Win7, Dell E5500, No network

Hi,

I have a Dell E5500 running Win7 and the DisplayLink USB 3.0 dock works fine except for one thing - No network.

The Plugable Ethernet adapter reports as ‘Network Cable Unplugged’, but the connection works fine if plugged straight into the laptop.

The physical network device reports as a Broadcom NetXtreme 57xx Gigabit controller (PCI\VEN_14E4&DEV_1680&SUBSYS_02631028&REV_10
) in Device Manager, and the Plugable Ethernet device reports as ‘Working OK’

The network adapter does have the latest driver.

Any ideas please?

P.S.
(We have 8 docks & the issue is the same with all of them)

Many thanks

Hi Paul,

Since we’ve got this many docks exhibiting the same behavior, I suspect the issue is due to something in the network infrastructure that does not support “full-duplex” operation. The ethernet port on the dock requires a full-duplex connection, which is why in some cases another ethernet adapter such as the one built into the laptop (which often do not require full-duplex connections) will work as expected, while the docking station will not establish a link or obtain an IP address.

Determining whether or not this is a duplexing issue will require further investigation of the network infrastructure, as there are several potential devices that can cause this behavior. The most common causes are hubs (which don’t support full-duplex connections), unconfigured switches, or non-compliant cabling. Generally the most straightforward way to test for this behavior is to attach the dock directly to the router or switch with a known-good Cat5e/Cat6 cable, and see if the issue persists.

Please feel free to send an email to support@plugable.com if you have any questions on the above and we’ll do what we can to help.

Thanks!
Gary