USB-C/Thunderbolt Dock Megathread

[Matthijs_Kooijman]

Hi all. I’ve been looking for a suitable dock for the framework laptop this week. This thread is immensely useful to get an idea of what’s available and what works. However, there still seems to be a lot of things unclear (to me) about how things work under the hood, and what combinations of hardware and software can be expected to work or not, especially in the display department. This is probably because there are a lot of older and newer standards and different ways things can work, and dock manufacturers do not seem to verbose about this. I wondered about adding a section in the wikipost about the technologies involved to provide some guidance to others, but thought to first figure out this stuff myself. That turned out to be a lot of stuff, so I ended up creating a new topic to discuss such details (to not sidetrack the discussion about specific docks here). It might lead to a less-detailed summary for the wikipost here at some point though.

In any case, here’s the topic, comments welcome: Details about USB, Thunderbolt and dock operation

[privilegejunkie]

@Ddoc I only use one external monitor, but I will try with two here in a day or so and report back.

[HotelValetParking]

I can confirm the Dell WD19TB dock works on my Batch 6 i5 unit, but for some reason I am unable to POST with the dock connected. I need to wait until at least GRUB is visible before I can connect, after which everything will work as intended. I have not tried the latest BIOS yet, nor have I confirmed if it’s a BIOS setting that I need to disable. I’ll see if I can investigate further. A handful of other issues are OS (Ubuntu 21.04) level ones, including an unknown program crash when I reconnect the dock and the occasional shuffling of active audio devices at random moments.

In the meantime, I have the dock almost fully loaded with an Ethernet connection, two displays (one HDMI, one DisplayPort), a USB hub for my 6+ total peripherals including an external hard drive, a headset, and a Lightning cable to connect my iPhone.

[asonix]

I just got a thunderbolt 3 dock from pluggable (Plugable Thunderbolt™ 3 and USB-C Dual Display Dock with 96W Host Char – Plugable Technologies) and it works great! I have it connected via HDMI to two 4K monitors and I’m able to run them both (although at 30Hz rather than the native 60, haven’t tried displayport yet)

I also have a number of USB devices and an ethernet cable pluged in and everything seems to be working great!

OS: elementary OS 6.1 with kernel 5.13

[Anand_Gadiyar]

@asonix I have the very similar Cable Matters dock. I haven’t been able to get dual displays up on it yet under Windows. Thanks for letting us know that this one works - I’ll try and order this for myself when it goes on sale next.

[theraser]

USB-C/Thunderbolt Dock Megathread

Has anyone already tested the new “Targus USB-C Dual HDMI 4K Docking Station with 100W PD Pass-Thru”? According to the specs it got Thunderbolt 3, PD with 100W, 2x HDMI with 2x4k@60Hz (-> seems to be DisplayPort 1.4, but this isn’t mentioned in the specs) and advertised Linux support. And it’s pretty cheap (<100€), too! I’m just missing a headset port and 1-2 slow USB ports, but this should be easy to fix using a common USB audio card and a cheap passive USB 3.0 hub. If nobody will to a test o…

I just got my Delock 87772 Dockingstation and tested it using Arch Linux. Everything works out of the box (Charging [separate USB-PD charger required], Ethernet, Audio, card reader, USB, HDMI).

The only problem I noticed is that I’m unable to get 4k@60 using HDMI for some reason, 4k@30 is maximum for my beamer. When I use a Framework USB to HDMI adapter 4k@60 is no problem. I contacted the vendor and will update the wiki post when I got more information.

[Patrick_Corey]

This smaller USB-C travel dock by Old World Computing is something I wanted to share my experience

USB-C Travel Dock E

The USB-c docking station supports two USB 3.2 Type-A ports, HDMI 2.0 port, SD card reader, Gigabit Ethernet port, and USB-C power pass through.

I was able to confirm it works with the Framework hardware (batch 6) using Debian/Ubuntu/Pop!_OS.

Hope to see this dock is added to the list.

[funky]

ThinkPad Thunderbolt 3 Dock Gen 2 tested with 135W power supply on Pop!_OS.

No problems with…

• Second screen
• Audio Interface
• USB ports
• Ethernet cable
• Display Port
• HDMI

I encountered a weird issue:

The laptop WILL NOT be powered if the USB-C expansion card is mounted on the right side. If mounted on the right side everything works fine except of the power supply. I do not know why that makes a difference but at least at works

[rumlyne]

UNSUPPORTED

P/N: CADUAL4KDOCK
manufacturer: i-tec
name: USB 3.0 / USB-C / Thunderbolt 3 Dual Display Docking Station
link: CADUAL4KDOCK | i-tec USB 3.0 / USB-C / Thunderbolt 3 Dual Display Docking Station | i-tec

OS: Pop!_OS

Issues: power delivery does not work at all. USB hub does work, rest untested

edit: added to table

[rumlyne]

Also I’ll be using a macbook for work. Can somebody recommend a dock that works for both framework & mac?

[Oliver]

@rumlyne

Also I’ll be using a macbook for work. Can somebody recommend a dock that works for both framework & mac?

