As for this, you might want to give the TS4 a try:
(Matthijs thinks it might be due to the difference in TB4 certification)
Thanks, @Second_Coming , that’s really helpful. Larger question: does Fedora seem in general more dock friendly than Ubuntu? Happy to switch distros if it’ll reduce the incidence of these gotchas.
I picked up a Comsol 2x HDMI dock in Australia and that seems to be working fine on Win11 on my FW.
It is marked as end of life, but there is 3x HDMI that has replaced it. It’s driving my monitor fine, as well as audio duties and USB-A. Pass Through charging seems fine as well.
I picked up this Anker 7-in-1 hub. https://www.amazon.com.au/gp/product/B07ZVKTP53
Will document in this post as the testing progresses.
So far:
Fedora 36: pass-through charging works, HDMI works
Maybe my post is slightly relevant.
I use the docking station of my old laptop, a Thinkpad USB 3 pro dock.
It works only mediocrely, because the connection is only established when the station is plugged in during the boot phase. If the station is already plugged in during boot-up, the screens remain black.
I’d like to report that the initial impressions of the Lenovo ThinkPad Universal Thunderbolt 4 Dock are good. It works with my two 1440p screens attached to the DP ports on the dock while also passing through the QNAP 10GbE SFP+ dongle I attached to it. Running Kubuntu 22.04.
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I have at least 3 issues with the Belkin Thunderbolt 3 Express Dock HD with my 12 Gen Framework laptop (original 3.04 BIOS, latest available drivers etc. using Windows 11).
1) Power: I had the same experience as @Wade_Richards describes in reply #177 w/the power delivery. With just the Belkin dock connected for power, Windows shows it as charging - but it will slowly discharge the battery. after about 8-9 hours, the battery will be depleted, unless a second power supply is connected. I am currently using an Apple 87W charger to supplement; it’s super weird to have multiple power supplies connected to the same computer.
2) Second display won’t maintain connection: I have two external displays: an LG 4k and an ASUS 1080P. The Belkin dock only has a single DP port + an additional TB3 port.
- I connect LG display to the built DisplayPort in the Belkin dock, and that works without issue.
- However, I can only get the ASUS display to work reliably when I connect it directly to the Framework USB-C->HDMI snap-in port.
- Behavior when the ASUS display is connected via the dock’s TB3 port using either USB-C->HDMI or USB-C->DisplayPort dongles: the screen continuously blanks out (appears to be constantly re-syncing or something like that) every few seconds - totally unusable.
3) KVM connections aren’t reliable (trouble both docked and undocked). I’ve had nothing but headaches trying to use three different KVMs - especially when connected to the Belkin dock. I have to connect any KVM to the USB-A snap-in module to get it to work at all - and I am currently only using the USB for K and M, and manually switching the second display in order to be able to keep my desk from becoming a hellscape, lol.
Generally speaking one would like to use a single TB/USB-C port connection to any laptop, and let the dock do its job. I’m hoping that the upcoming 3.06 release will address all of these issues - hopefully the TB4 certification process will iron this stuff out. Thanks!
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I have a Razor Thunderbolt 4 dock (https://a.co/d/gqRt8BC). Charging (90W), displayport via Thunderbolt (one monitor 4k@60Hz), USB, the SD card and the audio out all work. It works with both Linux on my Framework and OSX on my macbook pro.
Interestingly, the audio device only appears when you have something plugged into the combined mic/earphone jack. This is clever, as you can’t have the audio output going to the device when there’s nothing plugged into it.
OK… So I’ve been running this since I’ve got my FW, and it’s been great…
What has been the problem is my older Logitech K270 Keyboard and Mouse - they don’t like being plugged into a Hub (in fact, Logitech it turns out say not to…) as the keyboard drops out frequently. Fault of neither the FW or the Hub, but the keyboard - something to be mindful of.
It’s working better plugged into the USB-A on the FW, but still not 100% (so I think I’m off to find a new keyboard in town today as I need to write a load this week at a desk)
Just something to be aware of when trouble shooting docks if they’re being awkward…
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A little update to my earlier post: One problem I’m encountering from time to time is that one of the screens will start flickering after a protracted high speed network transfer. I’m not sure if this is a problem with the dock or if it is caused by the QNAP SFP+ dongle being attached to the dock.
I have bough the Lenovo ThinkPad Thunderbolt 3 Dock Gen 2 (40AN0135US) and am driving two Full HD Monitors with it. So far so good, but I recently noticed some weird coil whine, but not from the dock, but on my framework 11th gen. I guess it is because of the power supply and I am only having the coil whine when plugged into the docking station. Using my Aukey charger works fine here. Am I doing something wrong here, or is just like this and I have to deal with it?
