7530 & WD19DCS Dock

Question

Hi there,

I've held off and held off with buying a dock for my 7530 as reading reviews on previous docks often pointed to a solution (for some) of connecting the AC Adapter to your laptop as well as a separate AC adapter into the dock. Who in their right mind would want dock that required a setup like that??

Anyway, I saw the new Dell Performance Dock WD19DCS that can deliver up to 210W to Dell PCs via dual Thunderbolt, I thought yes! My 7530 needs 180W, Dell have got to have ironed out all the issues now they're releasing this bad boy... I'm two days in farting around with monitors connected to different ports, different BIOS settings, restarting, forcing shutdowns, powering off monitors to be able to change source, updating drivers and I still haven't been able to get this to work the same as connecting all the cables individually into my laptop.

I'd detail my setup with how many monitors I have, their resolutions and refresh rates, what ports they're connected to, but to be honest even with just my main 1 monitor, I'm seeing the same issues. If I change a display setting, the monitor goes off and doesn't come back on, at times the laptop screen doesn't even come back on, I've had SupportAssist post boot messages saying "Multiple docking stations are not simultaneously supported" (there's only 1 dock connected), after I've left my locked computer for more than 15mins and the displays have turned off I haven't been able to get them back on.

I've followed this driver installation https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-uk/000125853/how-to-use-and-troubleshoot-dell-performance-docking-station-wd19dc?lang=en I did need the latest Intel Thunderbolt 3 Firmware Update so I was hopefully after this installed. After a reset connected the dock, then I connected my main monitor (HDMI), a message popped up saying slow charging (not really sure what that was), then I connected my two other monitors via a USB-C to Dual HDMI, they both appeared but my main turned off and I had a message saying the HDMI is disabled when a display connected on the USB-C so I unplugged the USB-C, my main monitor never came back on.

Is there a trick I'm missing here or are all these docks just a lottery? You pay for these high quality products and end up with all these issues, I'm just really frustrated and deflated.

At the very beginning I changed my BIOS to output all video via the discrete GPU, I've also enabled Switchable Graphics, but not sure how or why that would work if the discrete GPU option is enabled...

Anyway, any help suggestions or personal experienced would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance.

jphughan · Answer

@squatman Someone who recently had similar issues with the regular WD19 was able to resolve it by updating the firmware for the WD19 itself. But it looks like Dell doesn't have any updates available for the new "S" variants of their WD19 dock family models yet. Those are new and the only difference from the non-S versions is that the S models drop the 3.5mm headset jack. Apparently there's some semiconductor industry shortage that made it impossible to source the parts for that jack or its audio chipset, which was preventing Dell from building docks and therefore causing an order backlog to build, so Dell introduced a version of the dock that dropped that part. But I'd suggest keeping an eye on the Downloads page for the WD19DCS here to see if any firmware updates arrive. And if you haven't already, make sure your system BIOS and GPU drivers are current.

As for Switchable Graphics, if you have that option enabled but have the dGPU controlling the outputs, then the Intel GPU runs the built-in display. If you disable Switchable Graphics, then the dGPU runs everything, but that means it's always running, which can have consequences for battery life, fan noise, heat, etc. In most applications, it's fine to have the Intel GPU run everything, including the external display outputs, and have the dGPU operate only as needed through NVIDIA Optimus, but those options exist because there are some applications and some display technologies that don't work properly or at all when the NVIDIA GPU has to operate through Optimus, and instead require the NVIDIA GPU to have direct control of the display outputs.

squatman · Answer

@jphughan thanks for the reply.

I've got all the updates from SupportAssist and Dell Precision Optimizer (show the same), the thunderbolt firmware didn't get picked up for some reason so I downloaded that manually.

Just think it's a bit hard to swallow to have £300 sat there that's actually useless to me in the hope that an update is going to come out and solve all my problems.

Can't believe this kind of *bleep* actually gets released.

Thanks again.

jphughan · Answer

@squatman  Ok, well in that case it’s definitely possible that you just got a bad unit. The WD19DCS may be new, but it’s almost identical to the WD19DC that’s been out for about 2 years now, and your experience definitely isn’t typical. I’d try to get a warranty replacement. Sorry you’ve having such a bad experience though!

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7530 & WD19DCS Dock

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