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The beautiful Silent ThunderBolt-3 PC

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Re: The beautiful Silent ThunderBolt-3 PC

#51

Post by FroshKiller »

least wrote: post #44
cbm-vic-20 wrote: post #42

The author includes a diagram that shows his PC and his laptop plugged in via Thunderbolt 3 to the CalDigit TS3+ dock, and no direct connection to the monitor. Looking at the dock's product page[1], I don't see how this can have two hosts connected; did I miss something in this article? [1] https://www.caldigit.com/ts3-plus/

No, you didn't miss anything. I'm assuming that he just unplugs the cable from one when he wants to use the other. As far as I know there aren't any sort of KVM thunderbolt 3 hubs in existence.

I use that CalDigit dock with my work laptop and personal laptop, and I just swap the cable. Adding a KVM switch just for that use case wouldn't make sense in my opinion.

Re: The beautiful Silent ThunderBolt-3 PC

#52

Post by johnwalkr »

jrrrr wrote: post #48

Looks like that board is the sole option for Thunderbolt && AMD && ITX. Bummer that there are no options with passively-cooled B550 chipsets. I do something similar to the post's two-cable configuration: - Mac to Caldigit TB dock to two displays. - PC to one of the displays - Keyboard and mouse to a USB switch, which connects to the PC and the TB dock It's kind of a pain to manually flip both the USB switch and the m…

Having used only a MacBook for 4 USB-c/thunderbolt ports for several years, and having moved all of my stuff (even my cordless shaver!) to USB-c / thunderbolt, I was really surprised and annoyed when I built an AMD gaming PC and realized I could only get 1 or 2 USB-c ports and almost no options for thunderbolt. It made me realize why most mice, etc are USB-a still.

Re: The beautiful Silent ThunderBolt-3 PC

#53

Post by owenversteeg »

nicolas_t wrote: post #45

I have the same motherboard and the same enclosure. The enclosure is really great, well designed and easy to use. For the heatsink, I actually bent some of the pipes and used the lh6 kit to use two sides of the enclosure for heat dissipation instead of one side only. The thunderbolt port on that mother board works great. I have an egpu that I'm sharing between my laptop and this computer and it works perfectly on win…

That is a really cool enclosure, I love it. The totally fanless, silent aspect plus the sleek design, just perfect.

Re: The beautiful Silent ThunderBolt-3 PC

#54

Post by johnwalkr »

FroshKiller wrote: post #51
least wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you didn't miss anything. I'm assuming that he just unplugs the cable from one when he wants to use the other. As far as I know there aren't any sort of KVM thunderbolt 3 hubs in existence.

I use that CalDigit dock with my work laptop and personal laptop, and I just swap the cable. Adding a KVM switch just for that use case wouldn't make sense in my opinion.

Good idea actually, I’m using 2 PCs with one monitor over USB-c. The monitor takes more than 10 key presses through a horrific on screen menu to change input sources. I didn’t even think of swapping the cable!

Re: The beautiful Silent ThunderBolt-3 PC

#55

Post by andjd »

cbm-vic-20 wrote: post #42

The author includes a diagram that shows his PC and his laptop plugged in via Thunderbolt 3 to the CalDigit TS3+ dock, and no direct connection to the monitor. Looking at the dock's product page[1], I don't see how this can have two hosts connected; did I miss something in this article? [1] https://www.caldigit.com/ts3-plus/

I can confirm that either of the thunderbolt ports on the back of that dock can connect to a host machine. With mine, I connect a modern thunderbolt-3 mac and and older mac one with thunderbolt 2. I can leave both cords plugged into the dock all the time and just use the proper cable for the computer I'm using and it just works.

