Thunderbolt not working on HP Spectre x360

[DemiDemi]

Hi there,

I have been using a HP Spectre x360 Convertible 15-df0xxx notebook for years now, with the HP Spectre USB-C Travel Dock, to give me more USB connections.

Suddenly the dock isn't working; in Device Manager the dock is labelled "Unknown USB Device (Device Descriptor Request Failed)" and if I right-click and go to properties, the device status is:

"Windows has stopped this device because it has reported problems. (Code 43)

A request for the USB device descriptor failed."

I can plug in a different USB-C device, like an external harddrive, and it works. Because of this, I think there's an issue with the "Thunderbolt" USB interface that the dock uses.

Besides attempting the obvious solutions, like uninstalling the driver and restarting my computer, I also downloaded the "sp96871.exe" and "sp100927.exe" driver installers from HP's website. However when I try to run these Thunderbolt driver installers, I get the message "The driver is not supported on this OS version (10.0.19044)."

Doing some more reading, I found this utility: https://github.com/Octal450/HP-Driver-Installation-Fixer  that will force new HP drivers to be installed, regardless of  warnings about the OS version. The utility found those Thunderbolt drivers, and installed them, but my dock still wasn't working after... so I think maybe the drivers just aren't compatible with my Windows version?


Having said that, I used this dock successfully for years. Its LED lights up when I plug it in, so I think the hardware is okay and it's a software/firmware issue. It's really difficult to use my Spectre with only 1 USB port though! Can someone please advise what I should try next?

Thanks a lot,

Demi