XPS 15 9570 problems with Thunderbolt Dock WD19TB

Almost the same thing is happening to me. XPS 15 9570 with WD19TB, and if I disconnect and connect again, none of the USB devices work. I've gone in an "trusted" the dock in the Thunderbolt settings... nothing.

The only thing that "fixes" it for me is a reboot. This is eerily similar to the same issues I used to have with the TB16, which was so frustrating that I stopped using it.

@Ben1704  Glad you found a solution, even if it did involve jumping through some hoops.  Out of curiosity, what is the display name of the "NHI" service that you had to delete, just to make it clear what's being deleted?  If you're not sure, you can run the below command in PowerShell Console to list all services by both their Name and Display Name.  See what name shows up next to the one listed as "NHI".

get-service | select Name,DisplayName | sort Name

Hi,

I am new to the Dell community and I am kindly asking for your expert advice.

Could you please help me with the following?

1. I bought a Dell xps 15 9570 4K i7-8750H CPU (that has the following ports AC power |USB 3.1 Gen 1 with Power Delivery| HDMI 2.0 | Thunderbolt™ 3) Sistem: Windows 10 Home.
2. I would like to buy a docking (I guess the best choice in terms of compatibility with the laptop would be the Dell WD19TB)
3. I would like also to buy a 4K Dell monitor for work and some video editing/content creation (I guess the best choice would be the Dell Ultrasharp U3219Q or the U2720Q).

However, I noticed that the in the specifications of the Dell WD19TB it says: "With non-Thunderbolt system: (2) FHD @ 60 Hz, (1) QHD @ 60 Hz, (1) 4K @ 30 Hz."

The Dell Ultrasharp U3219Q or the U2720Q have both USB Type-C cable (USB 3.1 Gen 2) connections if I am not wrong. Therefore, no Thunderbolt system.

So, my question is will I be able to get 4K@60 Hz on my new monitor with this hardware configuration. If so, should I use HDMI or USB Type-C cable?

And will I be able to run 4K on my Dell xps 15 9570 simultaneously?

Thank you very much for your help!

Best regards

@jphughan @Ben1704 @PrBri 

@Dellbodhi  Where the WD19TB documentation talks about a "non-Thunderbolt system", that refers to the system -- meaning the laptop -- and not the display.  Your XPS 15 9570 has a Thunderbolt 3 port, and therefore it is a Thunderbolt system.  Some laptops only have USB-C ports that do not support Thunderbolt.  Those would be non-Thunderbolt systems, and non-Thunderbolt systems cannot provide as much display bandwidth to the dock as Thunderbolt systems can, which is why display setups are more limited when the dock is connected to a non-Thunderbolt system.

Yes, the WD19TB is a good choice for you because it's the only dock that will allow you to run a 4K 60 Hz display and also provide the full 130W of power the XPS 15 is designed to have available.  You could actually run dual 4K 60 Hz displays if you wanted to, although in that case one of them would have to be connected to the "downstream" TB3 port at the edge of the dock due to how the dock allocates display bandwidth across its outputs.  For that you could use a USB-C cable or something like a USB-C to DisplayPort cable.

In terms of how to connect the display to the dock, all of the dock's output connectors support 4K 60 Hz, so it doesn't really matter if all you care about is video.  The only restriction is that the USB-C port next to the HDMI output and the HDMI output cannot be used simultaneously.  But otherwise, use whatever is convenient for you.  If you want to use the USB ports built into the display, then connecting the display to the dock using a USB-C cable might be easiest since you could carry video and USB data over that single cable rather than having to connect separate video and USB data cables between the display and the dock.  However, I don't know if those displays will support 4K 60 Hz and USB 3.x data simultaneously over a USB-C connection.  It depends on whether they support DisplayPort 1.4 over USB-C or only DisplayPort 1.2 over USB-C, and I haven't checked the documentation of those displays.  But if you only care about video, then you can use a DisplayPort cable, HDMI cable, USB-C to DisplayPort cable, whatever you want.

And yes, even if you had dual 4K 60 Hz displays connected to the dock, you would still be able to use the laptop's internal 4K display simultaneously.  However, I don't really recommend that because the Windows scaling setting you'll need for your 15" 4K display will likely not be good for external 4K displays.  Windows technically does support using different scaling settings on different displays, but when you do that, it will only RENDER content at a single scale factor (specifically, the scale factor of the display that was primary when you logged on to Windows) and then it will use post-render scaling to expand or shrink that rendered image as appropriate for other displays.  That will not look as good as rendering for that display's actual scale factor, but Windows doesn't support rendering at multiple scale factors simultaneously.  So if you want to mix different scale factors, you'll need to accept that your non-primary display(s) will not look as good as they could otherwise.  This is why I always recommend that people try to make sure that all of their active displays use the same scale factor.  But that isn't really feasible if you have a 15" 4K display and a 27" or 32" 4K display.

