XPS 13 9300 thunderbolt 3 issue

@describee thanks for your post.

well, today I discovered something.when the laptop is fully charged, everything works fine. the dock charges it (when I connected my laptop, the battery was at 90%) and the monitor is working perfectly. I will do some testings though to see if and when the problem occurs. At which percentage.

For me though this is an issue with the XPS. And Dell should find a way to solve it... soon.

@jovaseq thats good to hear... I guess. Does the monitor plugged in directly to the laptop work fine as well when battery is near 100%?

@Tesla1856 sorry I missed that earlier. Seems like earlier he said the dock had issues even nothing else is plugged in. This seems easier to troubleshoot. I'm curious to know if the same issue would happen with a Dell Thunderbolt dock. If it does maybe Dell may be more inclined to look into it?

1. well, today I discovered something.when the laptop is fully charged, everything works fine.

2. the dock charges it (when I connected my laptop, the battery was at 90%)

3. and the monitor is working perfectly.

--------------------------

1.  That is encouraging. So, it CAN work.

2. You know, in the BIOS, I saw extensive battery charging options. Those should be set to the defaults. If you have been changing them, or want to know how mine are set, I would be willing to record them and report back.

3. Good to hear. Although, I thought (for now) we were just trying to get the XPS-13 to charge properly, with only it connected to the dock.

@Tesla1856 thanx for your feedback. It would be great to send me your changes to bios regarding charging.

But just to clarify. The charging problem came out after I was trying to do a "one cable connection" with my monitor (with or without a dock).

@describee I tried to connect the laptop with the monitor directly. Guess what. It doesn't work. Even if the laptop is fully charged. No signal on the monitor and the laptop starts and stops charging all the time. I don't know what is happening.

@jovaseq Another method you could try is through a DisplayPort (from monitor) to USB-C cable. That way you will just rely on the DP pass through on the laptop rather than through Thunderbolt 3.

I came across this. Not that it really affects us with XPS-13 (at 45w), but interesting non-the-less:

https://www.dell.com/community/XPS/Using-the-Dell-130W-USB-Type-C-charger-on-the-Dell-XPS-15-7590/m-p/7441697/highlight/true#M39170

It would be great to send me your changes to bios regarding charging.

-----------------

Ok, here you go:

BIOS options for Power Management:
Wake on AC = OFF
Wake on Dell USB-C Dock = ON
Auto-On Time = Disabled
Block Sleep = OFF
Battery Charge Config = Adaptive (but Standard actually looks a bit more normal)
Advanced Battery Charge = OFF
Peak Shift = OFF
Control WLAN radio = OFF
Wake on LAN = Disabled
Intel Speed-Shift = ON
Lid Switch Power-on = ON

@Tesla1856 @jovaseq @describee 

I have some additional information which may help troubleshoot this issue that I am also having.

I am upgrading from the XPS 9350 to the 9300. 

My setup is an external monitor in extended mode along with a DC47 Dodocool thunderbolt dock. I never had any problems with my old XPS 9350, but my new 9300 connects and disconnects all the time. It's basically unusable. I've tried upgrading BIOS and the thunderbolt drivers but no dice. 

Once, I got it working for about an hour, but then it starts disconnecting again. I don't understand why it worked during this hour and not at other times.

So, if it works for my 9350 but not my 9300, I feel that it MUST be the 9300, unless I'm missing something.

I hope Dell or someone can help.

Thanks.

Hi @Philskies ,

Thanks for the info. After speaking with some people from Dell, they told me that the system works as intended. And basically they have approved a return/refund for me in case I would like to return it. 

It is weird though that a machine like this has this kind of issues. 

I am optimistic that these will be solved with bios and drivers updates. That is why I am not thinking of returning it at the moment.

@Philskies which monitor are you using?

I had a caldigit mini dock briefly (subsequently sold it away because the usb ports didn't work properly but this seems more of an issue with the dock itself as it exhibited similar behaviour on my other devices) and my 4k TV seemed to work fine at 60Hz. I was also able to plug in two displays. Now I'm using a simpler USB-C to hdmi cable which seems to work fine too.

The XPS 13 has new ice lake graphics and supports dp 1.4 with hbr3 over usb c. Not sure if that is affecting anything.

Edit: are you sure it's a thunderbolt dock? Not to doubt you but I did a Google search and couldn't find any thunderbolt dock sold by that brand. otoh there is a usbc dock that is sold.

@jovaseq Out of curiosity, I pored through the LG user manual again and I was wondering whether you have tried the following:

• Just to clarify, you are using the LG 5k2k monitor right? 34WK95U-W? Apparently the older models support only TB3 whereas the newer models support both TB3 and USB-C
• Have you tried toggling between the various DisplayPort options on the monitor. I believe you can select between 1.4, 1.2, and 1.1. 1.4 should be applicable for the XPS 9300, but I was also wondering if changing to 1.2 or 1.1 would mitigate the problem.
• If you lower the screen resolution, does it help?
• I understand that USB-C and TB3 output on the monitor is provided using the same port. Just wondering if you have tried a pure USB-C to USB-C DisplayPort alt mode cable (i.e. not a TB3 cable) to see if it works? Or alternatively, disable the TB3 controller on the laptop and see if it works. Just so we isolate this issue as a TB3-only problem.
• Have you tried on another laptop? If so, what model is this other laptop?
• Have you tried contacting LG?

Also, can I just summarise the issues you face just for clarity (please let me know if my understanding is incorrect):

• Monitor to laptop directly (TB3 to TB3), with monitor plugged into mains -- no connection
• Monitor to dock (using one TB3 to TB3 cable), dock to laptop (using one TB3 to TB3 cable), monitor plugged into mains and dock plugged into mains -- sporadic connection -- correct?
• Monitor to dock (using DisplayPort-DisplayPort connection), dock to laptop with dock and monitor plugged into mains -- have you manged to test this yet? If this works fine, then you still essentially have one cable plugged into the laptop.

Hi,

I also have a similar problem with my new Dell 9300.

I have a Samsung 32 inch quad hd widescreen monitor and using usb-c thunderbolt connection to charge my laptop.

However, nothing is displayed on my external monitor when I connect via thunderbolt. I have updated BIOS, video and thunderbolt drivers.

The only way to get it working... 50% of the time is to restart my laptop with the connection already in place.

I do not have this problem with my previous Dell  XPS 9350 model.

Can anyone from Dell advise?

@davdatongJust some questions:

• Is your model the Samsung CJ971?
• Some mentioned their TB3 display works when the other TB3 port is connected to a power adapter. Does this resolve your issue?
• Have you tried both the 85W and 15W TB3 ports on the monitor?

Also you might wish to contact Dell directly or start a new thread so that Dell can log the case for you from there.