First let me start by saying I couldn’t find my device in the related product/service list which could be me but…I am using the Plugable USB-C Triple 4K Display Docking
I love and hate this device. I have a fairly simple set-up with HP Spectre 15" (Late 2017) and two HDMI monitors. When it works it is awesome and easy to use. But however there are a few problems that I can’t seem to overcome:
When waking up from sleep mode the monitors don’t display through the dock at times and i have to unplug and replug the USB-C cable and hope that they show up on the monitors
Randomly throughout the day the displays will go black and stop working and then all of a sudden all of my screens will start flashing and it may come back to both monitors or it may not and I have to unplug/replug. I have found this seems to happen most commonly when you pull up a webpage especially ones with a lot of pictures…not sure if that has anything to do with it but that seems to be a cause
Frustrating that plugable says this is certified with HP Spectre but everytime I start up I get that damn HP message telling me to use a device with proper power support.
Hello Jim, thanks for posting and I am sorry to hear of the frustration with our dock and I will be happy to help.
Thank you for the description of the behavior you are seeing. Just to clarify, can you confirm you are using the USB-C cable that came with the dock? I only ask because strange issues can occur when using different cables.
Is one monitor connected to the HDMI port on the dock and the other to one of the DP ports using a DP to HDMI adapter?
Do both monitors not display when waking your system from sleep? Or does only one not display? Or does it seem to alternate between different combinations of which displays do reconnect when waking from sleep?
Regarding the HP charging message, these are not messages we have heard from customer reports. Additionally, we mention that compatibility varies regarding the 15inch HP Spectre x360 (assuming this is the model/variation you are using) on our compatibility chart here –> https://plugable.com/products/ud-ultc4k. I would expect this message to appear regardless of 3rd party USB-C charger/dock was connected since HP has set up some of their systems to detect this. In most cases, it can be disabled within the system’s BIOS.
David, thanks for the reply. To answer your questions. Yes I am using the USB-C cable that came with the dock. And you are correct that one monitor is using the HDMI port and the other is DP to HDMI adapter. And when waking or when opening certain web pages they both have issues. But let me explain further:
When waking: neither of the monitors display anything until I unplug and replug in the USB-C cable. Then sometimes the monitors will reengage or sometimes only the laptop monitor will work. Sometimes once I login to the laptop, the monitor will reengage but other times I need to pull the plug and start over
On webpages (although it has happened other times but not as frequently) all the monitors go black and then images start popping up on a different combination of the monitors and laptop screen for about 1 minute and sometimes the appear correctly back on the monitors but other times they get stuck between one monitor and my laptop screen which requires the unplug/replug to fix.
I am using the HP Spectre x360 15" as you inidcate. Would love to know how to try to turn it off in the BIOS if you have that knowledge.
Looking forward to working to resolve these problems. Appreciate the help.
Hi Jim, thanks for the reply and additional details. There could be several different factors contributing to this anywhere from internal video drivers, Thunderbolt 3 drivers, to a hardware issue with the dock. If we find it is a hardware issue we’d be happy to send you a pre-tested replacement dock, but first we’ll want to examine some log files to help us determine if there is a software variable affecting this.
To help us do so please download and run our diagnostic utility PlugDebug –> http://plugable.com/support/plugdebug with everything connected. Please send the file created on your Desktop by attaching it to an email to our direct email address at support@plugable.com with ‘Ticket Number 216876’ in the subject line. We’ll match everything up and determine next steps from there.
Regarding the HP message, I am not sure if there is a BIOS option, I mentioned this because we have seen this on Dell systems and disabling a BIOS setting can help workaround this. However, in researching the message that HP systems see may be different. I found an HP forum thread here –> https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Noteboo… that speaks to modifying files so the pop-up stops. This may help in this instance.