Lastly, you might want to reconsider getting a 27" 4K display anyway and get a 27" QHD display instead.  A 27" 4K display results in a pixel density that is high enough that you'll need to enable scaling -- and some applications still have issues with non-100% scaling settings, completely separate from the "mix and match" scenario above -- but NOT high enough to give you a really sharp "Retina display" experience.  So in my opinion 27" 4K is sort of the worst of both worlds.  Meanwhile, 27" QHD is completely usable at 100% scaling, so you won't have those types of application issues -- although you still need to make sure to avoid mixing and matching scaling settings.

@Dellbohdi I have two Samsung LU28E590DS monitors attached via Thunderbolt Dock WD19TB to Displayport. Display resolution 3840x2160, 133.3kHz 60Hz, Scale 150% (Recommended).

@jphughan is correct that the displays are not as sharp as my XPS 15 9570 but I can run all three screens in my set up. I don't know if changing my monitors would be any better but I can manage as-is for a while.

Hope this helps.

@Ben1704  Try setting your internal display to 150% too and then signing out and back into Windows. If it doesn’t make things too small to be usable, your displays might start looking better overall because you won’t be using multiple scale factors simultaneously.

@jphughan Thank you very much for your reply and the explanation! It was very helpful!  And sorry for my late response.

@Ben1704 thank you also for your advice.

I just bought the WD19TB and the U3219Q and works fine for me. Scaling on the xps 15 9570 300%, while on the monitor 175%.

I have to adjust the monitors collours still, otherwise I am sotisfied with the combination.

The only issue that I am encountring is that I tried to connect via tunderbolt-wd19tb the other notebook that I have; lenovo T480 but it won`t work.

Also the loudnes of the xps fans (the cpu usage jumps at very high levels just by opening crome, and then usually after some time it stibilizes-it is not correlated with the external monitor usage).

Thank you again for your kindness!

@Dellbodhi  Happy to help!  If you haven't already, try setting your XPS 15's internal display to 200% scaling.  A 4K display at 200% scaling gives you the equivalent size of a 1080p workspace, and most people find 1080p on a 15" laptop display to be usable.  But 4K at 300% scaling only gives you a 1280x720 workspace, which isn't much to work with by today's standards.  In terms of the T480, the ThinkPad T480 comes standard with Thunderbolt 3, so it should work just fine.  But if it's not working, can you be more specific about what exactly is going on rather than just saying "it won't work"?  Does the dock even provide power to the T480 when it's connected?  That should work even if nothing related to Thunderbolt data transmission works, but if even power isn't provided, then there might be an issue with the port on the T480 itself.  If you can get power, do you have the Thunderbolt software installed on your system?  Are the BIOS and Thunderbolt 3 firmware both up to date on that system?  Did you make sure that Thunderbolt is actually enabled within the BIOS since sometimes it gets disabled due to security concerns?  The default Thunderbolt security level in the BIOS should be User Authorization, and in that case when plugging in the WD19TB for the first time, if you have the Thunderbolt software installed, you'll see a popup requiring you to authorize the device.  If you choose "Always allow" there, then you won't have to do that going forward.  And just to confirm, you're connecting the T480 using the cable permanently attached to the dock, correct?  If you're trying to connect it to the dock by plugging a TB3 cable into the "downstream" TB3 port at the back of the dock to try to have both your XPS and T480 connected simultaneously, that isn't going to work.

Hi jhughan,

I have a XPS 15 9570 and a WD19TB with 180W power adapter. I was wondering if it was possible to connect an external monitor (Dell S2721QS) through the WD19TB via DisplayPort and get 4K resolution 3840 x 2160 @ 60Hz? I mean the end result is to have both my XPS 15 internal display and external display both running at 4K 3840 x 2160 @60hz. Is that possible? if yes, please advice how it can be done because I have tried several method and my external monitor connected to my XPS15 if using internal display at 4K @60hz my external monitor will never get 4K @60hz, only 4K@30Hz. Thank you for your help & support.

I do not get any hits on Chipset_Driver_7P7G7_WN32_15.3.39.250_A01.exe, in the driver download. can you post a link?

Thanks,

Henrik