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nonicknames
2 Posts
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2957
October 20th, 2018 21:00
Laptop docking problem
I have a Dell Latitude E7240 Laptop, a Dell U2412 Monitor, and a Dell Pro3X dock.
I am having problems when trying to use these products together.
My monitor is connected to the dock via VGA. My display is slightly textured. Originally, I had strong vertical lines running across the screen. When I changed the screen refresh rate from 59 Hz to 60 Hz this problem was replaced by very faint horizontal lines on the screen.
Also, when plugging my speakers into the dock, there is a tapping noise that comes periodically from the speakers. This goes away when I plug the speakers directly into the laptop, although this somewhat removes the value of having a dock.
Any suggestion for resolving this problem? I have updated my drivers. Do I need a different cord to connect my monitor to the dock?
In addition to the above, actually I do have a suggestion for the popping. Headphone connectors can be finicky sometimes, so if you haven't already, try experimenting a bit with rotating the plug within the connector. If that doesn't change anything, try making tiny adjustments to the insertion depth of the connector. You definitely don't want to remove it to the first "stop", since that will absolutely cause the rings of the plug to be incorrectly aligned with the ones inside the connector, but sometimes that can fix issues like that. Headphone plugs and connectors have manufacturing tolerance ranges like everything else, so if you have a plug and a connector on opposite edges of that range, sometimes it can take a bit more effort to get them to work together.
nonicknames
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Posted October 21st, 2018 19:00
Thanks a ton--this is both extremely specific and useful advice!
jphughan
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Posted October 21st, 2018 07:00
I'm not sure about the tapping, but VGA is the lowest quality connector you could be using today, so yes I would change it. That's the only display signal type still in use that's analog, whereas everything else is digital, and an analog signal means that especially when running at the top end of its resolution capabilities, which for VGA just happens to be your display's resolution of 1920x1200, you can see things like blur, shimmer, etc. Your display and your dock both offer DVI and DisplayPort connectors. Those will both perform identically to each other on that display but both better than VGA, so get yourself either a DVI or DisplayPort cable instead. I'd go with DisplayPort simply because DVI is also dead at this point (because it doesn't carry audio, its max resolution isn't as high as HDMI and DisplayPort, and it's a physically large connector), so you'll be more likely to be able to reuse a DisplayPort cable with your next system/dock/display.