External monitor as a docking station

[AvramV]

Regards to all. I have an HP Elitebook 640 G10 laptop and I want to connect it to an external monitor with a USB-C hub. My intention is to get charging, video, audio and data signals with just one USB-C cable that will connect the laptop and the monitor. I read somewhere that for all this DisplayPort ALT mode must be enabled in the BIOS. Is this correct, and if so, what should I do since the BIOS is locked with a password that I don't have? Is there a way I can check if this feature is enabled without going into the BIOS?

[Jupitero]

Hello.

I cannot help you with bypassing the BIOS password, sorry.

The DP Alt Mode is always on, but your laptop BIOS has the "Enable High Resolution mode when connected to a USB-C DP alt mode" setting off by default which limits the DP Alt Mode bandwidth and thus the external display resolution/color depth/refresh rate. The BIOS setting effectively toggles between 2 and 4 DisplayPort lanes.

You could also go for a Thunderbolt monitor - the DP Alt Mode setting does not affect Thunderbolt. Of course, Thunderbolt needs to be enabled in BIOS. (TB is enabled by default)

Check also your laptop power requirements, and choose a monitor that outputs at least the amount of power your laptop requires for charging. You can check the specs from your power supply, or check the small print on the bottom of your laptop, e.g. 20V 3.25 A = 65 Watts. In that case the monitor must offer 65W or more power. Extra power is not harmful.

You can check the BIOS settings from within an elevated (Admin) Powershell with this command:

Get-WmiObject -Namespace root/hp/instrumentedBIOS -Class hp_biosEnumeration | select Name, value, possiblevalues

From the output, find the following line:

Enable High Resolution mode when connected to a USB-C DP alt mode dock       *Disable,Enable

The current setting has an asterisk (*), in this case the setting is disabled.

(the code above is from https://woshub.com/powershell-view-change-bios-settings/)