TB18DC Dock does not work as advertised

I've had problematic TB18DC operation with a 7730, and I can tell you, most of what you are experiencing is probably due to the mechanical stiffness or "shape memory" of the Thunderbolt3 cable. These docks are no longer using many connections to the laptop to get them to work. They are highly serial in nature, and because of that, any interruption in just one wire connection may cause the dock to hiccup a display. I don't think this is unique to Dell docks. It's sort of the nature of the technology being employed now by many vendors.

What I did, and what may help you a good deal too was to remove that shape memory by allowing the cable to lay flat for a bit (I suppose if you are VERY careful, you could speed the process using a hair drier at a distance being careful not to damage the cable). Then I carefully put one coil in the cable so that the connector was pointed in the proper direction toward the laptop, level with the table surface, and at the level of the laptop's TB ports on the side. I held that coil in place using some velcro cable strips. Then I moved the laptop to mate with the connector instead of the other way around. This will limit the tendency of the Thunderbolt3 connector from moving left/right, or up/down so the connection is intermittent. If you want to add additional stability, you might want to consider using double-sided velcro strips, affixing one side to the table surface, and the other to the underside of the cable connector.

Now, I also experienced poor booting behavior using the dock, with the dock's power button. I was constantly trying to remove power from the dock to reset it, but often using the power switch on the laptop and closing the lid to get it to boot (I think I had also set "Do Nothing" in Win10 for the power settings so closing the lid wouldn't cause the laptop to shut down). Anyway, Dell recommended I turn on USB Wake Support in BIOS and that did the trick! All of a sudden power-ups using the dock power switch were repeatable. 

Try both and see if it helps.

Thanks for the suggestions. I have the same issues with the TB18DC dock... could you post a picture of your solution?

Is this normal that little movement of the cable can cause hiccups? If I connect my phone via a USB-C connector, I never have such problems if I move the cable.

---

@SlimJ87D wrote:

I created an SR ( ) for this dock and its terrible performance. This dock hardly ever works on the first try. I have to plug it in and disconnect it multiple times to get it to work. 

Dell Precision 7530 bios and all drivers are up to date. TB18DC firmware is up to date. 

Usually a combination of the 2 happen, completely random and not repeatable:

1. Laptop does not charge.

2. Display one works.

3. Display two works. 

4. Nothing happens at all. 

 

I have found the best way to get the dock to work is to unplug and power down the dock, power it back up and then plug it in. It will work 50% of the time. So sometimes it takes two tries. 

 

I have taken video of this issue and have sent it to dell in my SR. If you are having similar problems, please speak up so we can let them know that this dock does not work well!

---

I have the same issues... and I am losing my patience. The solution I found is to connect my USB Hubs directly to the 7530, this way I get the mouse and keyboard work instantly after a resume from sleep. But then what is the point of having the dock at all?!

Also, updating all the drivers and firmware took soo much time - I followed the instructions in the manual to update all six drivers. Strange that the Dell Command | Update software didn't find these updates. It should be plug and play, and not manual.

I am thinking to switch to a third party dock. Any suggestions?

hajapes,

You wrote: Is this normal that little movement of the cable can cause hiccups? If I connect my phone via a USB-C connector, I never have such problems if I move the cable.

And neither do I. I find just about any USB-C charging/data cable plugged into my LG Smartphone, OEM or otherwise fits snugly and does not move, even after a year's worth of physical insertion/disconnection cycles! I have no argument with you there! However, this dock cable is not the same as a phone charging/data cable. It's got many more wires in the bundle, and probably a thicker set of wires for delivering the power from the dock to the laptop. When you unwind any thick cord, for example a power-cord from a home improvement store, or a power-strip, that cord will have "shape memory". So will an outdoor hose for watering your plants. You should remove that memory as a first step.

I noticed early on that the TB18DC's dual USB-C Thunderbolt connector's body (the end of the cable with the white LED and the two USB-C male connectors) did not fit flush with the laptop's case (you can see this when you look at the first photo attached to the post), and that allows for up/down, left/right movement. I've forwarded this observation to Dell, and I've made some recommendations.

Yes, it would be helpful too, if the male-end (on the connector body) and female-end (in the laptop) were of tighter tolerance. No argument with you there either!

So what I offer you is a means by which I've mitigated the issue with a work-around. As requested, here are two images of how I've routed the cable from the TB18DC from behind 3 Dell monitors (using HDMI to DVI, DP to DVI, and mDP to DVI dongles, cheap from Amazon) into one coil (held together by two Velcro strips and one twist-tie), then directed into the side of the 7730 laptop. (please excuse the debris on the desk - time to clean I guess). One image clearly shows how I "stacked" the coil. One improvement would be placing Velcro backing on the desk, and the mating Velcro surface on the underside of the Thunderbolt connector (I've seen this at home improvement and hardware stores). However, this low-tech solution has proven robust enough for me without resorting to this step; anyways, I would not wish to affix something to an antique oak desk.

---

@sfortin wrote:

hajapes,

You wrote: Is this normal that little movement of the cable can cause hiccups? If I connect my phone via a USB-C connector, I never have such problems if I move the cable.

