Hi,
first I used my laptop on an Anker docking station and the USB-C port on the slot 4. Usually it works fine, but the monitors seemed to be a bit unstable and flickered sometimes. However power delivery was always working.
Due to the display issues I switched to the Lenovo Thunderbolt 3 Gen 2 docking station.
The first times the docking station was not even recognized, no monitors, no power. I plugged in and out, tried different slots and suddenly after certain reboots the slot 1 appears to be working.
So I used the slot 1 for the next weeks and had no problems anymore - until today. The laptop was switched off, the USB-C cable was not plugged in, I booted the computer, plugged in the cable during the boot process - but nothing happened as when I tried the first times weeks ago. Unfortunately I was not able to get it running anymore. I tried all slots, removed all expansion cards, rebooted in every configuration I can imagine but it still show neither displays nor power. What I observed is a very quick battery loading symbol when plug in to slot 4, but it disappears always after less then a second - a behaviour remember I have seen weeks ago. One time, only once, I got the displays running but still without any power delivery on slot 4 as well.
I read the documentation from this side:
The following sentence seems to be some sort of explanation to me:
Ports 1,2,3, and 4 are shared on a first come first serve basis. So they are 1.5A by default, but one port from any of these can negotiate 3A over PD. Once that is taken, the other ports are limited to 1.5A.
I always interpreted it like: “The first slot where you plug in the USB-C will deliver the power and you can’t change after starting”. Well not matter how often I rebooted, with or without any plugged in cable on whatever slot, I can’t get the power delivery from the docking station running anymore.
What am I doing wrong here. Yesterday the entire setup worked fine.
Greets, Mark