I really wanted to like this dock, unfortunately it has several issues I have been unable to resolve.
Firstly, while I enjoy driving both of my monitors at 60hz through the thunderbolt port, it forces the use of the Intel card so I will have to swap out cables any time I want to use my laptop’s built in nvidia card.
I would be able to manage if it was just the cord swapping issue, but the main reason I purchased this dock was to extend the number of USB ports I have available (Only 2 on my laptop, and one is permanently in use ). This is where I ran into my real problems, not a single one of the USB ports are functional. I am unable to plug in/power/detect any peripheral devices in any of the 7 USB ports. I attempted unplugging the external displays to see if this helped, but to no effect.
For these reasons, I couldn’t really get a good test run in with this dock, and will be sending it back Monday. This may just be an issue of compatibility, I am using a Dell XPS 9560, so I would not purchase if you intend to use it with this particular laptop.
Thank you for contacting Plugable support! Sorry to hear about this issue. I’d be more than happy to assist you.
I’d be happy to try and work through these issues with you, but if you’ve already decided to return it I understand.
For systems with hybrid graphics (Intel and Nvidia), we do expect both GPUs to be active. When under any kind of heavy 3D load, the system should do the processing via the Nvidia GPU and the video will be routed out through the Intel GPU and then through the Thunderbolt 3 controller. This is fairly standard for most hybrid GPU configurations in systems.
You mention you have to swap out cables, I’m unsure what you mean by this. Taking a guess, do you mean you’re moving your monitors to be connected to the laptop directly and bypassing the dock?
If the USB ports aren’t functional, can you confirm the dock was authenticated in the Thunderbolt 3 utility on your XPS? Until the dock is authenticated, the USB ports won’t function at all.
Please don’t hesitate to let us know of other questions.
Thanks again for contacting Plugable support and best wishes!