WD19 docking stations - network dropout, USB dropout across multiple models

Just to let you know: The same problem with HP USB 3.1 docking station and a brand new x360. Seems to be better with power savings off (realtek driver). Noticeably: The seme docking station in the office and at home make different timeouts! HP USB-C Universal Dock - Docking Station - USB-C - GigE

Thank you very much for the hints!

the embedded realtek usb nic seems to be a industry standard as all major brands are using it (Dell, HP and Lenovo). Even the MAC Pass-Through should/is work/-ing depending on vendor and firmware level. This is good to know for interoperability reasons but it is also bad in case they all suffer from the same power saving issue.

Just the power button is vendor specific for whatever reason.

There's been a recent firmware update, shows as released on June 4th. 

1.41.823.0

https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-us/drivers/DriversDetails?driverId=TBT68

Update time.

For what it's worth, I have had success by using an electrical contact cleaner spray to clean a WD15 dock's internal connectors.

Here's what I did:

1. Unplug all cables and power from the dock
2. Pry open the rubber flap on the underside of the dock where the cable enters
3. Unscrew the two Phillips head screws holding the retaining plate in place
4. Remove the retaining plate
5. Gently pull the cable out of the dock
   1. You should see that it is a rather large multi-pin male connector that plugs into a female connector inside the dock. (It sort of resembles an iOS 30 pin plug)
6. Using an electronics-grade Contact Cleaner (I used "CRC QD Contact Cleaner, but there are others too), spray the male and female connectors from step 5.1
7. Allow the Contact Cleaner to dry (it should not take more than 1 minute unless you sprayed an excessive amount)
8. Plug the dock cable back into the dock
9. Reattach the retaining plate and screws
10. Plug your cables and power back into the dock
11. Test the dock by physically moving the dock's cable back and forth as well as up and down

If all goes well, you should have a dock that's more resilient to the cable moving. That is, until the contacts become dirty again...

I just noticed this same phenomenon with my WD19TB.  My firmware is one week old.  Not worth trying the one released yesterday?

I might have another solution for everyone to try:

In the BIOS, there is a setting under Power Management called Type-C Connector Power.  By default, it is set to 7.5w with an option to go to 15w.  Apparently this setting is for devices that draw power to be current limited to either 7.5 or 15w.  However, I changed this setting to 15w and my dock's ethernet hasn't dropped today, once.  I also returned ALL ethernet settings back to default energy saving (allow device to be turned off, green ethernet on, the works).  I was also never able to keep the maximum power settings under Windows power profile for PCI-E to something other than max due to group policy.

It is just one more thing to try and I have gone a day or two before it decides to flip out on me (but that was with all energy saving disabled; with it on it would flip out within an hour).

Those of you with Thunderbolt connectors might have another setting for power management within the bios, but I just have USB-C with a Latitude 5490.

I looked for this in my bios settings (XPS 15 7590, bios 1.6), but couldn't find it.  Let us know how it goes.  

Wired ethernet in my WD19TB just dropped again. I unplogged the thunderbolt cable from the xps15 7590  computer, and then plugged it back in again (no power cycling on computer or docking station) and ethernet works once again.  Is that a clue as to the origin of the problem?

@princebuy  Looked at Dell's site for your bios settings and yeah, looks like yours doesn't have that option, but it does have a USB Powershare option.  Could try turning that on, but that's grasping at straws.  I'm still not 100% if the change I made was the holy grail or not.  Will find out more during the work week.

I also see some logging options for your machine:

System Logs

Anything pop in there when your ethernet goes nuts?

There is also an option for Power Management (Peak Shift).  No idea what that does or what options are available for it.

Because the ethernet literally drops out of the system (it isn't the same thing as having the ethernet cable unplugged), I'm starting to think this isn't a driver issue.

I checked the logs in the bios and I didn't see any events corresponding to the times at which ethernet dropped.  

When I lose hard-wired ethernet from the docking station, I can manually switch to Wifi - and that doesn't give me internet either.  I can't even get to my router with the usual 192.168.1.1 command.  As you point out, the problem is something deeper.  Never any problem with USB ports after I updated firmware on the WD19TB (they didn't work out of the box).  Using the docking station alone - never putting it to sleep - just kills internet access about once a day.  Strange. 

@princebuy 

is the wired connection really disconnected "no leds" (or unplug the cable) in this situation? if the link of the wired lan is still up it could prevent windows from switch automatically. 

Are you using the builtin Windows Connection Manager instead of the bios setting for switching between WiFi and wired connection? For some people it helps to manually disable WiFi in Windows or unplug the network cable to prevent windows from flapping the wifi/wired connection.

@Russael 

hhmm, increasing the power level to 15w in bios didn't help me on an Latitude 5300 with usb-c WD19 dock. But it was worth a try.

I have 5400 DW19 usb-c  and setup 15w in bios from the purchase.

In my case, this setting has no impact on dropping Ethernet  in Lock state,  too.