HP Elitebook 865 G10 loses connection with the HP Thunderbolt G4 dock

[darkbasic]

Hi,
I've recently bought an HP Elitebook 865 G10 with an HP Thunderbolt G4 dock which is connected via DisplayPort to one of my Dell UltraSharp U2515H monitors, which is daisy chained via DisplayPort MST (Multi-Stream) to another identical monitor.
This setup works flawlessly on my Raptor CS Talos 2 Power 9 workstation where my AMD RX 570 is connected via DisplayPort to another input of the same Dell Monitor. With the HP not so much, but most of my issues have been fixed with the G4 1.4.20.0 firmware update (I'm currently on 1.5.22.0 which unfortunately didn't provide further improvements). Some of the remaining issues could potentially be Phoenix related Linux MST bugs, while others I'm pretty sure are firmware related ones. Anyway I didn't open this thread specifically to talk about them, instead I want to focus on hardware issues. Specifically the dock Thunderbolt connector seems to be a bit loose because as soon as I move the laptop a bit or I slightly touch the Thunderbolt cable I lose connection to the dock (screens become dark, ethernet connection drops, keyboard and mouse backlights turn off) and immediately thereafter they came back online again. This laptop has two Thunderbolt ports on the same side and I have the same issues with both of them.
What's your experience with the G4 dock? Am I the only one experiencing this issue?

[Jupitero]

Hello.

I don't have the 865 G10 nor TB G4 dock, but in any case the connection should not be loose as you described. I recommend contacting HP directly and asking for warranty exchange. Preferably with the dock first since it is much easier to replace...

You could also go to a local HP business laptop service partner with both laptop and dock and have them troubleshoot them with their own Thunderbolt docks + laptops if you don't have spare Thunderbolt devices to test with.

[darkbasic]

Hi, thanks for confirming the Thunderbolt cable shouldn't be so "loose". I'm using quotes because it isn't loose in a physical term (or at least it doesn't look like it's physically moving) but the end result is the same as a loose connector: an intermittent connection.
I will surely contact HP about this, hopefully I'll get an answer about the 865 G10 thermals before doing so because chances are I might have to send the laptop as well. Would be nice to have someone confirm this laptop should be capable of sustained 35W. I'm pretty sure it should (otherwise they wouldn't offer a Ryzen 9 7940HS option) but I need this laptop for work and I would like to minimize the time it stays in assistance.

[darkbasic]

This **bleep** dock is a disaster: if I unplug the dock and attach the bundled USB-C power adapter instead the laptop can easily sustain 41W while I cannot go over 25W with the dock.