Dell WD15 dock issues with Latitude 5490/5590

Hi Karel Svoboda,

Thanks for posting.  Apologies that you are experiencing difficulties with your systems.  

From reading your post, it appears that if you have several of these systems, and may be either a business or educational facility.  If so, you will have a Technical Account Manager assigned to your account.  The TAM is familiar with your warranty and the details regarding your purchases.  They would be your best source to contact as they are your official Point of Contact with Dell.  If you do not know who your TAM is, please contact your IT department or your purchasing department to determine who that is.

We may be able to assist you here on the forums.  Please send me a Private Message and provide your system service tag number as well as your name, address, phone number and email address for further support
assistance if it is needed. 

Here is additional information from the Dell knowledge base you may find helpful:

Dell Dock WD15 (USB Type-C ) Information, capability and specifications

How to Use and Troubleshoot the WD15

Check the WD15 drivers page

The guidance above is probably best for investigating these issues and hopefully finding a resolution, but to your question about new vs. old style docking, that's not coming back.  The entire industry is shifting to USB-C and the Thunderbolt 3 superset, and although they certainly have their teething problems like any other new technology (it was far worse when these docks first launched), the new setup has its benefits:

- Industry standard connector means non-Dell systems can be used with Dell docks, and Dell systems can be used with non-Dell docks, of which there are already several.  But for example, my wife has a Lenovo laptop for work and a Dell laptop for her personal use, and because of the WD15 she can connect either one to her dual display and external peripheral setup on her desk rather than having two separate docking stations on the desk and moving cables back and forth (or adding a KVM to the mix at greater cost and complexity).

- Removal of the underside docking connector makes the systems thinner and lighter, which is all the rage these days, even though I personally would be happy to incur a bit more thickness on laptops (and especially phones) if it meant longer battery life.

- If Dell changed from E-Dock to USB-C/Thunderbolt, thereby forcing businesses to migrate to new docks, and then shortly thereafter switched back, businesses that buy docks by the dozen or more would be none too pleased, to say the least -- especially businesses that employ "hotel desk" arrangements where desks are not necessarily assigned to a single person and therefore you can't always know what type of laptop someone will want to plug in at that particular desk.

As for why they're more expensive, the new docks actually have the chips to run the LAN, audio, USB hub, and a DisplayPort MST hub all built into the dock itself.  By comparison, the E-Docks were basically just a collection of cable extensions, because each individual pin of each individual connector was wired directly back to the system through its underside docking connector -- USB might have been an exception, not sure.  But that's why the E-Dock connector required 200+ pins, and this design also meant that the systems themselves had to have chips for things like wired Ethernet and even the legacy serial, parallel, and PS/2 ports all built in -- even if the system didn't have connectors for those things on the chassis -- just to be able to use those connectors on the dock when the system was connected to one.  With the WD15 having all of the required chips to run those features, you can for example use its wired Ethernet capability even if the system you're connecting it to does not have wired Ethernet support built-in.  This incidentally is why the E-Dock didn't require any additional drivers whereas the WD15 does -- with the E-Dock, all of the chips are already in the system, so there isn't any "new hardware" that appears when the dock is attached.

I realize that none of that outweighs the inconveniences you're currently experiencing, but just as a data point, my wife and I have used our Dell systems (Latitude 7480 and XPS 13 9350) with our WD15s for over a year now and they have been flawless.  Even my wife's Lenovo system has worked flawlessly with the WD15.

Hello and thanks for reply.

I do understand the cutting cost for hardware and new standards, sadly Thunderbolt is still very expensive thanks to Intel closed "black box" technology policy and i am afraid it might create new security issues like DMA and bugs in TB/PCI-E devices initializations. However that might be fixed in the future.

I do remember we had tons of issues back in 2016 with XPS 13 machines and WD15 docks, that was nightmare, it got much better though and we mainly prefer not to buy XPS machines.

I do understand compatibility thanks to USB-C, but we would still prefer legacy style dock because it worked. The USB docks are much more complicated.

