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Docking Station Support |
A Docking Station makes it easy to use multi monitors. It also adds an ethernet port, multi USB ports and more while only using one USB 3.0 port on your laptop.
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This article is provided for information purposes only. System76 cannot guarantee that all vendors will follow USB-C or Thunderbolt specs, nor that a manufacturer won't have made hardware or firmware changes since this article was created. Not all docks will work on all hardware. Be sure you purchase docking stations from a reputable vendor, with a flexible return policy.
| System | Supports USB-C Charging? | Supports Thunderbolt? |
|---|---|---|
| addw2 | No | No (DisplayPort over USB-C) |
| bonw14 | No | No (DisplayPort over USB-C) |
| darp5 | No | Yes |
| darp6 | Yes | Yes |
| darp7 | Yes | Yes |
| galp3-b | No | Yes |
| galp3-c | Yes | Yes |
| galp4 | Yes | Yes |
| galp5 | Yes | Yes |
| lemp9 | Yes | No (DisplayPort over USB-C) |
| lemp10 | Yes | Yes |
| serw12 | No | No (DisplayPort over USB-C) |
Many docking stations offer multiple video-out ports on the dock device itself. However, our systems typically only have one video stream per port; so, even if a docking station supports multiple video ports, only one at a time will be active. For example, connecting a docking station with two DisplayPort ports to the Thunderbolt port on a System76 laptop will only activate one DisplayPort monitor. To chain two monitors together from the same docking station requires the monitor hardware to support daisy-chaining, and both monitors will need to be connected to each other, rather than to the docking station.
Laptop -> Docking Station -> Monitor 1 -> DisplayPort Cable or Thunderbolt Cable -> Monitor 2
We have tested the following docks:
- Plugable UD-CA1A [works with NVIDIA and Intel systems] 1,2,3
- All features work.
Community members have reported that the following docks work with our products:
- Anker A8392 [community-tested on an Intel system] 1
- CalDigit TS3 Plus [community-tested on an Intel system] 1
- Downstream (passthrough) Thunderbolt 3 port not tested.
- Dell D3100 [community-tested on an Intel system]
- DisplayPort port not tested.
- Dell DS1000 [community-tested on an Intel system]
- Ethernet port not tested.
- Dell WD19 Dock [community-tested on an NVIDIA system] 1
- Displays sometimes don't wake up from sleep until dock is re-plugged.
- Dell WD19S Dock [community-tested on an Intel system] 1
- Displays sometimes don't wake up from sleep until dock is re-plugged to its power source.
- At most, two external displays can be used at a time.
- Power button does nothing.
- Dell WD19TB Thunderbolt Dock [community-tested on an Intel system] 1
- Dell WD19TBS Thunderbolt Dock [community-tested on an NVIDIA system] 1
- These issues can be potentially addressed by changing the Thunderbolt Security Mode to "None" in the BIOS, though this is not recommended.
- Displays sometimes don't wake up from sleep until dock is re-plugged.
- USB devices may not reconnect after sleep until dock is re-plugged.
- May not be able to wake system using peripherals connected via dock.
- These issues can be potentially addressed by changing the Thunderbolt Security Mode to "None" in the BIOS, though this is not recommended.
- HP Thunderbolt Dock 120W G2 [community-tested on an Intel system]
- Requires extra configuration for suspend/resume to work.
- i-tec C31DUALDPDOCKPD [community-tested on an Intel system]1
- Displays sometimes don't power on until dock is re-plugged.
- i-tec U3DUALHDMIDOCK [community-tested on an Intel system]
- HDMI video and USB keyboard input lags when laptop display is closed/disabled.
- Two HDMI outputs at the same time not tested.
- Lenovo ThinkPad Thunderbolt 3 Workstation Dock Gen 2 [community-tested on an Intel sytem] 1
- Lenovo ThinkPad USB 3.0 Pro Dock [community-tested on an Intel system]
- Ethernet and DVI ports not tested.
- Plugable UD-ULTC4K USB-C Triple 4K Display Dock [community-tested on an NVIDIA system] 2,3
- Plugable UD-ULTCDL USB-C Triple Display Dock [community-tested on an NVIDIA system]
1 Does not need the DisplayLink Driver installed to work.
2 For video output via DisplayPort over USB-C, the Gazelle 15 (gaze15) requires GTX 1660 Ti graphics; the Gazelle 16 (gaze16) requires RTX 3060 graphics.
3 NVIDIA cards have some minor graphical issues with what is rendered under the mouse as well as scrollbars.
Note: The DisplayLink driver should only be installed if you are using a docking station that requires it. The DisplayLink driver may cause graphical issues with non-DisplayLink devices.
On Intel or AMD graphics systems, you'll need to install the 'dkms' package to install DisplayLink driver. On NVIDIA graphics systems, the NVIDIA driver installs this package automatically.
sudo apt install dkmsDownload the newest DisplayLink driver from the linked webpage.
To install the DisplayLink driver, open the Terminal and move to the Downloads directory (the version for the driver may change, so look at the file name and change it accordingly):
cd Downloads
unzip DisplayLink\ USB\ Graphics\ Software\ for\ Ubuntu5.4-EXE.zip
sudo chmod +x displaylink-driver-5.4.0-55.153.run
sudo ./displaylink-driver-5.4.0-55.153.runTo uninstall the DisplayLink driver, use this command:
sudo displaylink-installer uninstallTo install the NVIDIA driver that we provide, see the System76 NVIDIA Driver support article.