Why does my Spin 13 think my hub is a Smartboard?!

CDextrous · June 17

I have an Acer Chromebook Spin 13, company-provided-and-owned, that I use for work. Typically, I connect to one of the docks at the office (some of which are Lenovo ThinkPads and some HP G5 docks) via one or other of the USB-C ports on my machine. On the (hot) desk at which I usually sit, there are two DP cables going from a ThinkPad LDA-KP going to two ThinkVision E24-28 monitors.

Often, this setup works fine, however there are frequent occasions when, for some reason, when connecting the Chromebook to the dock via USB-C, the Chromebook displays a pop-up message like the one attached or, more often (though I can't recreate it right now) the same message but with "40AY" replaced by "44XX Smartboard" or similar.
Sometimes, when it provides the attached message, it'll still work with both monitors, but with the Smartboard message it never works.

I've reset the dock, reset the machine, factory reset both, used multiple USB-C cables both ways around, with both ends of the USB-C cable tried both ways up in their sockets. I've tried having everything connected on boot, I've tried having nothing connected on boot. I've tried going from the USB-A port on the Chromebook to the USB-C on the dock, and vice-versa.

The USB-C sockets on my machine also frequently don't recognise my Lention CE18 HCR USB-C adaptor, or anything connected to it, though sometimes this will work as well. Both the sockets seem capable of drawing power via the dock, or via an AC adaptor, but sometimes this sporadically won't work either.

The Chromebook has never been connected to a Smartboard. There isn't even one in the building. Yet, it's been connected to the two monitors, via without issue, countless times. Quite often I'll be working on something, need to restart my machine for an update or a change of settings, and when it reboots it'll suddenly not work with the monitors.

Sometimes, I'll swap a cable round or detach/re-attach and it'll work perfectly, but sometimes I'll spend several hours trying to fix it and absolutely nothing works. Then, 2 days later when I'm back in the office again, it's just anybody's best guess as to whether it'll work perfectly straight away, or not at all.

Connecting a Windows laptop to the hub works perfectly, every time.

Has anyone experienced something similar? I've looked all over the internet but all I can find from my search terms is people trying to connect their Chromebook to a Smartboard which, presumably, would work perfectly on my machine if I ever connected to one.

Thanks in advance for your help - please comment if more information would be useful and I'll do my best.