Re: The beautiful Silent ThunderBolt-3 PC

#56

Post by lloeki »

dijit wrote: post #11

Something I highly recommend avoiding (though it may look tempting) is the TB16 thunderbolt dock from dell. There is something really screwy with the USB controller in that device, the ETH is on the USB hub and corrupts Ethernet frames, under Linux you can force disable hardware offloaded CRC checksumming as a workaround, but still the USB devices that are directly connected can just stop functioning. It also has the…

> the ETH is on the USB hub and corrupts Ethernet frame

I have a USB-C Novoo thingy (PD passthrough, HDMI, 3x USB-A, Ethernet) that might do something like that. If I plug Ethernet into my home router it ends up killing all other ethernet links on this router in about two minutes. I unplug it and things come back to life in under a second.

The thing also has a habit to produce EM interference that makes WiFi useless. Would you believe, running a ping and wrapping the device's cord in tin foil back and forth and you can see the packet stop dropping and start again.

Crazy.

Re: The beautiful Silent ThunderBolt-3 PC

#57

Post by tda »

dijit wrote: post #11

Something I highly recommend avoiding (though it may look tempting) is the TB16 thunderbolt dock from dell. There is something really screwy with the USB controller in that device, the ETH is on the USB hub and corrupts Ethernet frames, under Linux you can force disable hardware offloaded CRC checksumming as a workaround, but still the USB devices that are directly connected can just stop functioning. It also has the…

Recently wasted a morning at the office swapping all variants of Dell thunderbolt and USB-c docks, kept getting weird USB errors. Most frustrating was I couldn't reproduce the error at the helpdesk with same dock. The weirdest thing was usb peripherals were working fine, but somehow Windows kept giving me a non suppressable popup every minute ad infinitum. I don't see the point of docking stations anymore now you can get 49" screens with USB-c connectors. No reason to put a docking station in between or dual screen setups anymore

Re: The beautiful Silent ThunderBolt-3 PC

#58

Post by benfrain »

gehwartzen wrote: post #21

Thunderbolt 3 really is amazing. Im using a OWC Thunderbolt Dock to connect my MacBook to: an eGPU thats driving a 5K monitor, a 1TB TB3 SSD, and 24/96 USB audio to my stereo. All over one cable. BTW if your using TB3 as your main connection to your laptop I highly recommend a magnetic TB3 adapter. This has been working great in my setup for over a year and makes docking/undocking a snap. https://www.amazon.com/Magne…

Amazing, like MagSafe again. I'm thinking that may be the way forward to avoid a KVM.

With TB — can you literally just unplug from one Laptop/PC and connect to another and everything is back up and running on the 2nd computer?

Re: The beautiful Silent ThunderBolt-3 PC

#59

Post by GordonS »

dijit wrote: post #11

Something I highly recommend avoiding (though it may look tempting) is the TB16 thunderbolt dock from dell. There is something really screwy with the USB controller in that device, the ETH is on the USB hub and corrupts Ethernet frames, under Linux you can force disable hardware offloaded CRC checksumming as a workaround, but still the USB devices that are directly connected can just stop functioning. It also has the…

Also avoid the HP Thunderbolt Dock - was a steaming pile that is!

On 2 identical laptops (fresh builds), 1 of them BSODs, the other works sometimes, but BSODs at random when resuming from sleep or plugging in devices.

They've releases various versions of the firmware, along with various versions of various drivers that need to be installed on the laptop. Only some random variations of these work, and only on some devices, and only some of the time. Total garbage.

Re: The beautiful Silent ThunderBolt-3 PC

#60

Post by mnutt »

supermatt wrote: post #40
geertj wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm having good luck with the CalDigit TS3

if you are in clamshell mode, with display connected through the dock, will the display resume from sleep? I have tried a number of TB3 docks (pretty much all except the caldigit), and they ALL have the problem (on MBP m1 at least) that the display will not wake when in clamshell mode. Display wakes fine when connected directly as USB-3 monitor. Appreciate if you can test this and let me know :D

Using the Caldigit TB3 with a 2019 16" MBP in clamshell mode with two 4k LG monitors through the dock, I've found it pretty tedious trying to wake the monitors from sleep. Sometimes it'll take 30-45s of the monitors going in and out of power saving mode before it actually wakes up. This does seem to be the MBP's fault, because I can temporarily fix it by resetting the NVRAM.

Other than that, overall I've had a really positive experience with the TB3.

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