Docking station for USB C Monitors and Dell XPS 15 7590 laptop

Thank you @jphughan  for your help.  Sorry my xps 15 model is 7590.  Option #1 works for me. I was not aware of this. Very helpful.

I have one more question related to  WD19TB  dock. You mentioned I can use DisplayPort to HDMI cable to connect DisplayPort on the dock to HDMI on the monitor. I was under the impression DisplayPort to HDMI is unidirectional and DisplayPort has to be on my monitor. But looks like that is not the case. Please confirm.

Could you also let me know if it is true that I can either use HDMI on the WD19TB  or the USB-C video output near the HDMI output because they both share same hardware and cannot be used for two monitors at same time. If I use the USB-C, HDMI will be disabled. I read this on another post but wasn't sure.

Hi @jphughan ,

Thank you for USB-C MST hub option and explaining displayport to HDMI adapter. USB-C MST hub is way less expensive and works for my setup. You have made this so easy for me. Thanks again! 

@Rick Rai  Happy to help, and good luck!

Hello,

I was reading your replies on this thread and had a question of my own. I have a Dell XPS 15 9575 model. I am looking for a docking station/hub that has (1) HDMI, (1) VGA, (1) Ethernet, (3) USB 3.0, and at least on USB C ports. Any products you would recommend that can be used as to charge the laptop and support the rest of the connections? Any help is appreciated. I see some off-brand stuff on Amazon but not sure if any of them are worth purchasing or not. Also, some say pass-through whereas others do not. What is the difference? Thanks again. 

@VShak83  Passthrough refers to USB PD power passthrough, meaning you can connect a USB-C power source to the hub and the hub will pass the power from that source through to the system the hub is connected to.  Also, when you say you want a hub that includes a USB-C port, you have to be specific about the functionality you're expecting.  On hubs that have USB-C ports, they are typically either ONLY for power passthrough OR for USB data -- sometimes USB 3.x, other times just USB 2.0.  I haven't seen a travel hub or "mini-dock" that has a USB-C port that supports video output, for example.

And even among hubs that offer multiple video outputs, in some cases you can only run one at a time (like the Dell DA300) or you can only mirror output out of the various outputs because all displays attached to the hub will be seen as a single display by the host system.  To get multiple independent outputs requires a hub that supports DisplayPort MST, but that's fairly uncommon.  And then you also have to make sure that the total bandwidth requirements of your multi-display setup doesn't exceed what's available from the source system, which on your system when using a hub that's also trying to run USB 3.x data would be half of a DisplayPort 1.2 interface, which is enough for dual displays at up to 1920x1200 each or a single display at up to 2560x1600 (or 4K but only 30 Hz).

Lastly, since you're using an XPS 15 9575, you really wouldn't want to use something that used power passthrough anyway.  First of all, multi-purpose hubs that incorporate USB PD passthrough will "skim" some power from the external power source when one is attached instead of drawing the necessary power from the system.  This is because the hub can't draw power from the system while simultaneously passing power through to it.  And some hubs will "skim" as much as 20W from the external power source.  This means that if you only use the laptop's own power supply rather than a third-party source that provides more wattage, then your system will charge and possibly perform more slowly since it's getting less power than it's supposed to.  But the issue with the XPS 15 9575 in particular is that it uses a 130W power source, which is actually above the official USB PD spec.  Dell did something proprietary to run 130W over USB-C/TB3 specifically to supports systems like the XPS 15.  Even though these hubs can pass power through, they're not completely passive.  The hub and the power source need to perform a USB PD negotiation, and the hub won't support 130W.  And I'm not even sure what Dell's own 130W power source would offer to a non-Dell system.  It might not even be the full 100W.  The reason I say that is that Dell systems currently limit themselves to drawing no more than 65W over USB-C/TB3 from non-Dell power sources.  I have no idea why, but that's how it is today -- so I wouldn't be completely surprised if Dell power sources limited their output when connected to non-Dell devices.

I don't have any personal experience with hubs that support multiple displays, but the few that I've found have some disconcerting reviews on Amazon in terms of longevity.  The best I can find is this one, which does support multiple independent displays and includes a USB-C port, but the USB-C port is only for power passthrough and says it only passes through up to 79W when connected to an 87W power source.  It might pass through more than that if a higher wattage source is connected, but I doubt it would ever pass through more than 92W, i.e. the 100W official max minus the 8W it seems to reserve for itself.  And I have no experience at all with the vendor of that particular product, just to be clear.

