Does there exist a docking station that supports 2 laptops, and can switch between them?
USB-C hubs and my slow descent into madness (2021)
211–220 of 530 posts
Re: USB-C hubs and my slow descent into madness (2021)
#212If you want a decent dock you have to spend a bit of money. I went through this pain before accepting the cost and buying a CalDigit Thunderbolt 4 Element Hub[1]. Run's two 4k displays at 60Hz, any peripheral and charges my laptop. So good I bought a second. 1. https://www.caldigit.com/thunderbolt-4-element-hub/
what if i don't want a decent dock, or two 4K screens, i just want to plug in a hard drive and a mouse at the same time?
is there a USB-C option for me, or is my best bet a USB-A hub, a USB a-to-c adapter, and a usb c-to-a adapter.
Re: USB-C hubs and my slow descent into madness (2021)
#213If you use a laptop with an external monitor, a better idea is to get a premium monitor which handles charging, video, and data transfer of USB devices connected to the monitor for you. This allowed me to get rid off the wonky USBC hubs, but before my employer got me a Dell monitor I didn't know that a single USBC connection can deliver all three.
I've been using a Dell U38118DW monitor for maybe 8 months[ed: purchased it in July 2020 so closer to 20 months!] now and quite content with it. It has an internal USB hub that can be switched between two USB-3a and USB-C depending on which display input is active. I have my desktop attached to one of the 3a and HDMI, and can plug my frame.work laptop in to the USB-C to get 60hz Display Port alt-mode, charging, and a…
So both computers and all your peripherals are connected to the monitor, correct?
And you can just swap between them by switching the active input source?
Re: USB-C hubs and my slow descent into madness (2021)
#214If you want a decent dock you have to spend a bit of money. I went through this pain before accepting the cost and buying a CalDigit Thunderbolt 4 Element Hub[1]. Run's two 4k displays at 60Hz, any peripheral and charges my laptop. So good I bought a second. 1. https://www.caldigit.com/thunderbolt-4-element-hub/
I’d just like to chime in with the Kensington SD5700T [1]. I’ve tried a CalDigit TS3 Plus, an Anker PowerExpand 13-in-1, and the Kensington has by far been the most reliable. It doesn’t have built-in HDMI/DisplayPort out, but it’s easy to buy the appropriate cable to connect to your monitor (I recommend Club3D [2]). Especially if you’re trying to use an HDMI 2.1 or DisplayPort 1.4 display, as I’ve found most built-in…
I've had really bad luck with TB3 docks including the OWC and CalDigit. It seems that having a stiff TB cable on a non-locking port isn't that great of an idea. I ended up rigging up some cardboard and lots of tape to reinforce and stabilize the dock side of the connection on the OWC, and connecting to it would work only about half the time, and even then my dual external monitors would usually be swapped L/R.
The best solution to this I've seen is on Angelbird’s SD Dual Card Reader which uses a sadly proprietary shaped molded USB-C connector that goes DEEP into the reader, but it is very snug and wiggle-proof. I haven't tried, but I'm confident that I could swing this thing around by the cable and not hurt it or have it disconnect at all. It really does feel like the piece of pro-level kit that would be at home on a DIT cart like it was designed for.
The Lenovo TB3 Workstation dock worked relatively well for docking an X1 Extreme, and that too has a proprietary connector which combines Lenovo's charging plug with a TB3 connector. It's secure and doesn't wiggle much, but it's short and flexible but not terribly so (large bend radius).
Lastly, I'd just like to complain about how lame it is that there are so few docks with >1 HDMI or [preferably] DP connectors. On the OWC dock, I was literally using 1x MiniDP to DP adapter cable for one monitor, then a USB-C DP alt-mode dongle plugged into HDMI to the other monitor. Plugging a dongle into a dock is serious product-level cringe. Surely I'm not the only person in the world who wants to close their workstation-class laptop and use it with dual 4K60 32" monitors, yet there seem to be so few products that work like that. I don't want to dasiy-chain one over TB either. I understand the bandwidth limitations and hope that TB4 makes this an easier sell.
My Ideal TB4 dock: - LOCKING connector, somehow. Build a cage around it like they do for some IECs or mold in a deep strain relief or something. - 3X DisplayPort 2.0 (since they lock, unlike almost all HDMI that isn't on rackmount pro gear that news stations have)...DP 2.0 has been out since 26 June 2019. - 25G SFP slot that can take a 10GbE GBIC, DAC, or fiber. I'd settle for 10G SFP. - 2x downstream TB4 ports that can fall back to USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 (ugh, really not a fan of USB IF naming conventions) - 4x USB 2.0 type A on a hub to plug in all the stuff that doesn't need much bandwidth, like keyboards / mice / phone charger / bluetooth dongle / YubiKey. - 2x USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type A ports for fastish devices like external HDDs that came out before Type C. - Pass through the entire 100W and make that actually work with MacBooks. I've plugged into so many docks that can't actually charge the larger MBPs. They'll give 45w or something, which doesn't cut it for MBPs, let alone mobile workstation class laptops. 100W would at least keep a laptop with a 45W TDP CPU and at least as powerful GPU afloat. I'm talking about stuff that comes with 200w+ power bricks here. I don't mind terribly plugging in the power adapter separately, just don't make me do what Lenovo did and plug TWO POWER BRICKS INTO THE DOCK. That's a bit much. - No damn 3.5mm headphone + mic jacks (extra audio chipset that is inevitably worse than the one built in and much much worse than a proper external pro interface), built-in wifi, bluetooth, built-in m.2 / 2.5" SSD...I love the SD card reader personally but make it a damn good fast one or just give me another couple of USB ports instead.
