You are not logged in.

#26 2020-11-15 12:11:24

yaworski
Member
Registered: 2018-08-05
Posts: 41

Re: WD19TB: Screens randomly going to Standby / Slow flickering / Freezes

@bulletmark thanks for the find about the guc_info. I've checked mine and it's the same.

Regarding the new BIOS, I'm still using your workaround, but I have feeling that it is more stable. On 1.2.0, even with your workaround I still had some minor screen blanking (short ones, which auto-recovered quickly). I haven't had even one of those since upgrading to 1.3.0 with MST disabled and GUC enabled. I know it's only two days since the upgrade, so it still may happen.

BTW when I work at the desk, I have the XPS hidden under the desk and use it as a desktop (with Dell UltraSharp U3417W connected to WD19TB). There's still a one big issue when cold booting in this configuration. Sometimes, but very very rarely I can see grub blinking just for a fraction of a second on the monitor and then the signal drops and comes up again in the GDM already. After logging in the signal goes out again and either it comes back again after ~10 seconds with the Gnome or it thinks that there's no external monitor and goes to sleep. I need to press the power button on the dock and then I get to the lock screen and after unlocking I finally get the Gnome. If I lock the screen again (manually or timeout) and DPMS turns off the monitor, the connection to the monitor drops again and laptop goes to sleep (no external monitor detected and lid closed). If I reset gnome using "alt+f2 r", the same happens. This is not as unnerving as those random screen blackouts, but still it's something which makes this hardware much less enjoyable than it should be.
I wonder if the revised XPS 9310 model with 1185G7 TigerLake-U is any better and would it make sense to do a switch.

Offline

#27 2020-11-26 08:30:02

yaworski
Member
Registered: 2018-08-05
Posts: 41

Re: WD19TB: Screens randomly going to Standby / Slow flickering / Freezes

Well, it seems that these laptops have minds of their own. Some time after the latest bios updates it started to blink the screen again sad. I can work whole day sometimes without any issues and other times I have even a problem to turn it on to have anything on the external screen (as the laptop lid is closed, it goes to sleep because no monitor is detected). Yesterday evening (after whole day of working uninterrupted) it started blinking once every 10-30 seconds. Today I've had to play around to get the display working and I've finally given up and connected a simple USB-C to DP adapter into second port, as this seems to be more stable (but makes using dock less than ideal).

Offline

#28 2021-01-30 15:39:36

kubrick
Member
Registered: 2016-10-07
Posts: 29

Re: WD19TB: Screens randomly going to Standby / Slow flickering / Freezes

https://patchwork.freedesktop.org/series/86402/

This fixed my TB / Display related issues.

Offline

#29 2021-01-30 21:12:00

yaworski
Member
Registered: 2018-08-05
Posts: 41

Re: WD19TB: Screens randomly going to Standby / Slow flickering / Freezes

kubrick wrote:

https://patchwork.freedesktop.org/series/86402/

This fixed my TB / Display related issues.

Is this a patch for the kernel source? Which kernel version this applies to? Did you apply all 5 patches?

Offline

#30 2021-01-30 22:11:54

bulletmark
Member
From: Brisbane, Australia
Registered: 2013-10-22
Posts: 649

Re: WD19TB: Screens randomly going to Standby / Slow flickering / Freezes

@kubrick, also do you (still?) need the i915.enable_dp_mst=0 option after adding those patches? What model laptop and dock do you have?

Last edited by bulletmark (2021-01-30 23:08:47)

Offline

#31 2021-01-31 13:35:25

yaworski
Member
Registered: 2018-08-05
Posts: 41

Re: WD19TB: Screens randomly going to Standby / Slow flickering / Freezes

I think that patch set is based on the kernel trunk so it can't be directly applied to Arch's linux package, but I think I've managed to backport it to 5.10.11 (although I can't guarantee anything, as I don't know much about kernel programming). I'm now running patched 5.10.11 without disabling mst (although I don't have multiple monitors at home). It seems to be ok, but it's to early to tell for sure.

uname -r 
5.10.11-arch1-1-xpsfix

As 5.10.12 is almost out (its in testing right now) I've switched my PKGBUILD to this version now and if it builds correctly, I'll publish it together with the patch on github if anyone is interested in testing this.