@VShak83  just to add a quick note to my previous reply, if you're fine with a docking station rather than a travel hub, there's the official WD19 and WD19TB docks.  Those actually WOULD be able to power your system properly over USB-C/TB3 since Dell implemented their 130W standard on this dock.  They have two regular USB-C ports -- a front port that supports up to USB 3.1 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) data, and a rear port that supports that plus video output -- and then the WD19TB includes a third USB-C port that supports USB 2.0, video output, and Thunderbolt 3.

The only thing they don't have is VGA, but you can get a DisplayPort to VGA adapter/cable for that if you really need to keep using VGA.

Yes they're quite a bit more expensive, but they include a power source, which means you would free up your XPS 15 9575's power source, e.g. you could park it somewhere else in your home that you spend a lot of time, or keep it in a carrying bag as a permanent travel adapter rather than having to take it out and pack it up while you're using your system at home.

Note that if you get the WD19, you need to get the version that supports up to 130W passthrough by coming with a 180W power source, NOT the version that only supports 90W passthrough by only coming with a 130W power source.  The WD19TB comes standard with a 180W power source, so you're fine there.  The other difference between the two is that the WD19TB uses Thunderbolt rather than USB-C, which means whereas the WD19 is limited to dual 1920x1200 displays, the WD19TB can run dual 4K 60 Hz displays, or triple QHD displays.  And the WD19TB as I mentioned includes that "downstream" Thunderbolt port, which would allow you to connect a Thunderbolt device to the dock, such as a Thunderbolt SSD or eGPU if you wanted to.

I recently purchased a Dell xps 15 4K touch laptop as well as a Tuto universal usb-c docking station. I connected a keyboard, mouse and external hard drive as well as two Samsung monitors to the docking stations HDMI ports.  Everything connects except for the two monitors are not detected.  How do I resolve this issue?

@OldJarhead  I'll give you what I suspect is the short answer for the immediate fix, but I'll also explain why you should really rethink your dock choice.

Short answer:
I'm not sure what dock you have since you didn't link an exact product (and actually you wrote the vendor name differently in the thread title vs. the actual post, i.e. Tuto vs. Totu), but if you have a USB-C "triple display docking station", then it very likely handles video output by using "indirect display" technology called DisplayLink (not to be confused with DisplayPort).  That requires you to have the DisplayLink software installed, which you can get from DisplayLink.com.  Once you install that, you should be ok.  But like I said, you should really rethink your dock choice.

Why you should rethink your dock choice:
The way DisplayLink works comes with a lot of drawbacks that can be significant for many people's use cases, including in your case the inability to use the system's NVIDIA GPU for anything being showed on displays attached via DisplayLink.  I wrote in detail about the issues of DisplayLink in the post marked as the answer in this thread.

The other reason you should rethink your dock choice is that the XPS 15 systems are designed for a 130W power source, and most docks can only supply 60-90W.  If you run your XPS 15 from an undersized power source, like a dock that only provides that amount of power, then it will attempt to reduce its power consumption by reducing its battery charging speed and throttling its performance.  You can work around that by keeping the system's power adapter directly connected in addition to the dock, but that's one more thing to connect.  The better solution is to get a dock that supports providing 130W over USB-C/TB3.  The challenge there is that 130W is actually above the 100W max of the official USB Power Delivery spec, so the only place you'll find that capability is on certain Dell docks.  Dell did something proprietary on SOME of their docks and systems (including the XPS 15 systems) to support 130W over USB-C.  The two docks you'd want to consider would be the WD19 180W (w/ 130W passthrough -- NOT the WD19 130W version that only has 90W passthrough) or the WD19TB (comes standard with 180W power adapter).  The main difference between the two is that the latter uses Thunderbolt 3, whereas the former only uses USB-C.  As a result, with the XPS 15 7590, the regular WD19 only allows dual displays up to 1920x1200 each, whereas the WD19TB can handle dual displays up to 4K 60 Hz each (as long as you abide by cabling restrictions described in the WD19TB's manual on support.dell.com).  Unfortunately you didn't specify what displays you're using or even their resolution, so I don't know if that's relevant to you.

But both the regular WD19 and WD19TB tap into actual GPU outputs available through the USB-C/TB3 port rather than relying on DisplayLink, so you'll avoid all of DisplayLink's problems AND be able to supply enough power to run your system, rather than having to choose between accepting reduced performance or keeping the system's 130W power adapter directly attached as well.