You have microprocessor inside for initialization, then there is 7 port USB3.0 hub, two Realtek USB sound cards for both 3,5mm jacks, there is also USB Realtek Ethernet chipset, Synaptic made special USB to VGA/HDMI controller for machines that are unable to tunnel DisplayPort and there is also USB-C controller from Texas Instrumets inside. WD15 main issue is, that it has many devices inside and it seems there are quite a lot of bugs.

Funilly enough, Latitude 5470 with legacy underside dock connector has same thickness as Latitude 5480/5490 that has USB-C. Some users are also sad that new machines dont have HDD/SSD LED and wifi LED, only power button LED and battery LED, but that is another topic.

We have users with Latitudes 5480/5580 and WD15 docks are working fine, they have also annoying factor that you have to spend two IP adresses, since onboard ethernet cannot be tunneled, so each machine eats two IPs, one for machine and for dock. We do use passthrough MAC users can use others peoples docks.

However the issues with Latitudes 5490/5590 are still prevalent, at this moment we think that the network issues are caused by some bugs in firmware of our new Dell 1148T-ON and 1148P-ON switches but cannot confirm that.

Also one of our user with Latitude 7490 had major issues with WD15 dock, after every disconnection from dock laptop fell into weird state with black screen and had to be turned off. New BIOS, dock firmware and drivers did not helped. What helpded was replacing the WD15 dock with TB16 Thunderbolt dock, since then its working fine except random BSODs like our users with 5490/5590.

As i mentioned in post above, i will be getting in contact with Veeam, maybe the BSOD issues are caused by their software, but weirdly only Latitudes with Coffee Lake CPUs are affected.

Hello and thanks for reply.

Yes we are software deleloping company and we do have couple of these docks and machines.

I will check the TAM, did not known that, thanks.

Sadly the troubleshoot guide does not help with things such as BSOD after dock disconnecting, which is sometimes happening with older Dell XPS 13 (9350) machines. Some users have this kind of issue with Latitudes 5490/5590 and Dell WD15 docks. I have updated BIOS and drivers multiple times, but the issue still persists. Its worth noting, that on Latitude 5480/5580 machines with same WD15 dock this is not a problem, only on Coffee Lake machines and sometimes on Skylake based XPS 13 machines.

At this moment i suspect it might be because we use external hard drives and Veeam Agent for backuping machines, the BSOD is usually caused by ntfs.sys

The issue with network seems to be better now after we flashed new firmware on Dell 1148T and 1148P switches, some users still sometimes loose connection or network adapter completely. This happens only with the USB ethernet in WD15 docks. Recently users with XPS 12 DUOS reported same issue with 3rd party i-tec USB dock and we dont know why it happens. It was working fine with old Dell powerconnect 2748/5448/6248 switches we used.

Its also worth noting we are currently trying to put Dell S4218F-ON into working order since january 2018, sadly OS10 is very bugged and it caused many network outages in our infrastructure, there are many critical unsolved bugs and opened cases, however that is not probably the issue.

I will try getting in contact with TAM and Veeam, maybe the BSOD is Veeam related issue, networking issues might be still caused by switches and we have opened multiple tickets, perhaps new firmware will fix things.

PS: Sorry for mine English, it is not mine native language.

The WD15 is one of the worse docking stations ever conceived. They have several issues, am using latitude 7480.  Have a ticket open with dell and they have me going from older BIOS to newer BIOS then back again to keep them working. I would recommend another brand for your docking needs.  

If you are using Citrix Receiver with these machines, make sure you are using a later version of this software as referenced in the link here:  http://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/04/sln306154/tb16-dock-losing-connection-to-peripherals-and-network-on-reboot-with-citrix-receiver-client-software-installed?lang=en.

Older versions randomly kill off network connectivity, USB ports, etc. on the docks.  We encountered this issue primarily with the Dell Precision 7520 series machines using the TB16, but it could carry over to the Latitude and WD products as well.