The closest I can get to this today is the Lenovo workstation dock, which they now make in a TB4 flavor featuring: 1 x 3.5mm Audio combo Jack 4 x USB-A 1 x USB-C 1 x HDMI 2.1 2 x Displayport 1.4 1 x RJ45 (gigabit) 1 x Thunderbolt (for Host connect) 1 x Thunderbolt (for Device connect)
Re: USB-C hubs and my slow descent into madness (2021)
#215Would be great to see a "Hacker News Approved" buyer's guide for various products. Like Wirecutter but written by people who actually know what they're talking about.
Re: USB-C hubs and my slow descent into madness (2021)
#216Would be great to see a "Hacker News Approved" buyer's guide for various products. Like Wirecutter but written by people who actually know what they're talking about.
Wirecutter is pretty good imho! (A person on) Hacker News approved! ;)
Re: USB-C hubs and my slow descent into madness (2021)
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
Remind me to never buy a laptop without a healthy array of dedicated external ports. This is lunacy.
Yup when you see both the price and the size of these docks, you gotta wonder why even bother with buying a laptop in the first place. If the goal is to hook up two 4K monitors, I'd rather have, say, a desktop computer powered by a threadripper.
Yeah, the thing too about desktop vs laptop is not just core count but TDP. An Intel 12900K on an OC can draw like 400W ( https://wccftech.com/intel-core-i9-12900k-overclocked-to-5-3... ) vs a laptop that will get you a max of like 115w for turbo (https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/132215/... ).
And good luck getting anything close to RTX 3090Ti performance in a laptop. It'd basically be a toasted oven on your lap.
Desktops can just sink a ton more heat, and as process shrinks and die size increases have gotten us less and less additional performance each year, we're just pushing power up to the point now where a TOTL gaming desktop is pulling close to 1KW. A laptop will never come close. If you really do want to try a literal desktop CPU in a laptop, there are mfgs like Eurocom and Sager that will sell you one, just don't expect it not to throttle a lot under actual heavy workloads.
Re: USB-C hubs and my slow descent into madness (2021)
#218If you want a decent dock you have to spend a bit of money. I went through this pain before accepting the cost and buying a CalDigit Thunderbolt 4 Element Hub[1]. Run's two 4k displays at 60Hz, any peripheral and charges my laptop. So good I bought a second. 1. https://www.caldigit.com/thunderbolt-4-element-hub/
what if i don't want a decent dock, or two 4K screens, i just want to plug in a hard drive and a mouse at the same time? is there a USB-C option for me, or is my best bet a USB-A hub, a USB a-to-c adapter, and a usb c-to-a adapter.
you can get small USB-A USB-C adapters. I picked up a few of these since I got a new MacBook and finally had to deal with the nightmare of USB-C and its really helped: https://www.anker.com/ca/products/variant/usbc-to-usb-30-ada...
Re: USB-C hubs and my slow descent into madness (2021)
#219How much of the ethernet problems are due to these hubs and how much is due to ethernet autoneg just sucking? On my mac mini with whatever ethernet hardware they use, the link randomly negotiates 10, 100, full duplex, half duplex, flow control on or sometimes off. It's all coin tosses.
A good NIC doesn't have any of those issues. It all comes down to their poor choices in what ethernet IC to use.
[deleted]
Re: USB-C hubs and my slow descent into madness (2021)
#220I have one of those Anker x-in-one hubs and it works well, minus the Ethernet which it capped at 300Mbps due to [checks notes] a USB 2.0 interconnection. Why?!? I ended up getting a separate sub $20 USB-C to Ethernet adapter from a random Amazon brand called Uni. Get full gig, every time despite it having a Realtek 8153 chip in it. So, there might be more to it.
Many laptops can't handle more than USB 2.0 when outputting display over the same port. Those that can need a certain protocol (too lazy to look up). There's a better protocol that allows both, but now you're in the $100+ range of hub/docks that can handle it.
You are thinking about USB-C Alt Mode, which is a way for displayport to go over USB-C.
To get 4k60 + USB3.1, you either need USB-C Alt Mode with DP1.4+ (supported by almost zero monitors), or Thunderbolt-3 (supported by fantastically expensive monitors).
It's much more economical to live with USB2.0 for your keyboards and mice, and get a separate USB3.1 hub if you need that.
https://www.bigmessowires.com/2019/05/19/explaining-4k-60hz-...