E5570 Docking station PRO3X

Question

I have a Latitude E5570 and a Dell PRO3X (I think it is called a port replicator or docking station). Will the PRO3X work with the E5570 and if so will it allow me to use 2 monitors? Also can I use one additional monitor and the laptop monitor?

Thank you

jphughan · Accepted Answer

@WSH1852 the friendly name of that product is a Dell E-Port Docking Station. But to properly answer your questions, it's important to understand that there are four variations of that dock model. First, there's the E-Port and E-Port Plus. If you have two DVI and two DisplayPort outputs, you have an E-Port Plus. If you only have one of each, you have the regular E-Port. And then there are first and second generation models of each. If your rear USB ports are blue, the dock supports USB 3.0 (on those blue ports) and DisplayPort 1.2. If they're black, the dock only supports USB 2.0 and DisplayPort 1.1. The USB ports on the left side are always black and always 2.0.

If you have a first generation regular E-Port dock (non-Plus), you can run up to two displays, but for dual displays one of them must be VGA. You cannot use the DVI and DisplayPort outputs simultaneously.

If you have a second generation E-Port dock, then you can run two displays the same way as above, and you have the additional option of running multiple displays via DisplayPort, either by using daisy chaining if you have displays that support that or else by using a DisplayPort MST hub. The advantage to doing this rather than putting one display on VGA would be that DisplayPort can support higher resolutions (VGA maxes out at 1920x1200) and it also looks better at any resolution because VGA is analog, whereas everything else is digital.

If you have a first generation E-Port Plus dock, you can run up to 3 displays just from the dock. Notice that the two DisplayPort and DVI ports are grouped into two marked "banks", each bank containing one of each port. You can use output in each bank in any combination, but you can't use two outputs in the same bank. You can however use one port from each bank plus the VGA output.

If you have a second generation E-Port Plus, the same options I described above apply, with the same additional option I mentioned earlier about running multiple displays from a single DisplayPort output. I've personally done a triple 1920x1200 setup with this dock variant by having a two-display daisy chain running from DisplayPort #1 and then connecting the third display to DisplayPort #2 (for some reason I never got a three-display daisy chain to work, even though technically it should have.)

However, be aware that your intended display setup has to be within the display bandwidth available from the system to the dock. That depends on whether you have a first or second generation dock, and for an E5570 it also depends on whether you have an Intel GPU or an AMD GPU in your particular configuration. The GPU question would also affect the answer to your question of how many total displays you can run. So it would probably be easiest to just specify which dock you have and the resolution(s) of the displays(s) you want to run, and I can tell you if it will work. Or I can tell you that at a bare minimum (Intel GPU and first generation E-Port non-Plus dock), your system will be able to run up to 3 simultaneous independent displays total, and even a first-gen dock would be able to run up to a 2560x1440 display on DisplayPort and up to a 1920x1200 display on VGA or DVI simultaneously -- and then you can run your laptop display simultaneously on top of that. So if you don't want to do anything more ambitious than that, you'd be good to go. Otherwise, providing more info about your setup would be useful.

vinray77 · Answer

Hello @jphughan you are wonderful trying to help us find cheaper solutions than hundreds of dollars for a small piece of plastics and electronic.

I have such a laptop and I wish to flip my 20in monitor to display in portrait mode my Outlook inbox. Keeping the laptop monitor for my todos, but adding a second independent 27in screen for my other office use. Mostly browsing or ms office apps. I don't care much for high or 4K resolution, just better quality than current VGA.

What I have is an E5570, Win10Pro 1909, 64b x86, i7-7700, 16Bb. GPU0 intel HD Graphics 520 on PCI bus 0, GPU1 AMD Radeon R7 M360 on PCI bus 1. No Thunderbolt, but 3 USB black ports with "SS" written besides. One one theese has a battery logo meaning it's capable of powering a device even when I shut the lid? Never tried...

I don't mind keeping a VGA cable for the Outlook purposed monitor. My only wish is to keep this low cost and easy to setup. I have plenty of DP DVI HDMI cables around. The only nice to have i'd like, is to keep or add USB3.0 ports but I will prioritize an easy or cost effective configuration. Maybe I don't need an Eport, or something else would work?

Thanks in advance for your precious help, hope someone pays it forward to you soon on my behalf.

jphughan · Answer

Hey there @vinray77 , thanks for the kind words!

