7577 + TB16 unable to update dock FW

I wouldn't recommend using a 90W adapter with the TB16 since it's designed for a minimum of 180W, even though I realize that if the laptop isn't trying to draw any power from the TB16, then 90W is probably fine for powering just the TB16 itself.  This is admittedly a long shot, but try going into your BIOS and temporarily changing the Thunderbolt security settings to No Security or whatever the least secure option is called. I believe the TB16 firmware update routine actually runs as part of a system reboot during initial startup, sort of like a system BIOS update, as opposed to running purely from within Windows, so if your system firmware doesn't support that boot-time Thunderbolt dock firmware update capability, it's possible that you simply can't run this update from that system.  I know that when I wanted to update the firmware on my wife's WD15 dock, I had to use her XPS 13 because her Lenovo work system that she used more frequently with the dock wouldn't run the update.  Still, I agree it would be disappointing if you couldn't run this despite having a Dell system.

Yeah, I tried all those options late last night. Disabled my BIOS password, turned off Thunderbolt security, even turned off the Pre-boot options for Thunderbolt which I had enabled previously. No change.

I did notice this morning though that for whatever reason the TB3 firmware updater didn't get the NVM firmware updated properly. The latest download for the 7577 should be putting it to NVM version 33 but as you see in my above screenshot it was only up to 28. Not exactly sure what happened since before that first attempt to update the NVM firmware it was even at a lower version. And it seemed to indicate everything was successful. So long story made short I remoted into my laptop from work this morning (not connected to the dock) and tried running the updater again and rebooted. Came back and it is now showing version 33 on the NVM firmware. Will make another go at updating the dock later this afternoon and will double check on various drivers and might toy with some related settings like power management and whatnot just in case.

Even if I can't get the TB16 firmware updated, if I can just get the USB issues sorted I'd be really happy. I seem to have found a reliable way to get the USB devices to drop. So far two games I've played while connected to the dock (Elite Dangerous and Forza Horizon 4) will run fine for hours on end but when exiting they will hang for a few moments and once back to the desktop all USB devices are gone. No hiccups for the displays however. It's been a pretty reliable occurrence. And a full powerdown of the dock and laptop are needed to restore connectivity. So far I have 2x 1080p60 displays connected via HDMI and DP and a third 1024x768 display via VGA. Speakers via the rear line out, Gigabit ethernet connected, and a single USB 3 connection going to a powered hub running just a Logitech unified dongle and a Blue Snowball mic. Outside of what seems to be gaming loads the dock seems to behave fine from what I can tell. Hotplugging the USB-C functions as intended with all devices and displays coming up as they should.

One thing I will try as a long shot while I'm checking everything else out this afternoon is something you've hinted at and that is running the dock off the 180W adapter while gaming and see how it fares after quitting. As you've pointed out this laptop doesn't draw power from the dock so it would seem to me, at least IMHO, that the 180W is overkill and a 90W should be plenty to power just the dock and peripherals. But who knows. My original intent to save migrating an extra power cord around is to leave the 90W and 180W permanently affixed to the desk for the dock and laptop respectively and keep the 180W (150?) that came with the laptop for moving about. But I'll do some testing powering the dock from its supplied adapter and see if anything changes there as well.

So apologies for the delay in replying back to this. TL;DR is I've tried virtually everything I could think of but have had no luck.

Tried with nothing attached to the dock but the laptop + the 180W supplied adapter
On a whim tried to see if having the cable disconnected from the dock and just updating the cable worked, no dice.
Tried turning off power management settings in device manager for all upstream devices from (and including) the TB3 port and cable/dock as well as the Asmedia USB3 host in the dock
Rolled back the Asmedia driver to the version most often mentioned around here and elsewhere as being the last stable-ish driver.

Last thing I haven't tried as it is a more recent update is there are newer Asmedia drivers as of the tail end of January. I'll have time to test those out this weekend to see if the USB dropout issues continue to occur.

On a semi-related note as a long shot to try and get the firmware updated on this thing:

a) Has there been any reports of anyone having luck doing these updates from non-Dell devices with TB3 ports?
b) Out of all the officially supported laptops for the TB16, what are the cheapest models on the list? I've been aiming to try and get a newer laptop for my mother to replace her aging ~10yr HP. If there's anything compatible on the cheaper end (just basic web browsing duties, nothing fancy) I'd be willing to jump on it to try and make some progress on this dock. Additionally if there's any Dell laptops not on that list with TB3 ports and reports of people being able to update/use the TB16 with, that'd also be nice.

It's kinda frustrating now at this point as the dock works 99% of the way and I have had no flaws out of it aside from the USB devices dropping. And while that normally wouldn't be a big deal, but to get them back requires a full reboot of the laptop and power cycle of the dock. So while doing any gaming at this point (at least for those titles I've found so far to trigger this) I have to plan for this ahead of time.

