I’ll look at the kworker issue, I’ve changed the cable a couple times. For me it works if I only have one monitor, when I have two monitors I get the no EDID errors.
Hello @Matt_Hartley on my side my USB-C dock works only if I first plug :
- Lenovo Thinkpad Laptop
- Then plug any laptops, screen output has signal
If I reboot the USB-C dock, then the signal output vanishes for the Framework Laptop or any other (Dell Latpop or HP Laptop same issue too)
I’m suspecting the USB-C dock is sending an authentication challenge to the Embedded Controller, but I have yet to order the USB-C packet sniffer in order to confirm this hypothesis.
I see no issue with using the Thinkpad USB-C gen 2 dock other than the one I mentioned, if you have any more information to share on why it would be bad, please feel free to let us know.
This was not my experience on my side with the 13th FW AMD but my USB-C dock has an authentication challenge for HDMI/DP output it seems and can only work if I plug the proper brand of laptop (Lenovo Thinkpad).
Since this was “fixed” I’ve booted my system like 20 - 30 times, with the issue reoccurring on 3 occasions at bolt.service. Now it is much harder to reproduce and I don’t know what the issue is now.
Other rare and unreproducible issues I sometimes have with my CalDigit TS 4:
- Everything connects fine, Fedora 40 switches to the external monitor. But it does not charge until I unplug and reconnect to the dock
- Everything connects, charges and peripherals work fine but the external monitor is not recognized at all. In this case I need a full reboot
I have a FW13 7840U on order. I’m keen to move away from my StayGo USB-C dock (as it already crumbles under USB+Display+Ethernet).
I’m keen to upgrade to multi-monitor (high refresh rate) setup with multi-gig ethernet.
The new generation of TB4 docks seem kick-ass on paper with multi-display and 2.5G ethernet. Although they don’t clarify if they are high refresh rates
Many of them claim backwards compatibility with TB3/USB-C.
Does anyone have any experience of these:
- Sonnet Echo 20 Thunderbolt 4 SuperDock
- Plugable USB4 Dual HDMI Docking Station (UD-4VPD)
- Satechi Thunderbolt 4 Multimedia Pro Dock
- Plugable Thunderbolt 4 & USB4 Quad Display Docking Station
- Anker 568 USB-C Docking Station
I’m using the FW13 7640U with Ubuntu and the Caldigit ts3 plus is the best dock I’ve used so far. Haven’t had any issues so far. I got it on eBay for about $100.
I’ve tried the Anker 555 8 in 1 dock and Dell D6000 docks and they both had a lot of issues with needing to be unplugged and replugged to get both the single display and mouse + keyboard working.
I’m also making sure I’m using a good Cable Matters usb 4 cable with the Caldigit dock, since I know a lot of cables look like they’ll do 10gbps but actually only have the pins for 5gbps.
I’m using an old Dell TB16 dock, with my FW13 laptop. Running Debian.
After much trial-and-error, it’s reliably working now, but the dock needs to be connected to the laptop first, then powered on (so I take the power out every time I disconnect the laptop).
What’s more strange is that while the full displayport port does not work, my two monitors work fine if I have one linked to the mini-displayport port, and the other to the HDMI port. I’ve got the displaylink drivers installed, fwiw.
When connecting my old lenovo laptop to the dock, the full-size displayport port is working fine.
This has been working reliably for at least a week.
Interestingly enough, considering all of the problems w/ docks on Linux, I’ve actually had a pretty good experience w/ the j5 create USB4 8K dock.
Like seriously, the only things I have to worry about w/ this hub are:
- Plugging it in after logging in, both when powering up and waking up from sleep (without doing this my HDMI display won’t connect but my keyboard, mouse, mic, and webcam connect).
- Sometimes the audio (going through HDMI to my LG C2) will cut in and out occasionally, and I will have to specifically power off and power on to fix the issue (reboot does not fix the issue). This issue is moderately rare enough that I can go days w/o experiencing it.
