m15 R7, WD19S dock, networking issue

Question

Recently got a Alienware m15 R7 (AMD, no thunderbolt) and have been using it with a Dell WD19S (USB-C DP, not thunderbolt) dock so I don't have to play doctor-hooking-up-surgery-patient every time I come and go from home. For the most part, it works great. Twice over the last week, though, the following has happened: - When powering on the laptop, it shows the ALIENWARE logo, the spinning dots, then nothing, forever. No response at all, and I have to hold the power button to get it to turn off. - Powering up the computer again results in a successful boot, but the dock NIC is missing, it doesn't even appear in the device manager. All the integrated ports work fine. All the other devices connected to the dock work fine. The NIC has simply ceased to exist. I restarted the computer, still not there. I checked for faults, none. Reinstalled the dock and dock NIC drivers from dell.com, no dice. Tried a different dock of the same model, nope. Moved the dock to another computer, NIC shows up there, moved it back, nada. Updated the firmware of the dock itself, still nothing. Checked the BIOS settings and the USB network boot options were gone. In a last fit of desperation before calling dell support, I decided to run the BIOS updater. It was the same version as the installed BIOS, but it ran anyways, and when it was done, it worked! Hooray, there's a workaround. When the same thing happened again today, a quick BIOS reflash solved the issue again. But I'd like to not have to do this several times a week. Can anyone possibly shed some light on why I periodically need to reflash my BIOS periodically to use my docking station? Better yet, is there any way to keep this from happening? Thanks.

crimsom · Answer

Hi @Caslaupie welcome to this free user to user Alienware laptop discussion forum.

Alienware splash screen, spinning dots, then nothing. Please try Drain residual flea power (perform hard reset).

None of the Dell Docks were validated/tested with Alienware Laptops. Alienware Laptops and Dell Docks - Dell Community

Support for Network Interface Card (NIC) Dell Dock – WD19S Drivers & Downloads includes GBE driver.

Solved: No dock NIC driver on WD15 or WD19 dock connected to Latitude 5500 - Dell Community

Many users report their Dell docking station isn’t working, and some common symptoms include the docking station not turning on or the attached devices (monitor or audio) not functioning correctly.

One of the following might provide the fix:
1. Check the physical connection
2. Auto-reset the docking station
3. Update your Dell docking station driver
4. Update the BIOS

Alienware

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