External Monitor(s) Flicker - G4 Dock NIC crashes

[no0b2]

There is a common issue between the HP Fury laptop and the HP G4 docking station - external monitor flickering.

For almost a year+ now I have trying to troubleshoot an issue for all my users who are using the HP Fury laptop and the HP g4 280w docking station. We have been using the HP laptop and HP docking station combo since the G2 and before that the HP Ultraslim 2013. We are very familiar with HP products at this point. 

While troubleshooting the issue with the flickering my users began reaching out to me about an issue with their network connection crashing. When the laptop was connected to the dock and the dock was hard wired into the wall they would randomly at certain points experience a complete crash of all their network cards. Wireless would stop working, the wired connection directly into the laptop would fail, and the wired connection to the dock would stop working as well. Once this happed they were advised to reboot and started running into an issue with reboots taking up to an hour to complete after the NIC crash. They were very frustrated with that and they all had to start manually power cycling the laptops to get them back online.

I had a few of them move over to just wireless and a few others moved the ethernet cable into their laptops. The NIC crashing issue that was happening multiple times a day instantly stopped for all for all of them. So I began troubleshooting the issue further with HPIA updates, Windows updates, BIOS setting adjustments, hours reviewing Event Logs, everything.... nothing easy was fixing the issue. 

The fix ended up being to roll back the driver for the Intel(R) Ethernet l225-LMvP to a much older version - https://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp139001-139500/sp139326.exe - driver dated 3/5/22 - with this driver installed all of my users have no longer experienced an issue with any of their NICs crashing. However, that makes running HPIA updates for other issues a pain because that requires my other techs to be aware of the NIC issue. 

Network crashing Fix

Intel(R) Ethernet Connection l225-LM

download softpaq  - https://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp139001-139500/sp139326.exe

extract softpaq

find l225-LM in Device Manger under Network adapters

Update driver

Browse my computer for drivers

Browse.. to the location of the extracted softpaq

and then continue forward. Network connection should be lost temporarily and then return.

I typically reboot after this as well

BACK TO THE FLICKERING

This issue still continues to haunt me and my users, for some its worse than others. The flickering can last for a moment on a single monitor or it can take a monitor completely down for upwards of 10 seconds. I use a remote tool to help my users and the flickering never affects my remote windows which can and does happen with updates and physical disconnections. So getting eyes on the issue in real time is also difficult because I am not in the same building as my users. 

Again, Ive tried adjusting settings in the BIOS, multiple display drivers, Ive tried swapping out cables - DP active, adapters, no adapters, DP to HMDI cables, Older DP cables, high end DP cables, nothing seems to make a dent in the issue. There was a new HP G4 280W Dock firmware (3/14/24) that I was really hopeful would help as it directly mentions the flickering issue for the Fury G9 but if anything, I am getting more updates from my team that things are worse than before.

https://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/hp-thunderbolt-dock-280w-g4-w-combo-cable/2101085531

"- Fixes an issue on system with Intel 12th gen processors and integrated graphics which causes an external display connected to the system to flicker."

I ran this firmware against most of my Fury's and even undid the NIC driver on some of them for testing. Again, this firmware had no affect on the issues my users are dealing with. The NIC(s) continue to crash and the flickering continues for everyone. 

At this point I am open to suggestions but mostly here posting so others with this isame ssue have a place to gather and if, by some act of God, someone finds an answer we can share it with each other.

My compnay is a HP reseller/partner - We have opened tickets in the past about this issue and HP's only consistent solution is to send me a replacement docking station - which never solves the issue. Theyve also replaced the Motherboard on a few machines which corrected nothing. 

HP Fury 16 G9

HP Fury 16 G10 

HP Thunderbolt Dock 280W G4

(I also have  Fury G9 on an HP G5 as well with the same flickering issue but he's the only one with a not G4 having the flickering issue)

PS - My users are all architects, and we use the G4 280W because HP specially told us we had to, to meet the power requirements for the laptops. So lots of Revit and Autodesk apps thoughout the day. 

Thanks

David

[JoeSchmoe990]

I have the same display issues using a Zbook Studio G10 and the G4 280w dock.  

It works fine with a G5 essential dock.  That means that I have to have a separate power supply along with the USB C cable to get enough power to run things.

[DK_IT_01]

We had issues with the Zbook Studio and flickerinig at one poinit as well. We were for the most part able to update past those issues through video drivers and softpaqs. The ZBook Fury has not been as kind to me. 

However, I do have a single user who was on a G5 dock and a ZBook Fury with the flickering issue. He just bought a knock off dock from Amazon and  stopped using ihs HP Dock to resolve his issue.

So at this point I am still leaning towards the Zbook Fury being an issue since Ive corrected the issue with Studio's in the past. in total I have 33 Zbook Fury's across my clients and each them is having this issue. 

I have other Studio users on G2, G4, and G5 docks who are not experencing flickering issues (at this time) 

[Jake228]

Do your users have the same monitors? I have had this case come up a few times but only on specific model monitors. After countless hours of troubleshooting drivers, settings, etc., I changed to different monitors and never saw the issue again.

[no0b2]

I have gone through 3 different types of monitors for this one particular client. We currently have brand new Viewsonic monitors that we rolled out for everyone and they continue to have issues. I do have other clients that have various makes and models of monitors that also exp this same issue. So while I have not ruled out the monitors being the issue, they are at minimum on the back burner for things I am currently troubleshooting. 

[no0b2]

The few users I had on G5 docks who came to me about the flickering gave their G5 docks back and purchased other brand docks to resolve the issue faster. For them it was an okay solution since we could shuffle the G5 docks to other departments. So far though, the G2, G2 w/ Combo cable and G4 docks have been our primary issues

[ken3333333]

I have done extensive research and troubleshoot on this. Same as what you did. Some of my user's still experience monitor flickers. 🤔