P2419HC, Lenovo ThinkPad

Question

Can Dell monitor P2419HC connect to Lenovo ThinkPad x260 and x390 respectively? Is it required to have additional adaptors/ connectors need to be purchased?

Also, is it possible that it cannot be connected because of the security setting (e.g my Lenovo laptops cannot write usb drive because of security setting)?

Thanks!

jphughan · Accepted Answer

@Key Mon Looking at the X260 specs here, there’s no mention of a USB-C port, so if you wanted to connect to the display, you’d need to connect through some other video output port (you could use an mDP to DP cable for example), and then if you wanted to use the USB ports built into the display, you’d have to connect a USB cable separately between the display and system. And you still wouldn’t be receiving power from the display because the X260 doesn’t have a way to charge from a display.

The X390 on the other hand does have USB-C ports that support both system charging and video output (both of which are optional features on USB-C ports, fyi), so that will be a much better fit. In that case a USB-C cable that supports video (also an optional feature to support on USB-C cables) would be all you’d need to have video, USB data, and power. In terms of security, I’ve seen options to disable Thunderbolt support, but I’ve never seen options to disable video output or USB data support on a USB-C port. It wouldn’t make sense to disable USB data support on your USB-C port while allowing all of your other USB ports to remain active, so I doubt you’d end up with any security restrictions. The security setting about disabling USB write support is probably the Windows setting that prevents you from writing to unencrypted USB devices. Or it might be something enforced by some third-party application installed on your system. Either way, it shouldn’t affect the ability to use the features of the P2419HC. The USB ports built into the display will be covered by the same restrictions while your system is connected to that display, so you wouldn’t be able to use those ports to bypass restrictions enforced by your system, but your system shouldn’t prevent you from using the display completely.

jphughan · Accepted Answer

@tombalassa  That setup should work.  If you haven't already, update the P2419HC firmware using the download you can find on its Downloads page here, and then also check for any BIOS/firmware updates for your T480s by running the Lenovo Vantage app.  In term of power, the T480s will run from a 45W power source, but you may see slower battery charging and/or reduced performance when you do that because it is in fact designed for a 65W power source.  I have an X1 Extreme that is designed for a 135W source.  I can run it from a 60W source, but it's noticeably slower and barely charges the battery at all while the system is running.

Key Mon · Answer

Thank you very much for the detailed explanation! Very helpful!

sid1900 · Answer

Hey guys. I have a similar question for Lenovo X260 and X270. I basically want to know if it’s possible to connect these model of laptops with the mains and then power the Dell P2419HC monitor from the USB C cable coming from the laptop ? For X270 I will use the USB C port. For X260 I will use a USB to USB C adaptor as it doesn’t have a USB C port. Thanks

jphughan · Answer

@sid1900 There are multiple issues with your plan. First, desktop displays aren't powered by laptops. It wouldn't make any sense. If laptops had to be able to power displays, they would need to be designed for significantly higher power budgets, which would mean larger batteries, larger and heavier power supplies, etc. -- and the only benefit would be to save you having to connect a desktop display to a wall outlet. That isn't a compelling value proposition, since wall outlets aren't exactly in short supply and desktop displays don't get moved around often. Some USB-C displays are designed to provide power to laptops so that you only need to connect a single cable between the display and laptop, but that DOES make sense because having a higher wattage power supply in a large desktop display isn't a big deal, and laptops typically ARE moved around often, in which case only having to deal with a single cable as you come and go is convenient. The only exception here would be portable USB-C displays like Lenovo's own ThinkVision M14, which can draw power from a laptop's USB-C port. But they have lower power requirements and of course are designed for portability and convenience.

The other problem with your setup is that a USB-C to USB-A "regular USB" cable/adapter is not going to work the way you want. If you connect the USB-C input of the display to a USB-A port on your laptop, the only connectivity you'll get will be USB data between the laptop and the display in order to use the USB ports built into the display. USB-A ports do not support video output. So if you want to send video from your X260 to the P2419HC, you'll need to connect an actual video output port from the X260 to a video input port on the display. And then you can optionally also connect the USB-C to USB-A cable if you want to use the USB ports built into the display. Although even there, not all USB-C to USB-A cables/adapter support USB 3.x data. Some only support power and USB 2.0 data speeds since they're designed primarily for device charging scenarios.

sid1900 · Answer

Thank you very much for your detailed explanation. It makes total sense.

So my option here seems is to get another portable monitor. I currently have 1 ASUS MB16AC and it works perfectly well with both my laptops (I use the USB C to USB A adaptor for the X260).

Since I don’t want more clutter with cables etc., best to stick to the portable monitor. Thanks a lot.

jphughan · Answer

@sid1900 Happy to help. My wife uses the ASUS MB16AC. The reason that particular display works over USB-A is because it supports "indirect display" technology called DisplayLink -- not to be confused with DisplayPort. (It also supports native DisplayPort Alt Mode, which is the technical term for USB-C video output from a native GPU connection.) However, DisplayLink comes with some drawbacks that can be significant in some use cases. If you feel like another detailed explanation, I wrote about those drawbacks in the post marked as the answer in this thread. In any case, I've never seen a desktop-size display that has built-in support for DisplayLink. There are some DisplayLink USB dongles that plug into a regular USB port and give you an HDMI or DP video output, but they're not especially cheap and they're typically used in cases where people want to connect more displays to their system than their GPU supports natively.

I'm not sure I understand the cable concern though. The X260 has MiniDP and HDMI outputs, and the X270 has a USB-C output. So you could get a USB-C to MiniDP or USB-C to HDMI adapter and then run either a MiniDP to DP cable or a regular HDMI cable to your P2419HC. You'd still only have a single cable, plus an adapter that you'd use with the X270. The drawback to this setup is that your X270 in this setup wouldn't be able to draw power from the P2419HC or have USB data connectivity to the display in order to use its USB ports -- but obviously you don't have either of those things with your MB16AC now.

Otherwise, a USB-C cable for your X270 and an HDMI cable for your X260 seems like a decent solution. In exchange for that single extra cable, you get full functionality for your X270, and the X260 can still send a video signal to the display even if it won't have USB data connectivity. You'd just have to switch the active input back and forth on the display as you switched PCs.

tombalassa · Answer

Hi Everyone,

Just bought a Dell P2419HC monitor. It works, but it does not charge my laptop (Lenovo T480s) with the USB Type-C cable.

I use it with a Lenovo display with a type-C cable in the office and it works well there, so I am pretty sure the problem is not with the laptop.

The product was advertised as you can finally use only one cable for video + charging, so I think the monitor should be able to charge as well. The maximum output (65w) should be enough, the original charger for the laptop is 65w, but I also have a second charger with 45w and it works fine as well.

Do I make any mistake?

Is there a problem with the monitor (or the original type-C cable)? Should I just send it back?

Or is there any compatibility issue with this monitor and the Thinkpad T480s?

Thanks,

Thomas

Monitors

P2419HC, Lenovo ThinkPad

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