XPS 13 9350 does not connect to P2720DC via USB C cable

Thank you for your response. It just frustrated me to no end that I did send my laptop product code to the sales rep and he came back suggesting the P2720DC USBC model. The whole reason I chose a Dell monitor was because I suspected the XPS 13 9350 is pretty old and it has best chance of connecting with a Dell monitor. Boy, I am so wrong.

@Trinh Nguyen  Unfortunately, this is a known issue documented in this KB article.  As you'll read, Dell acknowledged the issue and then basically said they weren't going to fix it because they consider the XPS 13 9350 end-of-life.  They didn't even give a technical explanation of underlying cause, never mind committing to providing a fix -- although it's possible that the underlying cause is a hardware issue that can't be fixed with an update.  We may never know.  The only workaround they suggest is to buy a dock, which seems a bit ridiculous given that the whole point of using a USB-C display is to avoid having to use a dock in the first place.

The closest you can get to maintaining single cable connectivity would be to use an adapter like this one that will allow you to continue running video and power through a single connector.  Connect a DisplayPort cable to the P2720DC's DP input and run the USB-C cable from the P2720DC to the adapter to provide power.  But then you lose the ability to use the USB ports built into the display, since it seems the only "upstream" USB port that Dell is providing on their new displays is the USB-C port, and the adapter I linked doesn't support data passthrough.  Dell's displays used to have a regular USB 3.0 port for "upstream" connectivity.

I realize that's far from an ideal solution, but unfortunately that's the deal on the XPS 13 9350.  Since that KB article was written, it came out that this issue also affects the XPS 15 9550 and its sister system the Precision 5510, but Dell never even updated that article to reflect that.  So I've been doing what I can to field questions from people using those systems experiencing the exact same issue that you are.

I wish I had better news for you on this.

Yes they ship it from Texas to California. It seems like I have to ship it back,but not sure where yet, waiting for their response. Their return policy says customer pays shipping cost unfortunately.

Just my bad luck I guess. The Dell docking station itself is already more than 1/3 the price of the monitor.

Oh I see. That would be extremely annoying. Now I have to go find out how much it costs to ship the monitor back. Pretty expensive I think and Dell wont pay for shipping fee regardless of this being their fault. I bought directly from the website.

Thank you so much for your kind responses.

Did you mean I need the combination: USB A (laptop) to HDMI (monitor) and USB A (laptop) to USB C (monitor) for this to work, not either or?

@Trinh Nguyen  I absolutely understand your frustration, and this is one of those cases where I'm disappointed with Dell myself for not delivering a fix.  And sadly there are other interoperability issues I know of where Dell hasn't even bothered to write a KB article despite reports on this forum from multiple users experiencing a problem.  For example, Inspiron xx93 systems are limited to 1080p on their HDMI outputs even though their specs claim HDMI 1.4b, which should support QHD or 4K 30 Hz, and the XPS 15 9570 can't use HDMI to DVI adapters/cables even though it should be able to.  But you won't find any official documentation from Dell about those issues at all.

But back to your issue, unfortunately Dell sales reps simply won't know about issues like this.  They're expected to be familiar with a broad range of products, which means they simply won't always know about any particular product in great depth.  This case is an interoperability issue that only affects one system that's documented (plus two that aren't), and the issue shouldn't even exist at all, so it's just not something that would come up in training for a sales rep.  The only way they'd likely know about this issue was if they just happened to hear complaints about it before.  But I realize that doesn't change the bad experience that you had.

So on that note, I wanted to clarify that this issue only affects the specific combination of a) using an XPS 13 9350 (or one of the other two systems I mentioned), and b) using a USB-C to USB-C cable, and c) connecting to the USB-C input of a Dell USB-C display.  If you change any one of those variables, the issue goes away.  I know you said you don't want to change displays, but if you're willing to reconsider that, other XPS 13 9350 users have found that they can use other USB-C displays just fine with their system, so that might be an option worth considering.  But if you're certain you want to keep both your laptop and the display, the adapter I mentioned would work if you were willing to give up USB data.  The only other option that would maintain full functionality but completely wipe out the single cable convenience of USB-C would be to do this:

• Use a USB-C to DisplayPort cable to connect the XPS 13 to the display for video.
• Use a USB-C to USB-A cable to connect the display's USB-C port to the XPS 13's USB-A port for USB data.
• Keep the XPS 13's power adapter directly connected for power.

Again, I realize there's no good option here.  I just wanted to suggest what I could under the circumstances.

@Trinh Nguyen  whoever you're talking to doesn't know what they're talking about.  The display has a native USB-C input, so you shouldn't "need to have an adapter" in the first place.  But it's true that if you use a USB-C to DP or USB-C to HDMI cable, you'll be able to get video out of your system to the display.  But that type of cable will ONLY carry video.  It won't carry USB data or allow your laptop to charge from the display.  The adapter I suggested in my first post would at least give you video and power through a single connection to your system (with two cables running from that adapter to the display), but won't give you USB data at all, because now you'll be using the display's USB-C port purely for power.  There might be an adapter that would plug into your USB-C port and give you a video output, a power input, and a USB 3.x data connector, in which case you'd have 3 cables running from the display to the adapter but only a single cable from the adapter to plug into your system, but I don't know of one offhand.  It's also a bit past midnight where I am, so I'm going to bed, but I'll see if I can find an adapter like that for you in the morning.  You might end up finding that the adapter costs less than shipping the display back.  Are you sure that Dell won't pay for return shipping even within the return period?

