System: Dell Precision 7770 laptop with i7-12850HX, 32GB RAM, Windows 11 Pro, NVidia RTX A1000 adapter.
I have been experiencing intermittent flicker in my two external 4K monitors on the dock for well over a year. Both connected via Displayport through the dock.
I attempted to update the dock firmware today (https://kb.plugable.com/question/1707049) and am getting “ opened device” when I run ReadVersion.bat as Administrator and no version read:
I have tried this with all devices besides power and the TBT4-UDZ disconnected on both Thunderbolt 4 ports on the computer (left side of the chassis).
If I run the RTD2188_UPDATER.exe tool by itself, the “Read Version” button comes up with a zero in the version labels. However when I unplug the TBT4-UDZ, the program throws up a dialog that says the device is not found. This leads me to believe that the device is connected (obviously, it works fine except for the flickering), but for some reason can’t read the firmware or update to the files in the link.
Thank you for contacting Plugable support! Sorry to hear about this issue. I’d be more than happy to assist you.
Typically in our experience the updated firmware available for the TBT4-UDZ won’t resolve intermittent flickering, however, it certainly won’t hurt to try it. With that said, since you are running into this issue where the firmware updater is unable to recognize the dock correctly it could indicate problems with the dock or other software issue with the host system that may somehow be blocking the process.
One thing I would try in regards to the update is to reconnect a display to the dock and to see if there is any change. In some cases I have seen where the updater may fail to recognize the video chipset(s) in the dock if no displays are attached, although this is somewhat rare. If connecting a display also does not help and you’re still unable to update the dock then we may need to help to arrange sending you a pre-updated dock under our warranty, this would also let us narrow down any potential hardware problems with the dock as well.
Additionally, we have a troubleshooting tool that helps us find out what is going on in situations like this. If you are able, please plug the dock into your computer, then go to this page and follow the instructions there: http://plugable.com/support/plugdebug
The diagnostics information could help us to see if anything stands out from a software perspective and there may be some additional suggestions we can offer for the firmware upgrade issue and/or the flickering behavior. If you are able to send diagnostics please ensure to email them to support@plugable.com mentioning ticket #440281 in the subject line, do not post them publicly here. If you are unable to send diagnostics I of course do understand.
Please don’t hesitate to let us know of other questions.
Thanks again for contacting Plugable support and best wishes!
The firmware reader fails with the same messages whether I run it with things plugged into the dock (2 DP monitors and network) or if there is nothing plugged into the dock.
I attempted to send the diagnostics to the email you provided, but the message was returned with:
Thank you for the update and for trying that as well, I’m sorry to hear that also hasn’t helped.
Additionally, I’m also sorry to hear for some reason the email file was blocked. That’s typically not something we see often but in cases like this we do have a few additional paths forward.
Usually the next best way to get us the diagnostics file would be to email us directly and include a link to download the file from a cloud storage service like Google Drive, Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive, etc.
If you don’t currently use any of these services another way may be to open the .zip file that was created by the diagnostics, extract the individual files from the .zip, and to send those files as individual attachments.
My apologies for the extra hassle to get us this information, but I thank you for your patience.
Worst case if we’re unable to get diagnostics then we may need to simply proceed with sending you a replacement dock with the latest firmware as our next step.
Additionally just to close the loop on why the original email with the diagnostics was rejected, one of the log files was significantly larger than expected and our email server blocked the attachment due to a size limitation. Again my apologies for that inconvenience.
Looking at the diagnostics I can offer a few quick recommendations, however, if those do not work we will likely want to proceed with a replacement under our warranty to help with the latest firmware/ensuring there are no hardware issues.
Looking at the specifications of your system and cross checking the diagnostics, I’m curious if you connect the dock to the regular USB-C port on your system instead of the Thunderbolt 4 port(s), if you notice that the firmware updater is able to now function? I ask because looking at the hardware and graphics routing, the dock is currently getting video from the Nvidia graphics chipset. It may be possible that the regular USB-C port is routed to the onboard Intel graphics chipset and that may make a difference with the update process.
I’d also proactively recommend updating both Intel and Nvidia graphics chipset drivers to see if that may help with the intermittent flickering you’ve been encountering:
If these suggestions still do not help please let me know. If it looks like a replacement is needed I can reach out directly via email to collect some information from you to move forward with that process.
I have updated the drivers on my computer and tested the dock plugged into the USB-C port (right side) of the laptop both with and without monitors connected. I have cycled through the Hybrid Graphics option combinations in the BIOS. No change in the dock’s refusal to give up it’s version. The RTD2188_UPDATER.exe program can definitely tell when the dock is not plugged in, but it only ever gives “0” (zero) for the RTD2188-1 and RTD2188-2 version numbers.
Let me know via email what the next steps should be. Thanks!
Thank you for the update and for trying those suggestions. I’m sorry to hear there has been no change, as such I will go ahead and reach out to you via email directly to request some information so that we can proceed with sending a pre-updated dock under our warranty.
