Hello everyone,
I have a Lenovo ThinkPad T480s laptop running Fedora 39 Kinoite. I would like to use it in a multi-display setup, so I am looking for a docking station. The laptop has a Thunderbolt 3 port. I have attached the details of my device at the end of the post.
People on Reddit are writing that “all Thunderbolt docking stations should work fine” and that’s obviously not the case… I have this Dell Thunderbolt Dock (WD19TB) at home from work and the displays work when I plug it into the laptop but, for example, my mouse (connected via USB-A) doesn’t work. When I connect it to the DELL laptop provided by the company, there are no problems at all.
Docking station requirements: Ethernet, 3x USB-A, 1x DisplayPort, 1x HDMI.
I have two 1080p displays: 75Hz and 165Hz. Obviously I’m not going to be playing any high-frame-rate games on this laptop, but even on a desktop it’s sometimes nice to see a slightly higher refresh rate. So if it’s possible, I’d like it to be able to display things above 60Hz…
I also have a Steam Deck OLED and would like to be able to use this dock with it.
I don’t want to spend too much money on it. Do you have any experience in this area and can you help me choose?
I am from Poland if it helps in any way (maybe some brands are not available here).
LAPTOP DETAILS
Operating System: Fedora Linux 39
KDE Plasma Version: 5.27.9
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.111.0
Qt Version: 5.15.11
Kernel Version: 6.6.6-200.fc39.x86_64 (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: Wayland
Processors: 8 × Intel® Core™ i7-8550U CPU @ 1.80GHz
Memory: 15.5 GiB of RAM
Graphics Processor: Mesa Intel® UHD Graphics 620
Manufacturer: LENOVO
Product Name: 20L8S0SA00
System Version: ThinkPad T480s
OK, so today I was able to test the WD19TB dock again as I am back home. I changed the Thunderbolt security level to “No Security”, connected the dock to the USB-C port further away from the display and… it seems to work fine.
I’ve got two screens connected: 1080p 75Hz (DP) and 1080p 165Hz (but only works at 144Hz via HDMI, so it’s not a problem with the dock - same on PC with GTX1070); mouse and DAC via USB-A. I’m not sure what exactly caused the problems I had, but I guess it doesn’t matter much now :D
Thanks for your help @[email protected] :)
glad it worked out for you; I’m still looking for a solution for my problem that doesn’t involve throwing everything out and buying Newest & Best.
do you use the LAN port on the dock by chance? and have you tried using the dock’s USB 3 port for data transfer while everything’s connected?
Unfortunately, where I use the dock there is only a Wi-Fi connection. So I can’t say anything about LAN speeds. I copied an 8GB file from the WD7500BPKX via the USB 3 port and the transfer was around 88 MiB/s. However, the transfer itself froze twice for a few seconds, which didn’t happen when using the laptop’s built-in USB port (speeds were about the same). So it’s certainly not ideal…