HP 2013 UltraSlim Docking Station latest firmware ?

[C3dy]

We have the same problems with about 33 Probooks 650 G3 and 2013 Ultra Slim Docking Station. The blackscreen problem was almost completly solved with FW 2.33, almost...

The Docking problem is what bothers me more. when docking the notebook in sleep mode, mouse and keyboard are not working most of the time. I opened a case at HP. First I had to update drivers via the very buggy softpaq download manager and update the BIOS version. Then they gave me some settings to change (deactivate fastboot and deepsleep in BIOS). 

Nothing helped so far. HP support telling me that they do not know those problems making me angry, since there are a few of those problems reported in different forums. 

I am now waiting for the support to answer, since they escalated the case to level 2 and I had to send them all of the serialnumbers of every Laptop and Docking Station we have. 

The worst thing was HP support telling me, that with those docking stations, you have to shut the laptops down before docking them. Even though I asked them twice to send me this regulation in an email, I didn't get anything yet...

Best regards

C3dy

[PtomGuru]

As a thumb rule, the ultraslim docks ,TB docks and USB docks should be connected to the unit , either when the notebooks are fully powered off of fully powered ON .

[C3dy]

@PtomGuru

That's exactly what the HP support engineer told me, but this answer is simply not satisfying at all... 

Please provide me an official document from HP, in which the "shutdown before dock" rule is mentioned.

Regards, C3dy

[rajmo]

lol... that would be the worst suggestion for a mobility device. i.e. If we need to power off every single time before use. 

[C3dy]

Yeah that's also my opinion... unfortunately my HP broker and a local service partner told me the same thing yesterday. 

I've given them a 2 page problem explanation. They actually know those problems very well and gave me two options. 

Option 1 is to shut the devices down before docking. Option 2 will be to put the devices on the dock with the screen still opened, then close it and revoke from energy saving mode. I tried the second option, but it did not work on my site... 

Very disappointing that those dockings don't do what they supposed to. The local service partner mentioned, that those problems also can occure with the Thunderbolt and USB3.1c Docking stations.

[mathiasottsen]

Where do you find latest firmware updates for the dock and is there anywhere i can see the current version installed?

[BastianW]

The current latest firmware version for the "HP Ultraslim 2013 Docking Station" which I know is 2.33.000:

ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp79001-79500/sp79015.html

ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp79001-79500/sp79015.exe

See also:

https://www.admin-enclave.com/en/articles/windows/477-windows-10-driver-for-hp-elitebook-850-g1-note...

[mathiasottsen]

Thanks for your response BastianW however that only answered half of my question.

Do you know if there is a way to determine the current firmware version of a docking station?

[BastianW]

I´m sorry i do not know one. If the firmware update is started again it looks like it would re-apply a 2.33.000 version and would overwrite any existing 2.33.000 (I assume due to the reason that you can then repair a possible broken update). But that's a guess currently...

The update can create also a logfile "C:\swsetup\SP79015\update.log" but that shows only:

Version:
Update result: 0

on my Notebook, when I re-run the update. So I would say the update here found out I run already 2.33.000 and didn´t updated anything. Therefore the version is empty and the update result is 0.

If you didn´t have updated you one, try the following:

1.) Start the exe

2.) Do NOT use the temp. pre-selected option called "Unpack the files used to perform the installation to a temporary location" use the other solution otherwise the logfile will be deleted after the update

3.) Check the logfile if its different then my one

[DavidinCT]

The ONLY way I could find out what version is installed is to run the 2.33 installer (or a past one), it will prompt you your current version and the one your updating it to.  This was a lot easier and faster than trying to find/go through logs. 

If you EXTRACT SP79015.exe (Winrar did it for me), then you can put on a USB drive/network share and just run "DP_FW_Updater.exe", much quicker to do, no install and you can know in a few seconds what version  your on.

Ah, 2.33 is the latest one... so no updates for a long time, looks like HP gave up on this one.  We still run into random issues with this dock.  At least with 2.33 it is a little better than it was before.

I kind of wish we were able to go to Dell on this round.  Every Dell dock we have had was bullet proof,  this dock is junk compared the last Dell ones we had.

Something to remember for the next round of upgrades...