A dock that wakes up reliably

A dock that wakes up reliably(fabiensanglard.net)

41 points by ingve 3 hours ago | 31 comments

bana-io 10 minutes ago |

What I would have done is tested it with an Android phone. My Samsung S26 Ultra allows me to connect to an external display via a USB C hub. So the test setup would be:

1. Plug the phone into hub.

2. Check that you get display output, the mouse and keyboard are working whilst the screen is not turned off and the phone is not locked.

3. Lock the screen and wait for the screen to turn off, thereby mimicking suspend.

4. Try to make the phone resume by using the attached keyboard and/or mouse.

If all goes well, the monitor should turn on after unlocking the phone or using the keyboard / mouse.

# Other things to try

Again try and reproduce the issue with a Samsung tablet that supports display out via USB C.

Connect the keyboard via Bluetooth and try to make the laptop resume. I found that connecting a Keychron keyboard via bluetooth allowed me to resume a Macbook Pro. I was kinda surprised that this worked.

Does the same issue occur on Linux as well?

I guess you could attach a USB packet type of debugger to ensure that data is being sent to the laptop by attaching the debugger to the cable that connects to the host machine. If you see USB traffic when the monitor goes to sleep and you are pressing keys in the keyboard and the dock still has power that means the dock is working fine so you can rule that out.

antod 24 minutes ago |

My Lenovo Thunderbolt 3 docks wakes up reliably, the problem is that it keeps randomly nodding off for a second or so causing the monitor to lose signal and have to sleep/wake itself.

hankbond 2 hours ago |

Please take this gently, but I did not really walk away from this post having gained anything. I don't have any problems with the post in isolation but I just don't feel it really offers enough weight to be here if that makes sense.

I read a few of your other posts and your writing style is direct and pleasant in a way I appreciate. Thank you for actually writing things.

nickelpro 1 hour ago | |

OP is not the author.

Fabien Sanglard's HN handle is fabiensanglard

TrainedMonkey 2 hours ago | |

The author does not call it out, but I think the point is that it's not only the dock. I've been struggling with MBP wakeup issues for a while. We have a whole zoo of various apple devices attached to a number of docks. All of the monitors are Odyssey Neo G9. TL:DR an issue with MBP port, MBP to Dock link, Dock, Dock to Monitor link, or the monitor itself could cause the unplugging dance.

In addition, it takes some time for Apple to squash bugs after releasing new hardware or software. M5s used to be unreliable with Anker TB4 until 1-2 months ago.

bombcar 2 hours ago | | |

Us old people have the idea of peripherals as input (keyboard, mouse) or output (monitor, printer) - but they've all been input/output for two decades or more; and Thunderbolt and friends are much more like an Ethernet network (reliability of Wake on LAN, anyone?) than they are simple point-to-point connections.

Meaning - anything could be the device preventing what you expect to happen, even if it looks like it should be impossible and have nothing to do with it.

nashashmi 2 hours ago | |

I’m hoping the comments will have a better insight into what’s happening

TacticalCoder 2 hours ago | |

> I did not really walk away from this post having gained anything

Then my comment won't help you much: since I swapped my MacBook Air M1's 27" monitor for a 34" one from the same brand, it's only been the exact clusterfuck of unreliable "wake up not working properly anymore" for no friggin' reason. Except in my case it was working fine, and now it's not anymore.

jolux 2 hours ago |

My experience with non-Apple Thunderbolt products has been pretty dicey across the board. My ASUS motherboard has a port and theoretically works with it but across several firmware, BIOS, and driver upgrades, I’ve never actually got it to successfully recognize my TS4 as a Thunderbolt device, only USB.

golem14 1 hour ago |

I think there's a solid case for someone to make a monitor with a working, built-in dock. I mean, many monitors already have USB-outs for keyboards and 2nd displays and such.

I think monitors are a sweet spot - they tend to stick around longer than computers, and docks really don't need to change a lot over time, at least now with thunderbolt out there. Fewer cables, too.

