Thunderbolt Dock 3 display issues

[soccer_dan]

Sorry you have been having these problems. I would say that there are reasons why HP (like the rest of the industry) is moving to Thunderbolt 3 for docking. TB3 is a high performance interface that uses USB-C connections and usb 3.1 to provide up to 40Gb/Sec across that connection. This allows up to 2 4K monitors running at 60Hz to be supported (each one takes around 15Gb/Sec more or less). The performance of TB is the future of workstation class notebooks

I do grant you that the technology took some fiddling to get to work. However, with the latest BIOS, drivers, and firmware, our customers are using the dock with little problems. You may want to check and make sure your system has all the latest versions installed, both on the ZBook as well as the dock. Here are the latest versions for confirmation

Use the DOck Firmware Updater utility ot update ALL the f/w at once

		Zbook 15/17 G3
Component Name	Category on hp.com Product Support Page	Softpaq #	Version
BIOS	(BIOS)	SP80852	1.16
Intel Thunderbolt Secure Connect Utility	(Driver - Controller)	SP79201	16.2.55.275 A 1
Intel® Thunderbolt™ Firmware Update Utility	(Firmware)	SP80619 (ZB15)  SP80615 (ZB17)	18.0.3.0.1 A F
Intel Video Driver and Control Panel	(Driver - Graphics)	SP78116 (W7)  SP79322 (W10)	15.40.4483 F 4 (W7)  4550 F 1 (W10)
NVIDIA Graphics Driver	(Driver - Graphics - Nvidia)	SP78067 (W7)  SP78066 (W10)	373.06 F 7 (W7)  382.16 F 2 (W10)
AMD Graphics Driver	(Driver - Graphics)	SP79527	16.40.3601.1003 F 29
Thunderbolt Dock specific
ASMedia eXtensible Host Controller Driver	(Driver - Chipset)	SP79343	1.16.45.1 A 2
Broadcom Ethernet Controller Driver	(Driver - Network)	SP78518	17.4.0.1 A 4
Conexant Audio USB Driver for Docks	(Driver - Audio)	SP79533	1.31.36.19 B1
Thunderbolt 3 Dock DisplayPort (DP) Hub Firmware	(Firmware)	SP78212	3.10.005 Rev A
ASMedia Firmware Update for HP Thunerbolt 3 Dock	(Firmware)	SP76208	131025.10.11.23
TB 3 Dock Combined firmware updater	(Firmware)	SP79769	1.12

[Markus_M]

Ok, like you said:

"I would say that there are reasons why HP (like the rest of the industry) is moving to Thunderbolt 3 for docking"

--> even if its the wrong way?

About Thunderbolt / USB-C Docks:
(To call this TB3 device thing a dock is unreasonably from my perspective, have a look to the picture)

Maybe its necessary to have faster interfaces but:
We are talking about a Laptop.

Peripherals usually connected on a Laptop:

- Mouse
- Keyboard
- Network Cable
- Sound
- External Monitors (maybe 2, in my environment nobody needs more than 3)

If the interfaces would be separated "old school" like, there is no need for such (in German we'd call it: egg laying, milk and wool giving interface) where all depends on extremly fine designed drivers and firmware.

I am pretty sure that the small usb-c connector will cause hardware failures when plugging in and out the whole time.

Hopefully in the hardware design the USB-c plug is  separated from the systemboard...

Maybe there are situations where such big bandwiths are necessary.
For most customers it would be a pleasure to have a system where basic functions like an external monitor would be a "plug and play", not a "plug and pray"!

As a last crusade, I am going to install the recommended SP's from your post.
Cross fingers!

[NickBb]

While the system may be stable now the point Markus and many of us made is the change from the custom interface docks where the laptop had a hard connection to the dock were out-of-the-box rock solid. They just worked, no muss no fuss. Perhaps a bit less flexible and/or extensible but you knew that going into the purchase.

With the new new USB-C / Thunderbolt solution HP has decided to crowdsource the QA/Testing of the solution and the crowd ain't happy.  As Engineers, Developers, and Coders, we don't want to spend our time debugging someone elses solution. We have enough of that to do already.

To be fair, this thread as evidence, it worked. The soluion is stable, albeit long past the release date, and most new users will benefit from the work we've done here. Another way to look at this is as an early adopter. Early adopters expect some trouble but still benefit from the product. In this case it was a lot of trouble so HP should be able to learn from this and use the information here to better define the coverage map for QA before releasing a product.

[soccer_dan]

NickBb, I agree with your comments and understand the overall frustation our customers faced since last year with the introduction of Thunderbolt 3 technology.

Not an excuse but as explanation, new designs usually start up to a couple of years before production begins. The company works with our suppliers to understand what will be availabe and how we can improve from generation to generation. One of the decisions was to try and improve the thickness and weight of our the mobile workstations as the G3 (Intel Skylake) models were developed. The bottom docking removal was significant but it allowed for a thinner and lighter designs . The only technology that could replace it was Thunderbolt 3, which the industry coalesced around, as a superset of usb-c and usb 3.1, while also providing significant performance bandwidth to boot to support higher resolution monitors

HP engineering worked very hard with Intel to make this work as well as possible, but took more time that we had hoped. In any case, as this technology evolves, you will see additional improvements and enhancements to come

[D95ANDEK]

Well. Not everything is working now:

I use NVIDIA driver 21.21.13.7699 according to the device manager. I have tried two times to update the driver, but when I do the external monitor goes black.

We also have this problem with lost keypresses: https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Business-Notebooks/Missing-Keyboard-stroke-ThunderBolt-Dock-Error/td-p...

[soccer_dan]

D95ANDEK, make sure you also update the BIOS and the Intel video drivers, as well as the f/w of the dock. See above for a recent post showing all the latest versions required to be up to date

[D95ANDEK]

Well, I've had this machine for 18 months (and the TB3 Dock since it was available) and I can assure you that I have done nothing but updating drivers and BIOS since then.

I have everything updated but the NVIDIA driver that I have revoked since the screens got messed up. (I have somewhat different versions since I have a G3 Studio.)

For me the list provided is old. For example there is a ASMedia eXtensible Host Controller (xHCI) Driver 1.16.47.1 A 1 available from SoftPaq Download Manager (SP80665).

I still have lost keyboard presses when the wireless receiver (Microsoft) is connected to the "Dock", but not when connected to the computer. At least this is better than a while ago when keypresses got multiplied. That was annoying.

[bubler]

Markus_M: That is not the correct cable, you should have one of these;

Power and thunderbolt in the same cable.

[bubler]

D95ANDEK, I would recommend disable the Intel gfx (Discrete Graphics in BIOS). Having it enabled causes problems, cannot connect (clone) a projector when connected to the computer.

[soccer_dan]

To add to the observations mentioned regarding the TB 3 cable. There was an advisory published last year about the TB 3 dock cable specific to the ZBook mobile workstations that had both power (barrel connector) and usb-c molded together. Some of the cables were discovered to have a manufacturing defect where the connection inside the molded connector would sometimes cause the dock to lose connection. This was a warranty defect and might be the problem you are seeing with your dock, if it is 18 months old, like you mention

I would call HP Support and obtain a new usb-c cable replacement for the dock