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February 23rd, 2022 02:00

TB16 Dock Issues - Please Help

I use a TB16 dock to drive two external 2K monitors (both Dell P2418D) and the screen on my Latitude 7300 (1080p). The laptop is running Windows 11 Pro (21H2). A range of USB devices are plugged into the dock or slaved via the USB ports on one of the monitors (keyboard, USB headset, Logitech webcam and so on). A couple of USB devices are plugged directly into the laptop (dongle for a Bluetooth headset and dongle for a Dell mouse). Dock is connected to the network via ethernet.

I'm having no end of trouble with this. The display keeps flickering often:

1. Sometimes both external monitors go blank, and come back after a few seconds
2. Sometimes one of them goes blank (and comes back, sometimes)
3. Sometimes the dock itself goes through (what feels like) a soft reboot and it drops everything including ethernet

Everything is fully up to date - dock firmware, drivers, basically everything I could find on the downloads page of my laptop on the Dell Support site.

Out of desperation, I even took the dock apart and cleaned out the vents and the fan as some Reddit forum posts suggested that overheating could be an issue. From what I can tell, the dock is not overheating. Ambient temperature is never above 19 or 20C and the dock has enough ventilation.

I tried various combinations of connectivity to the monitors:

1 x HDMI, 1 x DP
1 x DP, 1 x miniDP
1 x miniDP, 1 x HDMI

Nothing seems to make a difference. A search reveals that I'm not alone in facing these issues with the TB16. Is it fixable? I'm losing the will to live. Thanks in advance.

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March 1st, 2022 07:00

I've kind of solved the problem. Audio was key - connecting a USB headset to the dock (via a slaved USB port on one of my monitors) seems to have been the root of the issues. Since moving that directly to a USB port on the laptop (and relocating the mouse dongle to the dock), it has vastly improved matters.

A few minor niggles (keys sometimes get stuck and repeat) but nothing quite like it was before. The monitor flickering has totally stopped. Fingers crossed it stays that way.

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5 Posts

February 23rd, 2022 03:00

Should have added - the problems are particularly severe when I'm on a Teams call. Or generally while using audio.

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February 23rd, 2022 03:00

Thank you! We have received the required details. We will work towards a resolution. In the meantime, you may also receive assistance or suggestions from the community members.

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