I work for a large company and a large group of us got the Latitude 5490. We're experiencing issues as well. Mine won't stay plugged into my laptop and I'm getting the low hz messages.  I'm not sure the WD15 is ideal for these?  I also have two monitors. I had both VGA prior to this new computer however the docking station only allows for one VGA  to be plugged in.  So I connected my second monitor in via hdmi.  Unfortunately that caused issues.  At first it thought it was a TV. We downloaded the graphics drivers.  It now recognizes it to be a monitor but it's just not clear and crisp as the VGA connection.  Is there any other choices for docking stations that can be used?  I love the speed of the new laptop but having the power connection fall out is horrible because it's not just power it's network connects and everything. 

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@bigdawg30105 wrote:

If you are using Citrix Receiver with these machines, make sure you are using a later version of this software as referenced in the link here:  http://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/04/sln306154/tb16-dock-losing-connection-to-peripherals-and-network-on-reboot-with-citrix-receiver-client-software-installed?lang=en.

 

Older versions randomly kill off network connectivity, USB ports, etc. on the docks.  We encountered this issue primarily with the Dell Precision 7520 series machines using the TB16, but it could carry over to the Latitude and WD products as well.

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This was due to an issue between Citrix Receiver and the driver for the TB16's ASMedia PCIe USB Host Controller.  That chip exists in the TB16 because Thunderbolt 3 can only carry DisplayPort and PCIe traffic, so this chip allows USB traffic from the TB16 to be sent to the system over PCIe.  It's functionally the same thing as a PCIe USB 3.0 port card one might install into a desktop system.  Anyhow, this chip doesn't exist in the WD15 dock since it uses regular USB-C rather than TB3, and USB-C obviously supports USB traffic.

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@ctop2 wrote:

I work for a large company and a large group of us got the Latitude 5490. We're experiencing issues as well. Mine won't stay plugged into my laptop and I'm getting the low hz messages.  I'm not sure the WD15 is ideal for these?  I also have two monitors. I had both VGA prior to this new computer however the docking station only allows for one VGA  to be plugged in.  So I connected my second monitor in via hdmi.  Unfortunately that caused issues.  At first it thought it was a TV. We downloaded the graphics drivers.  It now recognizes it to be a monitor but it's just not clear and crisp as the VGA connection.  Is there any other choices for docking stations that can be used?  I love the speed of the new laptop but having the power connection fall out is horrible because it's not just power it's network connects and everything. 

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What display are you using that isn't displaying properly over HDMI?  Are you using an HDMI to VGA adapter of some kind?  Are you sure Windows selected the correct resolution for that display when you connected it via HDMI?  Sometimes Windows will end up trying to send a higher resolution than the display actually supports, and the display can act oddly in that case.  VGA should absolutely look the worst of all available options because VGA is the only video connector left that still uses an analog signal rather than a digital signal like DVI, HDMI, and DisplayPort, etc.  Something else must be going on in this specific case because in a typical case, text in particular will look noticeably blurrier on a display that's attached via VGA compared to the same display attached via any other connector.  It's not as noticeable at legacy resolutions like 1280x1024, but it's definitely noticeable at 1920x1080 or 1920x1200 where VGA maxes out.

Hello

I have issue with brand new Latitude 5490. Thing is that USB flash memory sticks (16 MB) does not work with this machine. He does not recognize that something is even connected and we tried every USB port on computer and on monitor as well. 2 MB memory sticks are working fine. What could be the issue and how it could be solved? Our IT service provider tried to solve this and spent few hours but did not get any solution. Memory stick light is on which means it has connection with computer but it does not recognize that something is connected.

we are also facing a similar issue.

- when I connect C-Type connector fan making a lot of noise (heatsink temperature also more ).

-  If  I remove C-Type connector didn't observe much noise and temperature

- if I remove C-Type Connector my second screen display not working ( to avoid noise )

what is the solution for this?

Real solution: Dell provides a BIOS incorporating a fan control algorithm, that does not depend on PCH (Platform Controller Hub) temperature readings, since the fan does not reach it at all.

Current solution: Get some of these heatsinks and stick it to the PCH. The temperature readings will go down by ~15°C and the fan won't keep uselessly spinning up all the time.