And neither do I. I find just about any USB-C charging/data cable plugged into my LG Smartphone, OEM or otherwise fits snugly and does not move, even after a year's worth of physical insertion/disconnection cycles! I have no argument with you there! However, this dock cable is not the same as a phone charging/data cable. It's got many more wires in the bundle, and probably a thicker set of wires for delivering the power from the dock to the laptop. When you unwind any thick cord, for example a power-cord from a home improvement store, or a power-strip, that cord will have "shape memory". So will an outdoor hose for watering your plants. You should remove that memory as a first step.

I noticed early on that the TB18DC's dual USB-C Thunderbolt connector's body (the end of the cable with the white LED and the two USB-C male connectors) did not fit flush with the laptop's case (you can see this when you look at the first photo attached to the post), and that allows for up/down, left/right movement. I've forwarded this observation to Dell, and I've made some recommendations.

Yes, it would be helpful too, if the male-end (on the connector body) and female-end (in the laptop) were of tighter tolerance. No argument with you there either!

So what I offer you is a means by which I've mitigated the issue with a work-around. As requested, here are two images of how I've routed the cable from the TB18DC from behind 3 Dell monitors (using HDMI to DVI, DP to DVI, and mDP to DVI dongles, cheap from Amazon) into one coil (held together by two Velcro strips and one twist-tie), then directed into the side of the 7730 laptop. (please excuse the debris on the desk - time to clean I guess). One image clearly shows how I "stacked" the coil. One improvement would be placing Velcro backing on the desk, and the mating Velcro surface on the underside of the Thunderbolt connector (I've seen this at home improvement and hardware stores). However, this low-tech solution has proven robust enough for me without resorting to this step; anyways, I would not wish to affix something to an antique oak desk.

---

This is very useful, thanks a lot!

I have to think about how I can shorten the distance between the screens and the laptop. Actually I needed the distance of the dock's cable to comfortable place my laptop on the table.

I understand what you stay, still, I am surprised that the connection on the TB data link can be so easily disconnected. I thought finally this USB-C connector is something that doesn't have the problems like USB micro had (fails so often after a couple of year of use).

The three displays I have are older, and have only DVI or VGA. I used two DVI, and one VGA with my previous M6800 and PR03X dock. The monitor driven by the VGA connection... I could never get the same color or crispness out of it. But now, I don't have to resort to a VGA connection.

So, my dock sits behind the right-most monitor out of three. With the HDMI to DVI, DP to DVI, and mDP to DVI dongles, add in the length of the DVI to DVI cables, and I have plenty of room to situate the dock where I want, and route it to the laptop. As I sit facing the displays and keyboard, the laptop is off to the right of the right-most display with the laptop perpendicular to the plane made by the monitors. I make sure on my desk, the dock and the laptop can ventilate freely. I am using a pretty wide desk.

Back to the cable for the dock, this is not the equivalent of two USB-C cables that might be used to charge a phone. A quick-charger may put out a few amps at 5volts for charging a phone. This cable has to handle near 20volts at 12A (actually less current, because some of the 240Watt supply is consumed by the dock itself). Normally one thunderbolt connection can handle 100W.

Here is a tech brief I found on the web which starts to provide an appreciation for what this cable and the associated hardware are doing.

https://thunderbolttechnology.net/sites/default/files/Thunderbolt3_TechBrief_FINAL.pdf

I'm having a similar issue except that now, nothing gets detected. At that price, EMC should finally find a real solution for their poor design. Meanwhile, i will keep on opening SR and get new docks. This is my fourth (started with TB16 on a 7720)

I see that Dell has not responded, which is not cool. This dock cost nearly $300 and it doesn't work 75% of the time. 

Dell, I don't want to plug and unplug this thing in 3-4 times to get it to work every morning. Am I going to have to do this for hte remainder of the product?  

I had to do the same, unplug replug several times until it worked. I have sent it back.

Thunderbolt docks seem to have an inherent problem with the sluggish wake up of screens and USB devices, and they need C state to switched off.

At the moment I just plug unplug all cables to the machines when I move it from my desk.

If you are having problems with this dock, please create an SR and also reference my SR as well as this thread. Lets get this dock fixed ASAP. 

I have already sent my TB18DC back and asked for a refund.

I don't think it's worth wasting more time with this dock. It's still in beta state really, this is not a commercial version.

Maybenext year, when they figured it out how to make it work reliably.

At the moment I plug in mannully power, hdmi, ethernet and usb. Still less time lost then troubleshooting a Thunderbolt dock, or waiting 20 sec for usb things to get recognised over Thunderbolt after a wake up.

I have the same problem on multiple machines in my organization, and dell has requested that I open a service request for every single machine that has been deployed and out in the wild to have the issue looked into or escalated. I get due process but if your product is a lemon, why are you not seeing the same issues your end users are seeing? 

I've got two TB18DCs working fine (one in the office, one at home). Both handle 3monitors, mouse, keyboard, and ethernet. I have no issues getting 1Gbps through the connection. BIOS settings and the arrangement I show in the photos earlier in the thread cured 95% of the issues. I admit, I don't sleep the unit, nor do I hot dock, so I didn't look for operability issues in those areas. The only nagging issue I had, is that with my setup, at home I could not then plug in two USB printers. I even tried one USB hub, and that didn't work either. So what I have now is both USB printers being served by a USB hub that is internal to one of my monitors. I have the hub plugged into the laptop itself. I use this configuration at home, because while both printers have WiFi, I use a VPN connection to the workplace, and without split-tunneling, all my TCP/IP traffic travels the tunnel, so printing would be problematic otherwise. HTH