If you're going with a 27" display, I'd recommend going with QHD/1440p resolution. A 27" 1080p display will be fairly grainy given that even a 24" 1080p display has a pixel density slightly lower than the Windows "reference" of 96 ppi, which is the density at which something meant to be 1" wide (like a segment of the ruler in Microsoft Word) would actually be 1" wide on the display when the default 100% scale factor is being used. On the other end, 27" 4K has a pixel density high enough that you'll likely need to enable display scaling and risk the issues that still introduces with some applications, but not high enough to create that razor sharp text experience -- and running a 4K display can be a bit more challenging in terms of display output connections anyway. Meanwhile, 27" 1440p is nicely situated in the middle, with a pixel density slightly higher than the 96 ppi reference, but still within a range that most people will be able to use it without enabling any scaling. I personally have a pair of 27" 1440p displays (Dell U2717D), and one unexpected benefit I discovered is that its physical size and pixel density mean that on either display, when using Word or Acrobat, I can display two 8.5x11 pages side-by-side, in either portrait or landscape (the pages, not the display), in their entirety (margins and all), at full print size (meaning I can hold up an actual sheet of paper and it will be the same size as the displayed pages), and still have room left over for the Word and Acrobat toolbars along the top and bottom. That has proven to be a very powerful productivity aid.

Anyhow, in terms of getting everything connected, the specs of that system indicate that it only has VGA and HDMI outputs built in. If you're fine continuing with the VGA output for your existing display, then the HDMI output should be suitable to run 1440p. The reason I say "should" is that the specs don't indicate what revision of HDMI the system's HDMI output supports -- but all it would NEED to support to run 1440p is HDMI 1.4, which has been around for quite a while now, so I would say it's a fairly safe bet. But if you want a more certain answer, you might be able to find posts from others who have actually tried to use 1440p from an E5570 and who can confirm or disprove that guess.

If HDMI won't work, then your best option really would be an E-Port dock. Technically you could get a DisplayLink adapter (not to be confused with DisplayPort) that plugged into a USB port and gave you a display output that way, but DisplayLink's "indirect display" technology that involves transmitting video as USB data comes with quite a few drawbacks compared to sticking with native GPU outputs. I can go into more detail about that if you'd like, but I wouldn't go that route given that you have better options.

So in terms of the E-Port dock option, if you're ok continuing with VGA for one of your displays, then a regular E-Port dock will be fine, using VGA for one display and DisplayPort for the other (for 1440p, you would NOT be able to use the DVI output.) If you'd rather upgrade both displays to digital signals, then you'll need an E-Port Plus to run DVI/DisplayPort for each of your two displays (here again, only DisplayPort for 1440p). And either way, if you find an E-Port dock that has USB 3.0, then you'll gain two extra USB 3.0 ports at the rear of the dock.

The other way to gain more USB 3.0 ports with or without a docking station is of course to buy a USB 3.0 hub. If you go that route, I recommend a hub that has its USB ports mounted facing upward, rather like a surge protector. The hubs that have them facing forward or to the side mean that you often have to use one hand to hold the hub in place while you use another hand to connect or disconnect a USB device. When the ports are facing upward, the hub stays in place without you needing another hand to hold it.

In terms of a display recommendation, for maximum flexibility I'd recommend getting one that had both DisplayPort and HDMI inputs. If you find one that also includes a DisplayPort output for daisy chaining, that might be a handy capability to have down the road if you ever get a second DisplayPort display. Good luck!

wbirse · Answer

Hi there, can you perhaps help me?  I have a Dell laptop setup for my work, but also have a Dell for my personal laptop, it's a Lattitude E550.  My setup is currently for my personal laptop a 21' Dell Monitor and a switchable 34' widescreen monitor.  I use the widescreen monitor to switch between my work and home laptop.  It's been working fine, but now the 34' widescreen works intermittently with my home laptop.  I also have a switchable mouse and keyboard so that I don't need multiple devices to move from 1 laptop to another.  I'm wondering if the problem I have with my Dell dock is that I don't have HDMI connection on the Dell dock, so I have an adaptor from the DVI port for the HDMI cable coming from the switchable connection.  But I think this is the cause of the problem.  Do you know which Dell dock will work with the Lattitude E550 that has a HDMI port?  My other monitor is connected directly to the old VGA connector.  Thanks in advance for your help. Kind Regards, Wendy

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E5570 Docking station PRO3X

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