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

Please see my response to GTBREA. It probably won't answer any of your questions, but it might give you some ideas.

I have 2 docks and issues with Ethernet dropouts as you wrote. I tried all proposals I found.
One year of troubles. The only thing, that helped me were new Firmwares, Dell issued ...
When I applied them,  ethernet dropouts disappeared.

Thanks RB78401. Ive had a look at your posts. Ive just tried the reg fix you suggested. Hibernation is tuned off for our Latitudes however the specific reg key hibernateEnabled was not present in the registry. 

Had a feeling it was potentially power related.

Thanks again ill update thread if makes any difference. Ive also looked at the Lenovos but they are seriously pricey! We have quite a lot of the WD19(s) so hoping a fix comes along at some point as this is causing a lot of headaches!  

All users should have the following applicable drivers installed, then retest. If your laptop is not listed below, check your platform page to verify that the latest BIOS is installed.

Latitude 5400/5500 and Precision 3540 System BIOS 1.7.1

WD19 dock series firmware 01.00.25
(WD19/WD19S/WD19TB/WD19TBS/WD19DC/WD19DCS/WD22TB4)

Realtek USB GBE Ethernet Controller driver 1153.6.0418.2022 (TB16/WD15/DS1000/TB18DC/WD19/WD19TB/WD19DC)

Chris,

It's nice that someone from Dell finally poked their head up after all this time, but (after more than four months and many, many back and forths with Dell's engineering team) my issue has been long since resolved. I've actually been assisting others because someone closed this thread out on Dell's end and no one was checking on it, besides me.

So please, read back a ways and help the people that the firmware update didn't resolve the issues.

RB

Hello everyone; jumping in on this discussion. I'm troubleshooting this same issue; I'm on the latest versions of the laptop bios, Realtek USB GbE driver, and WD19 firmware. We have this issue affecting a variety of Latitude 74xx and Precision 75xx models, on WD19/WD19S docks. What I'm seeing is that whenever these machines enter modern standby (verified via "powercfg /sleepstudy"), applications lose the wired network connection connected through the dock. I'm aware past fixes in Dell's Realtek USB GbE driver purported to have solved this, but I'm still experiencing it with the latest driver 

<ADMIN NOTE: Broken link has been removed from this post by Dell>

I can workaround this by preventing machines from entering modern standby, but clearly the connected modern standby isn't working as intended. I've engaged Microsoft support (since my company has their premier support), and I'll see if we can make any determination on what's happening, but it's still very possible this is a Dell issue. 

Hello everyone, IT Engineer for a 10K+ endpoint firm here. After a deep dive into this and engaging both Dell and Microsoft support, here are my findings. There are multiple things that need to be in place; which is part of the reason that so many different people are reporting different fixes. However, this is consistently solving issues my users are experiencing with their wired network connection while docked on a WD19.

1. Laptop BIOS needs to be updated to the latest version for your model (my firm uses Latitude 7480 / 7490 / 7400 / 7410 / 7420 machines, but I can also recreate the issue on a Precision 3560 and Precision 7560)
2. Docking station firmware needs to be updated to version 1.00.21.01
3. Realtek USB GbE Family Controller needs to be updated to version 10.48.914.2021
4. The driver needs to have the appropriate settings for modern standby / power management.

The setting for #4 depends on whether you are using modern standby or the legacy sleep states on your system / in your environment. Newer Dell machines and/or versions of Windows 10 don't support the legacy S3 sleep state by default.

If you're using the legacy sleep states, then @FriendoSupreme's answer above may solve your issue, but this didn't apply to my environment. 

If you're using the newer Modern Standby options, the "Power Management" tab will simply be missing from your driver properties. You can edit the same setting in the registry, but it will have no effect. I needed to go to the "Advanced" tab and enable "Modern Standby WoL Magic Packet". This is disabled by default in the latest version of the Realtek USB GbE driver, and the setting isn't even present in some older versions of the driver. 

I figured this out with help from this Microsoft documentation on networking power management with modern standby: "Windows assumes that the network devices that are integrated into a modern standby system are capable of protocol offloads and wake-on-LAN (WoL) patterns. If a network device does not have both of these capabilities, the network device is disabled during modern standby."

Sources:

• Dell Modern Standby Documentation 
• Microsoft Modern Standby Documentation 
• Legacy S3 vs Modern Standby in different versions of Windows 10 

Great work! 

However - we still have these issues

Hello, adding another Me TOO!!! 

this is very tiresome, my docking station keeps losing USB connection and ethernet connection and i need to reset it / the PC to make it work again.

IT guys reinstalled my drivers and replaced 2 docking stations, 1 same wd19S and one older (i think wd15 but not sure).

my pc is Latitude 7420

found this and it kind of helps to know that im not alone on this but also i understand that salvation is not close...

does anyone knows of a different docking station that has minimum 2 HDMI/display ports and doesnt do this problem with the dell pc? have you tried replacing it with non DELL models?

This can happen with the WD19/S/DC/DCS if Flow Control has been Disabled in the Realtek USB GbE Family Controller.

We have similar style of issue, where the ethernet shows connected but connection is actually broken. User cannot do anything until their wifi connection takes over. This locks up their sessions to their data source making a bigger issue for their work. It has become a major hassle. Have issues with these ethernet interfaces for quite some time and having to manage updating the 35 plus devices drivers constantly is a hassle. I hope these updates get to a stable version soon. 

I am in exact same position. Got brand new models of laptops and docking stations to enable remote work for our county government. Have had nothing but headaches with these docking stations since the brand new expensive-as laptops were purchased. I believe they have required somewhere close to 7 BIOS and Firmware updates in less than a year and a half.

It has been majorly effecting our business operations with users getting disconnected and locked out of sessions to their primary data source. As a lone IT admin with endless tasks to deal with, constantly having to respond to help desk calls about network connectivity and requiring driver updates is the last thing on the list I want to be dealing with or working on. Troubleshooting these devices has sucked up a massive chunk of my time that could have been spent better working on bigger mor important projects.

We have already confirmed that Flow Control is not disabled in our case. The issues myself (and it would appear others in this thread) are experiencing are still occurring. 

Even after everything in my previous post above, we are still experiencing issues with network connectivity dropping. Flow Control is enabled by default.