Your dock should have a charger from Lenovo and a thunderbolt connector that likely has a little square on it. That one should be power delivery and thunderbolt connection to the laptop. Also coil whine is often an intensely personal observation. If you are experiencing it, and everything is hooked up correctly it is very likely that the particular model of device is delivering power in just the wrong way. I would say, either deal with it or get a different dock.
I am testing the Lenovo 40B00135US dock on Windows 11. (This is the same model as @0nn0 above - as far as I know, the US or EU at the end are not significant for the device, only for the power cable.)
Since I didn’t want to spend so much, I bought a used dock for my testing instead of a new one.
Sometimes when I plug in the dock, it seems to work perfectly. Other times when I plug it in, the charging light alternates between on and off every few seconds, and the list of connected devices in Device Manager keeps refreshing.
At first I thought the TB4 cable that came with the dock might be defective, so I tested with a brand new (certified) cable. The first time I used the new cable, it worked perfectly, but after that it did the same thing - appearing and disappearing every few seconds.
I was able to get it connected for long enough to upgrade the firmware in the dock to see if that would fix the problem, but it did not help.
I am trying to figure out if this means this specific dock is defective (and I should return it and buy another one), or if I’m missing anything.
Any thoughts?
Thats the exact dock I use, though I don’t use windows. My experience with the 11th gen framework laptop on both Linux and FreeBSD is I’ve been having approximately once per day my dock will disconnect for a second causing my screen to flash black and my USB devices to disconnect, and then it will reconnect and everything will go back to normal. So thats a far better experience than what you’re describing which makes me think your dock might be defective. I don’t experience this with my steam deck plugged into my dock but I haven’t tried other thunderbolt devices. I just plugged in a replacement cable (going from 2m 20gbps passive thunderbolt 3 cable to 2m 40bps 100w active thunderbolt 4 cable) to see if that changes anything.
Edit: And my screen just flashed, so the cable can’t be the problem. That leaves the dock and the framework laptop as possible suspects.
Hey everyone,
I bought the Anker 777 dock for my 12-gen Framework and in general I’m quite happy with it. However, one thing that bugs me: During boot, the external monitors connected to the dock are not working, so I have to open the Laptop’s lid until my Arch Linux booted up.
Does anyone else has this problem? Any ideas how to solve it?
Thanks!
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Seeing a similar issue. I have a 12th gen Framework running Ubuntu 22.10 and TB16 with two monitors connected, one to the full-size displayport and the other to the mini-dp via an adapter.
Unfortunately, only the mini-dp seems to actually be picked up when I connect it. Everything else seems to work fine (USB, Ethernet, Power), and I can switch monitor works by swapping their plugs. But seemingly nothing will cause the third monitor to flare to life, or even show up in Gnome Settings.
I got a replacement dock, and it doesn’t keep acting up, so my first one was definitely defective. I haven’t used the new one enough yet to see if it has the same once-a-day flicker that you have, but I should have an answer to that in the next few days.
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I think you can display things on your external display using this config, however, you will not see something on your internal display incase something goes wrong with your setup!
Hey all,
Reporting in that (at least within the first few minutes) Anker 777 worked out of the box with 12th gen i5 FW with Fedora 36, kernel 6.0.15. Here’s the setup:
- 2 LG g-sync 2K monitors via HDMI. Full res at 99hz each.
- Audio via HDMI through one of the monitors
- Ethernet
- Charging via TB4
- USB 3.0 KVM switch with webcam, keyboard, mouse via rear USB
- Pressing the power button from suspend will bring back monitors fine
- Laptop is in a vertical stand closed (but was able to do triple display with it open immediately upon connecting)
- BIOS is unchanged from shipping (3.04, I believe)
From @Anachron’s last few posts, can confirm that while the dock is recognized by the system on restart, the login screen doesn’t show on the other monitors (which is a bummer). So you either need to open the laptop or use the work around described in their post. Formerly with my cheaper USB-C dongles, the login would appear on all displays, so I do wonder if there is a way to replicate that with the dock, but that’s above my pay grade with Linux. I mostly use suspend at the end of the work day so I will probably not worry about this too much.
Thanks to ALL of you out there testing docks. I don’t know how many times I referenced this thread to narrow down my options. FW community FTW!
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Thanks, but unfortunately, that didn’t work for me. I described what I did in the extra thread, which is probably a more adequate place to discuss than in the megathread.
@Firestorm980, as you seem to have the same dock and the same issue: In case you find a solution or workaround, please comment in the extra thread as well.
It would be super nice, if we could find a solution to the display issue. Because besides that, the dock works perfect for me 