Not exactly sure what controller is in this hub, but there could be a better / more stable product out there with it. If anyone_happens_to know if there is a resolution to both of these issues, or what about the kernel + drivers might be causing them, let me know!
It’s Intel Hoover Ridge.
It is essentially a scaled down Goshen Ridge that has a TB/USB4 upstream port, but no TB/USB4 downstream ports (because they would need to supply 15W power, making host-powered impossible). Like with Intel TB4 hubs, the base hub can extract the 2 separate DP tunnels from the host via separate outputs. Anything more will have to come from additional MST hubs. It is basically competition to the Via VL830. Except it is backward compatible to TB3 and can access both DP tunnels, not just one (making it work for more than 1 screen on Apple hosts and allowing features that MST hubs often block, like Adaptive Sync to be used when it has more than 1 output).
Because from the host side it should be basically the same as Intel TB4 hub controllers, just as a device controller, I would expect it to have the same compatibility issues with AMD USB4 hosts as the other TB4 hubs, where the 2nd tunnel seems problematic, especially under Linux.
My issue seems to be back with Linux 6.9.7 and I can reproduce it 90% of the time:
- Start your Framework while docked, external monitor on
- Wait until the LUKS password prompt and wait an extra 15 seconds
- Enter you boot password
- Close the lid (optionally this can be done even before booting. My Framework boots when connecting the dock/power, see BIOS settings).
- Very likely it freezes
When I open my laptop, it hangs right before Gnome is supposed to start.
How does it work with hot plugging and does it work with the lid closed?
Edit: Also what OS are you running?
That is not a issue with a specific dock. My Framework (12th) can boot closed, in which case it will not detect its own screen and with newest firmware even show output on screens behind various docks during boot. Although it is very possible that that display output during boot does not work for every dock, adapter, monitor combination.
Well I got my Anker 568 today and it doesn’t hot plug well at all. Updated it to latest fw as well. 2x 1440p monitors connected to DP. Keyboard and mouse and thats all. Ubuntu 22.04. AMD 7840u.
Edit: Yeah after a day I can’t get the 568 to function well at all. Monitors wouldn’t stay up last night so I Upgraded to 24.04 and last night it seemed to start to work, but now this morning it doesn’t matter what I do. The monitors come on for a second and then go black.
I could not get my older Thinkpad TB3 dock to work until reading through this thread.
To get it to work, I:
- boot my FW 13 AMD without the dock connected at all
- before connecting the dock, I turn it off by hitting its power button
- connect the dock
- hit the power button on the dock to turn it back on
Everything works, including external monitor connected to DP on the dock.
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hmm as mentioned elsewhere in this thread I have a 40ac (well actually two, as I parked a second one at my parents ;-)) lenovo tb3 dock.
I have the dock connected to the laptop before it is booted and then it works always for me (at least so far ;-)). I updated the firmware of the dock to the latest version, which needs some lenovo software under windows sadly.
Two minor inconviencies for me:
- Entering the luks password through the logitech wireless keyboard does not work, the displays are active, though.
- For me hotplugging does not work, sometimes/always when i disconnect the dock when the laptop it is on, the system “freezes” until the dock is connected again… But since i am not switching places / having to go to meeting rooms throughout the day, this is not a problem for me.
I just got an HP USB-C Dock G5 and it works flawlessly so far.
Features I have tested:
- External screen via DisplayPort or via HDMI
- Ethernet
- USB-C and USB-A
Features I have not tested:
- Multiple external displays
This worked for me on a Lenovo Gen2 USB-C dock (Type: 40AS Model-NO: LDC-G2 Rev: A1)
Framework 13 AMD 7840u
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Did you end up picking up one of these docks? If so, how is it working for you?
Hi, I haven’t bought one yet, the good ones are very expensive. Long term plan is to use eGPU, so looking for expandability and ethernet in the dock I get.
I’m also very fascinated by docks that only provide TB4 downstream, so possibly using Framework expansion modules downstream of the dock. Still some more investigation needed as these get very expensive.