Been using my laptop for work at home. Connected via individual USBC to a pair of 3840x2560 60Hz monitors, either of which also provide charging up to ~60W.
Not a problem. Had this setup since Q3 2022.
However. I took my laptop to the office some weeks back and connected to a new, cheap, Dell monitor that similarly provides USBC display and charging.
Worked fine. Completed my day with no issues.
Now though, I’m getting a mix of either one or other of my displays at home will only display at 30Hz and 6-bit colour (as reported by Win 11). If I juggle the ports to which the USBC expansion cards are connected to, I can remedy the 30Hz issue and gain full display capabilities, but now the laptop won’t charge. Windows will briefly toggle the “I’m charging” icon, but ultimately it will resort to running from battery.
This doesn’t appear to be an immediate issue with the displays, as they provide display and charging to a spare Dell laptop.
It doesn’t appear to be a problem with either of the USBC cables as the fault does not follow the cable when I swap them around or if I try the other orientation of the connection.
I have a new FW13 AMD preordered (batch 3), so hopefully within the next few weeks I’ll be able to determine if it’s an issue with the laptop or the expansion card(s).
However, is it conceivable that there’s some error in design or with the electrical system at work that would have killed some component within the laptop or expansion card? This is a weird failure mode. I would have expected either for something to die completely, or if hte charging circuit has died I wouldn’t expect that to result in reduced display capability.
Any ideas?