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July 4th, 2020 10:00
Docking Station for Inspiron 5000
I've read the FAQ and still am confused. I do know the laptop has a USB-C connection and a video card.
My needs are simple. I want the dock/hub to provide power to the laptop at my desk without using the power cord and block that came with the computer. I want those to use elsewhere and do not want to crawl under my desk everytime I want to change the location of the laptop.
I also want some USB ports to connect to external devices.
If I ever connect a monitor, there will be only 1 and it will not be 4k.
What products would work for me?
Thanks.
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artesian79
191 Posts
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July 4th, 2020 10:00
I cannot find the specific model number. I'm looking at the output from the Service Tag original config but if it is here I must be blind. I've read several of these but this one isn't all that helpful. Usually I'm looking for info on a system bought directly from Dell but this one came via Costco if that changes anything.
artesian79
191 Posts
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July 4th, 2020 11:00
Model number found - 5501/8
jphughan
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July 4th, 2020 17:00
@artesian79 The Setup and Specifications document for that system model available on support.dell.com does indeed confirm that you have a USB-C port that supports DisplayPort Alt Mode (video output) and two-way USB Power Delivery. And depending on the hardware configuration, it comes with either a 45W or 65W power supply. In that case, the Dell WD19 dock would be fine for your stated purposes. You can use the standard WD19 130W (90W passthrough) rather than needing the WD19 180W (130W passthrough) since obviously even 90W is more than you'll need with that system. And since your system uses CPUs based on the Intel "Ice Lake" architecture, your system should support DisplayPort 1.4 over USB-C, which means that if you use it with the WD19 dock, you'd be able to run a single display up to 4K 60 Hz or dual displays up to QHD (2560x1440) each. Good luck!
jphughan
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July 4th, 2020 17:00
@artesian79 One thing I forgot to mention in my previous reply. It's possible that you will NOT be able to use the dock's Power button to control the laptop's power state. That requires firmware-level support from the system itself, and for some reason it seems that Dell has not implemented that across all of their product lines. It's available in the XPS, Precision, Latitude, and I believe Vostro systems, but at least based on what I've read thus far, Inspiron and Alienware systems don't have it. I don't know why, and I certainly hope it changes since that support would likely be trivial to implement and it would certainly be nice to be able to power a system on with the lid closed and such, but I don't know if that actually HAS changed yet. So if you find that the WD19's Power button doesn't do anything, it may be due to your system, not a problem with the dock itself.