Answered a) above. Tried with an HP laptop with Thunderbolt. While it happily picked up all the devices on the dock, the updater refused to run with an error message of 'Can't read system info' leading me to believe it is looking for a Dell laptop specifically to even start. So there's that...

I can't get the firmware update at all.  Am on a HP Envy and keep getting the message Unable to get system information.  It is useless as I can't even get to talk to anyone in customer support as there are no service tags on these devices.  So upset that against my better judgement I went with a Dell.  Well I will just have to return it and do a review I guess.

I too am getting the same error. I am fairly certain that dell is blocking the update of the firmware on their docks on non-dell systems.

@Fishwithadeagle, @cr08 , and @Ozmum  the TB16's firmware can only be updated from supported Dell systems, which is NOT all Dell systems that have TB3 ports.  The reason is that firmware updates for the TB16 run at boot time, very much like a BIOS update, and therefore performing dock firmware updates requires firmware-level support from the system.  I have no idea why Dell implemented a firmware update mechanism this way, and I also have no idea why they did NOT implement this firmware update capability even across all of their own Thunderbolt systems rather than only a subset of them -- this same issue exists with the ability to use the dock's Power button to control the attached system, which also isn't possible on all Dell systems -- but that's how this particular dock works.  I'm not sure if the TB16's successor, the WD19TB, works any differently in terms of firmware updates since I haven't installed a firmware update on one yet.

Absolutely ridiculous that they would implement that on a bios level. But thank you for the answer as that is the clearest explanation I've seen of any page talking about these firmware updates. At least I know what I need to do now.

Hi @jphughan I have a Dell XPS 13 9360 that has this very same problem with the TB16 dock. 

From what I can tell, the power button and all the connections to the dock work perfectly fine with the exception of the USB ports cutting out every couple of seconds. I've been unsuccessful in trying to get the dock firmware updated to try and fix the USB problems. Even the Dell Update software isn't even able to identify the dock's current firmware version, listing it's version number as "00.00.00.00"

Are you able to identify which Dell laptops are capable of updating the dock firmware? 

Thanks.

@Game-R  The XPS 13 9360 is absolutely a fully supported system with the TB16.  It's even named in <ADMIN NOTE: Broken link has been removed from this post by Dell> on Dell's site.  Granted, it's in a list that specifies the dock power supply wattage required to run it properly, but I've never heard of a case of a system that Dell officially lists as supported not being able to update the dock's firmware.  And a friend of mine has an XPS 13 9360 and a TB16, and he's updated his dock firmware in the past.  I suppose it's possible that some dock firmware or system BIOS update broke the ability to update dock firmware going forward, but that seems unlikely.  My guess is that you may have an at least partially bricked dock, unfortunately.

Thanks for the information @jphughan 

I've detailed the problems here in this post : Can't Run TB16 Firmware Update "Could not find valid Policy or Resource Payload" - Dell Community

Running any of the later firmware update programs; v1.0.2 & v1.0.4 would result in nothing happening. All that appears is the Windows UAC dialog asking for Administrator access and nothing else happens. All of the screenshots I see of the Firmware Update Utility program showing the dock image and list of updates never once appeared on my system.

Also, recently I've managed to find the CLI command to execute on the only firmware update that seems to work on my system (v1.0.0) : Dell USB Type-C/Thunderbolt Docks: Checking the current firmware version on your wired dock | Dell Australia 

This was what the program was able to retrieve from the dock :

Does any of these seem to indicate any problems with the dock?

@Game-R  I'm not really sure about the output in the screenshot you posted, but if you haven't already, try doing the following:

Since the TB16 firmware update actually occurs as a boot-time operation, try running a BIOS update for the system, even if you're already running the latest release.  I remember my wife's XPS 13 9350 developed an issue where putting it to sleep caused it to cut all power, effectively causing a hard shutdown rather than a sleep state.  I didn't discover this until a while after the BIOS update, so I didn't initially think of that as a possible cause.  So instead I spent hours checking and updating other things, and right before I was about to hunker down to do a clean install of Windows, I remembered that BIOS update.  I remembered seeing a success confirmation when I ran it, but I wondered if just maybe reflashing the same release might fix it anyway.  I knew it was a very long shot, but I figured I may as well try before doing a whole rebuild.  The reflash to the same release fixed the problem.

After that, try updating the system's TB3 controller firmware (not part of its BIOS update) and then make sure you're running the latest Thunderbolt software.  Then try running the TB16 firmware update again.

If you still can't get the TB16's firmware to update, unfortunately I really don't know what else to suggest here, other than maybe trying to get your hands on another Thunderbolt-capable Dell laptop, which I realize can be especially difficult these days.  But any Latitude, Precision, or XPS laptop that has Thunderbolt and is running Windows 10 should be able to do that.  I'm not sure if any Inspiron or Vostro systems can, though.