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1 Rookie
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5062
September 27th, 2017 05:00
Latitude E5570, D6000 dock, 3D Hardware/OpenGL issues
Hi Everyone,
I have a Latitude E5570 with the AMD GPU (R7 M370 I think). When running by itself, I get no issues at all, but as soon as I connect it to my D6000 Dock, I lose the ability to do anything that needs 3D capable hardware. I've removed the drivers for the dock, and GPU, reinstalled them, removed and reinstalled anything related to AMD (Crimson etc), but still, I can only use software that requires 3D capable hardware when the laptop isn't plugged into the dock. Both connected monitors are 1080p connected via HDMI. Laptop is on additional power (not just the dock). Power Settings are all at Max. I have also noticed that when the laptop is connected to the dock, all options for Hardware Acceleration have disappeared. Am I doing something wrong? Is there a particular port on the laptop I'm meant to be using?
Chris
jphughan
9 Legend
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14K Posts
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September 27th, 2017 07:00
It's because the D6000 uses a DisplayLink chip rather than allowing the displays to be driven directly be the GPU. From my post in another thread: DisplayLink means that technically the dock can support extra displays (and at higher resolutions) compared to more traditional options, but DisplayLink achieves this by not having the displays actually driven by the system's GPU. Instead, the system's CPU and GPU compress display data for transmission as standard USB data, and the DisplayLink chip in the dock then decompresses it before sending it to the displays. This allows displays to be attached over regular USB (rather than just USB-C, which actually does have a native GPU output wired to it), but the compression also means that when large portions of the display area change at once, such as when watching full screen video or gaming, the display can appear to bog down and/or show compression artifacts. This can also occur when a lot of USB activity is occurring with another device (such as a file transfer to/from an external hard drive) because there's bandwidth contention on the USB bus, and finally if you're running some other CPU -intensive task, which will create resource contention for the display data compression.
DisplayLink also drains battery life significantly more quickly, which admittedly isn't an issue with a dock setup, but DisplayLink products exist in other form factors.
Bottom line: You should consider using a traditional E-Port dock instead, which will allow your displays to be driven directly by the GPU.
DELL-Chris M
Community Manager
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56.9K Posts
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September 27th, 2017 06:00
Be sure to read through the User's Guide. The D6000 only has one HDMI out port? So how are both monitors connecting via HDMI? Detail how each monitor is connected using all ports and cabling. Also what specific monitor models.
chrisbodman
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September 27th, 2017 08:00
Thank you, this is what I had assumed, as I was sure I hadn't had this issue before I moved from my E-Port to the D6000.
Looks like the D6000 will find a nice space in the cupboard along with the absolutely dreadful Dell Wireless Dock. Really glad I didn't bin the E-Port Dock
jphughan
9 Legend
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14K Posts
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September 27th, 2017 13:00
Yeah, the D6000 is perfectly reasonable for "everyday productivity" use cases like email and spreadsheets, so it's perfectly fine for most office spaces, but not so much for 3D graphics. The D6000 especially handy right now for offices that are transitioning between older models that have the E-Dock connector and newer models that use USB-C/Thunderbolt, since it's the only dock that will work with both systems, including charging the latter type. However, if you only need to optimize for one or the other, then E-Port docks are the way to go for older systems and the WD15/TB16 docks would be the way to go with the newer models, since those docks actually use the real GPU output that's wired to the system's USB-C/Thunderbolt port, which means their video output would perform just like the E-Port dock.