Sluggish Performance With WD15 Docking Station

I've noticed that every time i connect my laptop to the WD15 docking station, it becomes extremely sluggish - this happens all the time.

I check system resources and nothing stands out but I do notice that web browsers tend to take up more RAM than normal. I've also noticed that it pops up with a message when I connect the laptop saying there's an unrecognized USB device - but I have no idea what it's referring to specifically.

Any ideas/suggestions?

 

BIOS and drivers updated? I recall the WD15 was pretty awful initially.

Which XPS and wifi card? Dell Broadcom 1830 are supposedly causing issues. Any improvement if you switch to Airplane mode or set wifi power to 75% in driver settings (Device Manager)? Some folks report success after replacment with Intel 8260 card.

 

Unfortunately, can't upgrade to the latest BIOS because of screen flicker on the 4k laptops. I've had to resort to v1.2.0 to remove the flicker issue. There's apparently a new bios coming out soon to address this.

I'll give the Airplane mode or lower power to Wifi a shot but it just seems like a frustrating way to get around a flaw in the docking station. What's involved in replacing the Wifi Card with the Intel8260? How much is the Intel 8260 and what are the benefits in doing so?

Thanks for the suggestions, appreciate it.

 

Regarding flicker, I guess it is worth waiting for the new BIOS, and pray a lot in the meantime!
I'm using BIOS 1.2.15 and flicker is tolerable after video driver rollback to .4331. I didn't want to roll back to BIOS 1.2.0 because of dock issues. But I'm not sure if those were perhaps solved by turning wifi power to 75%, disabling Bluetooth interoperability and disabling power saving on the wifi card. So I'm kindly asking you to try if the airplane mode improves matters, and if the condition gets any better by just "turning it down" (that is, if the difference in these BIOS versions matters at all). Mine seems better in terms of not dropping the connections periodically and hanging the system occassionaly with just an USB wired mouse connected - but I still notice delays unless I go Airplane.
The assumption is that the wifi card is somehow (???) disturbing the dock connection. Several users report issues gone after replacement, for some this was supposedly done by Dell servicefolks. Dell has 8260 drivers at the support site, and uses it in the related Precision models which supposedly do not suffer; additionally, Killer wifi cards are shipped in some 9550s. Best google up yourself. It should cost around 30€, and the surgery is described in the online service manual. Btw you might be able to have it replaced by Dell for free if you can prove it causes the issue.

 

I was in the power settings, where did you go to adjust the wifi power to 75%? When in airplane mode, what functionality do I lose? I'll give it a shot before messing with bios revisions etc.

Thanks again

 

In Airplane mode you lose all radio, that's wifi and bluetooth. Plug the an Ethernet cable from the router into the WD15 for internet (at least to check if Ethernet is stable, mine is on the WD15 but not on an Aukey USB-C 3xUSB3+Ethernet hub).

Check airplane mode first - it is the easiest to check and the most thorough. As mentioned, the other things don't work well enough for me.

Device Manager \ Network adapters \ Dell Wireless 1830 \ Properties \ Advanced
Power output: 75%
Bluetooth collaboration: Disable (supposedly it doesn't work)

Power options:
Change plan settings \ Change advanced power settings
Wireless adapted settings \ Power saving mode: (both) Maximum performance

 

That's great, thanks for the suggestions - going to try Airplane mode the next few sessions when connected to the dock, will report back on any findings.

 

Jagstyles, any results?

You should be able to update computer BIOS to 1.2.18 now, it does fix the flicker thing.

Btw, there is also a recent firmware update for the WD15. Has anybody noticed sth fishy about it?
http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/t/20001557
(the freezes with the wifi on seem to remain here though)

 

New thunderbolt driver out today.

Fixes:
- Update QoS logic for connected Thunderbolt devices to prevent potential false postive warning.
- Thunderbolt driver installation Error Code 1639 in specific corner case.

Enhancements:
- Change in Installer to set AutoConnect mode by default for Thunderbolt Networking connections.
- Thunderbolt permission granted for general user to managing connection setting.
- Enhancement to Thunderbolt device connection stability for cold boot.

 

Happy to report almost all my issues are gone. Things are working great. My only complaint is more of a windows issue where my laptop (4k display) doesn't play nice with my Dell 2715 monitor which is not quite 4k. Although I can set individual DPI settings, it still doesn't work all that well.

 

And which action fixed the issues?

Regarding display, got a similar situation with a Dell U3011 ;(
Mostly tolerable, but some programs don't scale correctly on the external display (Acrobat for instance).
Mind there are two scaling adjustments
-System\Display\Change the size... (got 1 at 200% and 2 at 100%)
- ->Advanced Display Settings \ Advanced sizing of text and other items \ Set a custom scaling level (got 200%)
What bugs me is that when I close the lid open windows resize to a bit smaller upon restore.

 

I believe it was the combination of the Bios update and the drivers for the dock itself. I had been using v1.2.0 bios and after updating to v1.2.18, I was able to update the dock drivers as the most recent bios was a requirement for the updated dock drivers.

I didn't realize there were two different DPI settings available. I thought that once you played around with the custom scaling DPI setting, it also changed the DPI setting in the "System\Display\Change\" area. Aren't they essentially the same thing?

 

I'm not sure. There is a warning regarding the custom scaling level.