that you are still having issues with duplicating the display on this tablet.
We have been made aware of an ongoing issue with the WT8 tablet and external displays that means that is does not support the full range of operations that are provided by Windows 8. There will be an update rolled out for the WT8 tablet to resolve this issue but we do not currently have and ETA on this. We would advise that you check the software updates regularly on the tablet.
Get in touch
Please get in touch if you are experiencing the same problem or better still if you have found a way of making this work.
18 Responses
Great of you bringing up this issue. Do you har any new information about the update? I have looked at this page for the update but haven’t found it.
http://support.toshiba.com/support/driversResults?freeText=1200007163
Am I looking in the right place?
The WT8-A32 is a slightly different device but has the same Intel Atom Processor, so I’m going to give the Platform driver a go to see if that helps things.
I’ve also emailed Toshiba as they don’t appear to be doing a great deal about this.
I’ve just tried the Intel Platform drivers from the WT8-A32 location and whilst it installed graphics drivers it didn’t resolve the issue. I suspect the are the same as was on the device already.
I also tried to install the Intel drivers from the link, but it said my device already had the same or more recent drivers. I greatly appreciate your effort in trying to solve this issue. I hope you will get a positive answer from Toshiba.
Hi,
when i connect the cable i can´t even detect my tv.
I find that it doesn’t always work first time but you need to have it held in landscape mode to stand the best chance of it working.
It’s March now… has this issue been fixed, considering the update should be rolled out in January? Thank you.
I’ve just sent Toshiba support an email following this up. It’s incredibly difficult to navigate the Tosh website for drivers so I’ve asked for a URL. Will update here when I hear back.
There is a new driver that has just been posted in Toshiba website http://support.toshiba.com/support/driversResults?freeText=1200007163
Finally, this one works well! Yipeeee!
Thanks for telling. I have just installed the updates. Duplicating the screen finally works!
Another issue I’ve been dealing with is to find a way to charge the device and at the same time be able to use USB devices. I found a solution on this forum:
http://forum.tabletpcreview.com/toshiba/60229-charging-encore-whilst-using-usb-devices-2.html
I can confirm that this solution actually worked!
You beat me to it! Thanks for the excellent news. I’ll give it a go later on today and write a follow up post to hopefully benefit more folk.
Thanks again.
Hi William: I downloaded the driver for BIOS from the link you gave, and installed it to my Toshiba Encore 8 tablet. When all was done and restarted, I still got the same problem – not able to get duplication display. Di I do anything wrong?
Hi, you need to download and install the Intel Platform Driver, not the Bios. I’ve written a further article on the subject here. I hope this sorts things out for you.
Thanks a million, Gary. It works beautifully.
I got a scare as it blanked off after installing the driver, and asked for my BitLocker recovery key. I got the key through Microsoft website. but after keying in, it said “your PC cannot be repaired”. But I restarted the tablet and everything is ok!!! Don’t quite understand why.
I’ll do a little bit of digging around to find out why the BitLocker recovery key comes up. I suspect it is not as obvious as the message would suggest. Glad to hear it went OK though.
I need some help with the duplicating. I have updated the bios and now I can get the duplicate on the TV but no matter what I set the tablet to I get the duplicate in portrait on the TV… even though it is set to landscape on the tablet and I am holding the tablet in landscape. How can I get it in landscape? I have tried to change the resolution but no luck… any ideas?
I’ve had exactly the same problem with an Acer w4 820 – extends ok but will not mirror (although I’ve been connecting wirelessly not through hdmi) – similar response from their customer support too – they actually told me to go and ask in a store when I asked them the specific questions: 1. Do I have a faulty unit or is this the way the units are configured and 2. If this is the way the w4 820 is configured then is there another acer tab that will allow wireless screen mirroring. I’ll just reiterate because I still can’t really believe it myself – go ask in store. Seriously??? Unfortunately I’ve just ordered a toshiba and have now found from this article that it has the same problem. Would be really grateful for a solution – I’m aware of the mouse workaround, but a real solution would be good … microsoft? Intel? anyone?