WD19 - noisy fan? What's the quietest DELL dock - WD15?

Go to 'Dell Power Manager' open 'Thermal Management' and set it to 'Quiet'

I confirm that using the quiet profile also changes the fan behavior of the dock. The laptop is a little slower in that mode but runs cooler. For reference, here is a link with 3 audio clips of the fan noise pattern from the dock when using the optimized mode: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1m_Wel3qSAYLrebC3fqnE2DUheOe1b4yY?usp=sharing

I have a user with a WD19TB plugged into a Macbook Pro and it's fans are screaming while attached to a single 4k display. I have several users with MBPs and WD19TBs and it doesn't happen to all of them.

Also, setting the Thermal profile on a Dell laptop to Quiet is not the real solution to this. Yes, it may work, but you're also adjusting the cooling profile for your laptop itself, which means that when it's thinking hard (or the GPU is pushing 4k to an external monitor), it's running hotter.

Dell's attitude is "okay, well you don't want the fan noise, so we'll slow down the fan inside the laptop, and instead the thing will run like a furnace". Again, not the "right" solution.

Anyway I'm not really sure what to do. I have a MBP plugged into the dock that's running a single 4k monitor via a DP to USB-C cable, plugged into the TB3 interface on the back of the WD19TB. Going to try swapping to different video outputs to see if that calms the fan down.

@decker12  my experience with the Quiet profile has been that it doesn't cause the laptop to run hotter, but rather slower so that temperatures don't rise as much in the first place.  Of course that arguably makes the workaround an even worse proposition.  And I agree that there's no legitimate reason for these settings to be linked.  The cooling requirements of the dock's internal components should not depend on how hard the laptop is working.  I realize that a laptop that's working harder consumes more power, so to a certain point the dock might run warmer if it's passing more power through, but that shouldn't make a fan speed difference on the level being observed here.  And it wouldn't account for why the fans on the WD19 docks can be running at maximum speed even while the attached system is asleep.

I am also experiencing annoying fan noise.

I used the WD19TB in an office before, where I did not notice the fans, though it might have been because of background noise. Now I am using it at home (home office) in a quiet room, and it is quite noticable. I also have more devices connected to it, but looking at other reports, this does not seem to be the root cause. As someone else reported, the fans are sometimes running after the laptop and monitor have been in standby for a while.

The docking station is warm at best when I touch it, never hot.

Kaven, listening to your audio files, this is exactly the noise I hear. Happens every morning on an off for about an hour then seems to settle down, and is usually quiet for the rest of the day.

I should add that I did try the Quiet option in the Dell Power Management settings, but it made no difference for me.

Victor, after more testing, I think the power profile only affects the power draw from the dock and the fan behavior change is only a result of using less power... not some kind of setting passed to the dock.

Today, even when using the Quiet setting, the dock fan went on and off every few minutes because I was doing lots of CPU intensive stuff at the same time. The Quiet setting is annoying because anytime the laptop starts to heat up, the CPU is throttled down and everything gets slow. I went back to the Optimized setting but the constant fan start/stop noise is driving me crazy.

I think there is something wrong in the dock firmware with the fan control.

I too will throw another mention @DELL-Justin C to see if he's had any visibility into this issue or can provide a more detailed response other than the Dell bot provided earlier in the thread. I now have more than a few users reporting this, on both Macbook Pros and brand new fully updated 7400's along with older 7490s.

My guess - and this is just a guess - is that the temperature sensor that ramps up the fans is located too close to the power plug. One of Dell's older model laptops, forgot which one but it was one of the first 14" ultraportables, had exactly this problem. Fans would ramp up after the power adapter was plugged into it for more than 30 minutes and the plastic area around the power adapter plug on the laptop was always fairly hot to the touch.

So again it's just a guess, but if the temp probe inside the dock is malfunctioning or whatever chip it talks to has some bad firmware on it, that could be a reason why the fans randomly ramp up and down.

Also, quick side note, other than this fan issue, the WD19TB work awesome with USB-C Macbook Pros. I've tried probably 10 different docking solutions for our MBPs trying to get them to connect with dual 4k displays at 60hz, and the WD19TBs are the only ones that consistently work perfectly out of the box, first time and every time. The biggest issue is that the docks are not really robust with ports and connectivity.

@decker12 , my only issue is that I don't have anything plugged in. If the internal electronics is getting hot, without a laptop connected, or monitors on, that would concern me. The Power supply is even outside the unit. Good news is that it never felt warm or hot. But I have not looked inside to see what electronics could possibly be heating up.

I got my dock replaced for the second time and it's finally working as it's supposed to! No more that crazy 100% speed all the time. In fact I'm using if for a few days now and I do not saw it go to 100% a for a single time... So silence! I've checked the firmware version of the new dock and it's the same one as my old ones, so it was definitely a hardware issue. The only odd thing is that the service tag of the replacement dock that they sent me is not being recognized by Dell at all... When I search for it it says that it does not exist. I've tried twice to private message @DELL-Cares who was in contact with me and do not heard back from them... I'm afraid of that because if something goes wrong with this one how will I ask for my warranty?

Maybe a little late to the party here, but I use this dock on my desk: https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/accessories/apd/452-bcyt and it never makes any noise at all. Can handle two 4K screens at 60Hz and a third 4K screen at 30Hz if you want to go that far.

Regards

@AndrewJDawson  what you posted is true, but it's also true that the D6000 relies on "indirect display" technology called DisplayLink for the first two displays that get attached.  When 3 displays are active, whichever display is on HDMI uses a native GPU output via DisplayPort Alt Mode, but that's only available when using USB-C to connect to the system.  The reason I mention this is that DisplayLink comes with some drawbacks that can be significant for some people's use cases.  I wrote about those in detail in the post marked as the answer in this thread.  The WD19 family of docks, like most docks, instead use native GPU outputs for all attached displays.

The D6000 can also only supply up to 60W to attached systems, whereas the WD19 and WD19TB can supply up to 130W depending on the attached system and the power supply connected to the dock, so the D6000 will not adequately power all of the same systems that the WD19 family can.  Some systems like the XPS 15 when attached to a 60W power source will respond by dramatically reducing their battery charging speed and CPU and GPU performance, which obviously isn't ideal.

Also having this issue, anybody find a fix? Is a firmware update coming?