Help with universal D6000 USB-C dock

mwiese206-

Have you had any luck with Dell support on this issue? We are currently working to resolve this very same issue and would be interested in any info.

Thanks,

Tom

I'm not aware of any docks that automatically wake the system just by being connected, no matter what configuration options are set on the system.  There are some docks that have Power buttons that can be used to wake the system, but the D6000 does not appear to have one.  However, enabling "Wake on USB" might allow you to wake the system up by connecting the D6000 and then pressing a key or moving the mouse on a keyboard/mouse attached TO the dock -- have you tried that?  If that doesn't work, I doubt there's a way to achieve the setup you want, although even if that suggestion DOES work, think carefully about enabling Wake on USB.  I've seen several users leave wireless mouse receivers connected to a USB port on the system itself, and with Wake on USB enabled, that can wake the system back up.  Not only can that become an annoyance, but I've seen employees put their laptops to sleep and and then put it into their laptop bag, unaware that a small accidental mouse movement on their desk had accidentally woken the system back up....and when they opened their laptop bag much later, they found that their system had overheated in the bag.  I suspect that's why that option is disabled by default.

This D6000 is an interesting product, though.  The WD15 seems to be a superior value for anyone with a laptop that has a USB-C port with a GPU output wired to it, though. It's the same price, offers USB 3.1 Gen 2 (10 Gbps), can deliver more power to the laptop, and most importantly allows the displays attached to the dock to be driven directly by the system's GPU.  By comparison, the D6000 uses a DisplayLink chip, which means that video data is compressed by the CPU and GPU prior to being sent to the dock, which then decompresses it.  That can introduce all kinds of artifacts on the displays when large portions of the display area are changing at once.  On the other hand, that does allow the D6000 to support 4K @ 60 Hz, which isn't available on the WD15 (though it is on the TB16 if you have Thunderbolt 3).

We have tested with the WD-15 docks and despite it's many issues resume from sleep when connected to the dock works when testing with our E5480/E7480's. In fact in BIOS, the WD/TB docks are specifically supported so it seems that a BIOS update to better support the D6000 may enable this feature. The D6000 allows a wake from off/hibernate state when connected to the dock in our testing so why wouldn't a resume from sleep feature work as well, especially when the decision is made to remove the power button from the dock.

We tested with the WD-15's originally but have not been able to overcome display issues, mouse/keyboard freezing, and other issues. The D6000 for the most part just works. None of the issues that we experienced with the WD-15. Except for the resume from sleep issue the D6000 has been solid so far.

Hey SLIC,

Docks that use native USB-C can take advantage of an extra communication channel called SBU (sideband) that's part of the USB-C standard, which is what the WD15 and TB16 use for handling the power button functions.  The D6000 on the other hand is designed to work as an old school USB-A dock and simply has an adapter built in that allows it to be connected to a USB-C port, and USB-C ports are backward compatible, but devices designed for USB-A can't take advantage of features that are proprietary to USB-C. That said, you're able to use the D6000 to wake the system from shutdown or hibernation?  How does that work?  Is that enabled or disabled by the Wake on USB option in the BIOS, and if so does having it enabled mean that simply connecting the dock into the system immediately powers it on?

Sorry you've had issues with the WD15 in the past.  It definitely took several iterations of BIOS, driver, and dock firmware updates for things to stabilize (far longer than it should have in my opinion), but for what it's worth, I regularly use both TB16s and WD15s with my Latitude 7480 and don't have any issues.  A few systems had very recently released BIOS updates that unfortunately introduced frequent disconnect and reconnect issues with USB devices attached via TB16 docks (and maybe WD15 docks as well, can't remember), but according to an update from a Dell rep today, they're internally testing a new BIOS version that seems to have resolved the issue and should therefore be released shortly -- and the Latitude 7480 doesn't seem affected.  It might be worth giving the WD15 another shot if you haven't looked at them recently. My experience has been that DisplayLink-based docks like the D6000 usually have far more issues than "regular" docks because of the extra drivers and the way they transport display data, AND there's the whole issue of compression artifacts, whereas the WD15 gets a native DisplayPort output from the GPU, which is both a simpler design and won't have artifacts, so I'm really surprised that you've had more display issues with the WD15 than the D6000, unless again it was early on before drivers, firmware, and BIOS releases had stabilized.

It would appear the D6000 is actually primarily a USB-C device w/SBU with USB-A backwards compatibility. The main connector is USB-C with a USB-A dongle available that provides only network and output capability for monitors, but no AC power. This would explain why turning on the option in BIOS for "Wake on AC" works when the D6000 USB-C cable is connected to a device in an off/hibernated state. With that said, if power on from an off/hibernated state works with this dock, why shouldn't wake from sleep be an option on a dock with no power button? It seems a BIOS update would resolve this issue. I'm hoping Dell can provide more info on this issue.