I like the idea of standalone docks, and I purchased a few, but none reliably worked for me.

nashashmi 2 hours ago |

I use two different docks. Dock 1 is a cheap chinese dock with some ports that worked (it has many ports). Dock 2 is hp g2 (an expensive dock). Occasionally the screen shuts off and resumes a second later in the dock 1. And resuming from sleep, the laptop doesn’t detect the keyboard. I figured it was until the laptop is fully up, I should not plug in the usb. On dock 2, the laptop goes to sleep and won’t turn back on from the keyboard until I press the power button.

hinkley 2 hours ago |

I had the first generation Anker TB2 doc and that was the first time I ever saw them produce a product that was a dud.

They sent me a replacement and I had the same problems. Then found out it was a design problem not a manufacturing one. They could send me 10 more and they would still not wake up all the ports properly. I don't even recall now what series of ritual steps I took to wake it up. I think unplugging it completely from everything. Which is actually more cable wear than not having a dock.

userbinator 1 hour ago |

Thunderbolt/USB-C protocols are basically at the edge of what's electrically possible. If you look at Ethernet equipment that's roughly in the same speed range and notice how much it costs, it's clear there are heavy tradeoffs with the consumer stuff.

ak217 1 hour ago |

I use a bunch of Lenovo Thunderbolt docks, with both Macbooks and Thinkpads. The older models go for as little as $20 used nowadays. I had to update the firmware on the really old ones, but after that they work flawlessly and let me connect 2x4k60 monitors.

OptionOfT 1 hour ago | |

I have a ThinkPad Thunderbolt 4 Workstation Dock - Type 40B0.

Last time a firmware update came out I couldn't run it from my Lenovo laptop. I had to use a non-Lenovo one. Really made me angry about their quality control.

Next to that the dock has this weird behavior when the laptop is asleep, the monitors wake up every 5 minutes.

LennyHenrysNuts 1 hour ago |

Never thought it could be the monitor. I have an HP dock with an HP laptop for work and it's totally unreliable waking from sleep.

My chances of getting new monitors are slim in this climate but it's a new avenue of investigation at least.

altairprime 57 minutes ago | |

USB4 or 240Hz monitors are more likely to have a modern HDMI/DP chipset, relative to 60Hz monitors. It’s not a certain relationship but it can be a useful filter for dreck to narrow one’s choices to monitors that support either USB4, or 4K at 75+ fps, since that wipes out a lot of old HDMI 2.0 chipsets — which is a useful, if imperfect, proxy for Thunderbolt chipset quality. A monitor that’s just trying to hit $100 will cheerfully target old HDMI and old DisplayPort with random-old-DSC. For Apple gear, random crap like that will typically end up being a disaster for Apple laptops, anyways, because Apple takes for granted that all of those stacks are in sync and before USB4 they rarely were.

Lord_Zero 1 hour ago | |

Yeah and the author linked a $1100 monitor lmao

matt_daemon 2 hours ago |

Anyone know what that keyboard is?

schaefer 2 hours ago | |

I think it's the 8BitDo Retro Mechanical Keyboard [1] with the "M edition" keycaps.

[1]: https://www.8bitdo.com/retro-mechanical-keyboard-m/

erdaltoprak 1 hour ago |

My OWC Thunderbolt Pro dock is still the most feature packed one with 10g and good heat dissipation

turtleyacht 2 hours ago |

Switching the monitor worked. Wonder if an HDMI dummy plug, a virtual monitor emulator, would have helped.

phendrenad2 1 hour ago |

I just looked up who runs the Thunderbolt specification, and was surprised to see that it's owned by Intel. But Thunderbolt 4 was donated to the USB Implementers Forum so maybe that's why things are improving.

dominotw 2 hours ago |

> ASUS ROG Swift (PG27UCDM)

any benefits in coding and reading hackernews