We’ve got an ATEN UH7230 Thunderbolt 3 Multiport Dock that works with both a Framework laptop and Macbook Pro.

[Ruurd_Offringa]

@Ruurd_Offringa

@Ruurd_Offringa

2 |Cable Matters 201053 - Seems to be working seamlessly out of the box. I haven’t got two monitors, so I can’t test that.

Edit: I’ve noticed a few flaws: The wireless mouse occasionally stops responding for a very short time - not a major issue when working on documents, but I could see it as a major issue for anyone wanting to do graphical work or gaming.

I’ve tested the replacement unit for a while now and still notice some USB response issues, although it does seem better than the first unit.

I had some monitor problems (displays randomly swapping place) and found the solution to that here: Windows on second monitor moves to primary monitor after sleep/lock - Super User

Basically there are hidden monitors, likely from using different docks, and Windows 10 seems to get confused by them. Uninstalling all the hidden monitors in Device Manager and rebooting solves the problem.

[Matthijs_Kooijman]

I just came across to these two blogposts, which have a great list of USB-C and TB4 docks (no TB3 it seems, though), with summarized specs as well. I suspect these might be handy to anyone looking for a dock!

Run your 4K monitors alongside USB devices from a single USB-C laptop port

35+ Thunderbolt-4 Docks/Hubs compared

[Fraoch]

Earlier in the thread I posted my experience with a hub very similar to the image in the first link.

USB-C/Thunderbolt Dock Megathread

So a bit of an update on the little dock no one but me seems to care about. I got a new 2K monitor today with an HDMI input. It turns out this dock CAN run two external displays. With one connected it’s 2K @ 75 Hz, the highest the new monitor is capable of. With 2 displays, they’re both 2048x1152@60Hz, so not quite 2K. The specs say 4K@30Hz for 2, so I guess that’s the highest it can do at ~2K? Setting it was touch-and-go, maybe Linux support is still a little dodgy. Anywa…

It’s no longer available but there are many just like it - a greyish silver box with lots of ports. There are so many that are all very similar.

USB-C/Thunderbolt Dock Megathread

After days and days of looking at these, you get to see there are only a few designs with slight variations on each design and about the same prices on each type. There’s the simple 1 HDMI port plus other connectors at one price point. A little cheaper if it omits the networking port but I want that. There’s the 2 HDMI port type. Almost all these come with a different third video port, mostly VGA although I have seen a DP and even a DVI. Some omit the networking port for cost savings too. This…

They’re much cheaper than the docks posted in this thread, some of which don’t appear to work all that well.

Seems to be a difference, “hub” vs. “dock”.

Mine still works perfectly.

[theraser]

USB-C/Thunderbolt Dock Megathread

I just got my Delock 87772 Dockingstation and tested it using Arch Linux. Everything works out of the box (Charging [separate USB-PD charger required], Ethernet, Audio, card reader, USB, HDMI). The only problem I noticed is that I’m unable to get 4k@60 using HDMI for some reason, 4k@30 is maximum for my beamer. When I use a Framework USB to HDMI adapter 4k@60 is no problem. I contacted the vendor and will update the wiki post when I got more information.

Update on this Delock Dock after using it for some days: everything works fine, except for 4k@60Hz. Docking, undocking, suspending, starting up - no problems at all here.

Missing support for 4k@60Hz seems to be a problem with Linux DRM, I opened an issue for this: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/intel/-/issues/5377

Sadly I have no Windows available here to check if it is a hardware fault.

[D_Smith]

I am currently testing out the Lenovo USB-C Gen 2 (40AS0090) with Arch Linux. While I’m not yet ready to share my findings, as I haven’t finished yet, a concern has formed. Generally it’s accepted that leaving your laptop plugged in like this for a long period of time is a bad move.

Does anyone have any thoughts on that? Any tools that might prevent issues? Or maybe this isn’t the right thread? It’s docking station adjacent.

[Bundyo]

@D_Smith

Generally it’s accepted that leaving your laptop plugged in like this for a long period of time is a bad move.

I think the only directly affected part of the laptop is the battery. Make sure to limit its recharge in BIOS to about 75-85% to avoid degradation.

[D_Smith]

Oh, perfect! I wasn’t aware of that setting. Thanks.

[Lawrence_Gardiner]

@ImaxinarDM

Just received this Hub.

I think I bought the same hub, it’s branded as ZMUIPNG but looks identical. I’m yet to receive the laptop so I was wondering how the hub was holding up. Are you happy with it?

[ImaxinarDM]

@Lawrence_Gardiner

Are you happy with it?

YES, I have had it attached to the back edge of my desk and the cord is JUST long enough to connect to the laptop (do wish it was a few inches longer).

I have Cat-5, 2 HDMI, 1 VGA, my desk keyboard, mouse, trackball, Logitech C920, Audio for Speakers, Marine AIS receiver, and some other stuff all going through it.

I do route to a powered USB hub for the keyboard, mouse, trackball BTW (Not quite enough ports for my applications.)

It gets slightly warm to the touch, but doesn’t seem to be an issue. I am using the Framework 65w power adapter for it and pass though to the laptop. I do plan on getting a 100w for this at some point, but I am still able to charge the laptop fine.