@Trinh Nguyen  Sorry to hear that.  I also just realized that the issue with trying to get USB data and power working at the same time from the display is that since the display only has a USB-C port and not a separate "upstream" USB 3.0 port like older Dell USB-C displays have, you'd need an adapter that could receive USB 3.x and power passthrough via the same USB-C port.  There are a lot of "mini-dock" adapters out there that support power passthrough and USB 3.x data, like this one and this one that has even more stuff, but those don't support power passthrough and USB data on the same ports, and I don't remember ever seeing any similar adapters that do.

At this point I would try to escalate your support case.  You have the link to the official Dell KB article about this issue, so I would try to argue that Dell's own sales reps gave you bad advice due to lack of awareness of this issue, even though it's officially documented by Dell, and that therefore they should treat this as a defective product, where Dell DOES pay return shipping.  Normally a defective product return also includes an exchange, which you of course wouldn't want in this case, but if whoever you speak with first doesn't help, I would see if you can get this escalated.  Even if Dell sales reps couldn't reasonably have been expected to know about this issue, the fact is that they gave you advice that led you to make a bad purchase, even though Dell an article published on the Internet that would have indicated that this wouldn't work for you.

Also, Dell support just told me this "you need to have a adapter to convert to USB such as HDMI to USB or DP to USB". But I believe you said using adapter causes lost of USB data. What does it mean? I am not familiar with all these tech issues.

@Trinh Nguyen  No, I meant exactly what I wrote above.  You'd end up with 3 cables connected to your system.  You'd have a USB-C to DisplayPort cable for video (you can use a USB-C to HDMI cable if you prefer, but I tend to prefer USB-C to DP since USB-C ports use DisplayPort anyway), plus a USB-C to USB-A cable for USB data, and then the power adapter.

Yes, thank you. I will definitely escalate this to get this monitor returned and shipping cost covered. Will let you know how it goes.

So I have returned the monitor and will not be charged the shipping fee for it. Now to the next adventure.

2 got 2 things on my mind:

1. Do you know if LG 27" monitor would work with XPS 13 9350?

2. I am considering getting the new 2020 XPS 13 9300 Touch screen to replace the current laptop. I did have several issues with 9350 like dropping wifi (had to replace wifi card), could not run explorer due to bad image (Chrome is fine), bluetooth icon keeps on disappearing. Since you seem really knowledgeable, would you recommend the 9300 touch? I am not touching the 4K since i dont think it would matter on a 13" screen plus it consumes way too much power. I am assuming the 9300 would have zero issue connecting to any new monitor. 

@Trinh Nguyen 

1. I don't know about that specific display, but I do know that the reports that led to the KB article I linked earlier included confirmations that the XPS 13 9350 did work over USB-C with non-Dell displays.  The two threads that contained the bulk of the discussions that led to that KB article are here and here.  You might find some information in there useful.

2. I don't have any personal familiarity with the XPS 13 9300.  But I definitely agree with you that FHD is the way to go rather than 4K because of the battery life penalty, and I also have never really liked touchscreens on laptops.  I prefer anti-glare displays over glossy displays, and I've never understood the point of a touchscreen on a laptop.  It's too tiresome to hold your arm in the air to use a laptop touchscreen for any reasonable period of time.  On a 2-in-1 sure, but I use traditional style laptops.  I do like that the 16:10 aspect ratio display has come back since I always preferred 1920x1200 over 1920x1080 for the additional vertical space.  I'm not a fan of 100% USB-C/TB3 connectors personally.  I wish it had at least one USB-A connector because there are still a TON of USB-A peripherals out there, and it would be nice not to need a dongle for practically everything, but oh well.

In terms of display compatibility, the XPS 13 9300 has Intel's new "Ice Lake" CPU, which means you'll actually have support for DisplayPort 1.4 (HBR3) over USB-C.  That's nice for futureproofing, and that's actually still pretty rare to have even today because most systems even being sold today still only support DisplayPort 1.2 (HBR2) over USB-C.  The reason is that those "Ice Lake" CPUs right now are the only Intel CPUs that support DP 1.4, but only certain Intel's Core 10th Gen CPUs with models ending in a "G" followed by a number use that architecture.  The other Core 10th Gen CPUs with models ending in U and H still use the old GPU that only supports HBR2.

As for weird interoperability issues, I saw this thread about strange behavior when using the D6000 dock specifically, and someone else in there mentioned some issues with Thunderbolt 3 devices, but I don't know the details there -- maybe this thread?  But those types of reports aren't especially unusual.  If you look into just about any laptop model you'll find at least a few issue reports somewhere, especially for a model that was just released and hasn't had a batch of firmware updates yet.

I wish I had more specific guidance for you on that system, but unfortunately I haven't actually used one yet.  Sorry!

Thank you so much for your sharing. Have a good night!