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.
Just to note, a USB-C expansion card is just a pass-through. Like a short extension cable that saves your mainboard USB-C ports from wear, stress, and potential physical damage in the event your cable gets pulled or hit. There is nothing inside the USB-C expansion card except wire traces and a couple of passive resistors or caps.
Thanks. I’ll probably give this a try after my new laptop arrives (ships soon).
If I browse through the many threads / posts on this topic, will I find any information about what is actually being reset and why it would affect expansion cards / ports in this way?
New AMD laptop has arrived. I’ll be doing some testing once I get everything installed / set up.
I did find out that connecting a USBC SSD to the lower left-hand port on my “faulty” laptop would not recognise the drive at all. This is the same port that gives me 30Hz and no charging from my monitor.
Unfortunately, the motherboard reset did not resolve the problem.
The new AMD laptop works perfectly fine. No issues with using the rear 2 USBC’s as a display out, USB in + charging at the same time for both of the displays I’m using.
I had the new laptop set up and connected just fine. Did the motherboard reset on the old laptop. Swapped the new laptop out, put the old laptop in its place and it had the exact same issue.
Currently that is with the front 2 expansion bays as USBC, using the left-hand port for the left-hand monitor, which will only do 30Hz if I connect both displays. As soon as I disconnect the right-hand monitor from the right-hand port, the left-hand monitor springs back to 60Hz. No issue with charging on the left-hand port at that moment.
The right-hand display (and port) also charge and output 60Hz 3840x2560 just fine either on its own or with both displays connected.
WIth the left-hand display diconnected, if I reconnect it, Windows detects it but keeps it inactive. If I “extend display to this screen”, it looks like it is doing it, but even though the prompt is “keep or discard changes?”, it hasn’t actually done anything.
I am beginning to wonder if this is just Windows stupidness.
EDIT: It is not Windows. Just experienced that same weirness with a fresh Ubuntu install.
It’s also not any strange fault with the USBC expansion card (which I knew it was highly unlikely to be anyway). Just tried a new one. Same result.