---edit---

https://github.com/yawor/arch-linux-kernel-xpsfix

Here's repo with PKGBUILD and patch. As recommended by https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ke … ild_System, I've disabled generating documentation, which makes the build process shorter.

---edit---

Disabling MST is still needed. I've removed i915.enable_dp_mst=0 from my grub config and it worked, but I forgot that I've also added

options i915 enable_guc=2 enable_dp_mst=0

in /etc/modprobe.d/ for early modesetting. After removing enabled_dp_mst there, rebuilding initcpio and rebooting I've immediately got issues even on the GDM login screen.

Last edited by yaworski (2021-01-31 15:19:10)

Offline

#32 2021-02-01 23:46:35

bulletmark
Member
From: Brisbane, Australia
Registered: 2013-10-22
Posts: 649

Re: WD19TB: Screens randomly going to Standby / Slow flickering / Freezes

@yaworksi, I applied your patch file to Arch 5.10.12, re-enabled MST, put my 2 screens back on DP, and ran all day yesterday and now this morning without any dock dropouts. I would be very unlikely to get through a day previously. What problem did you see with MST enabled?

Offline

#33 2021-02-02 09:17:35

yaworski
Member
Registered: 2018-08-05
Posts: 41

Re: WD19TB: Screens randomly going to Standby / Slow flickering / Freezes

@bulletmark when I've booted without disabling mst (I've kept the guc option though), my monitor turned off 2 seconds after GDM started. I've been able to login anyway and monitor showed the desktop for a few seconds and turned off again. With mst disabled and this patch I haven't experienced even a single dropout, even with a huge CPU load when building a kernel with multiple parallel jobs.

Offline

#34 2021-02-02 10:21:25

bulletmark
Member
From: Brisbane, Australia
Registered: 2013-10-22
Posts: 649

Re: WD19TB: Screens randomly going to Standby / Slow flickering / Freezes

yaworski wrote:

my monitor turned off 2 seconds after GDM started

I have stated this before but to be clear I will go over it again. I find there are 2 serious but different problems between the Dell XPS 13 9300 and the Dell WD19TB dock:

1. Occasionally, the entire dock fleetingly disconnects and you see in the system journal that all dock devices drop out and come back (mostly USB disconnects/reconnects). The problem is more likely if the machine is loaded.

2. Occasionally, one of more screens attached to the dock blackout for a few seconds. When this happens you see NOTHING in the system journal and no other devices are affected. This problem is not particularly correlated with loading.

Around the various forums these 2 different problems are typically conflated because people generally just notice that the screens fleetingly go black which occurs for both cases. Since the USB disconnects are so fleeting people just report it as "screens go blank for a few secs". Most people don't notice the subtle difference because you can only really tell if you look at your journal.

Note that the i915.enable_dp_mst=0 option *only fixes the 1st problem above*. I.e. if you add that option then you will never see a dock disconnect. However, the 2nd problem can still occur. There is a work-around for the 2nd problem however. The 2nd problem will never occur if you reboot the laptop after you power up the dock. The second problem occurs quite frequently for me, but only when I have powered up the dock and not yet done a reboot. After rebooting I have never seen the 2nd problem, even after a suspend/resume it will still be ok (so long as I don't remove power from the dock of course). This reboot "fix" does not address problem 1, it can still occur.

Now my post above was to say that after I applied your patch to 5.10.12, I find that I can run with MST enabled and I have still not seen (2 days now) a dock disconnect, i.e the 1st problem. However, if I look for the 2nd problem (i.e. after I re-power the dock) then I will see it within 10 minutes and that has been occurring on all the many kernels we have seen right up to the patched 5.10.12. I always just reboot my laptop after powering up my dock so I avoid it.

So, after all that, when you say your monitor turned off, are you saying you saw problem 1 or problem 2 because I contend that problem 1 is fixed by that patch.

Offline

#35 2021-02-02 10:55:38

yaworski
Member
Registered: 2018-08-05
Posts: 41

Re: WD19TB: Screens randomly going to Standby / Slow flickering / Freezes

Well, the dock didn't drop the connection in my case, as I still could use external keyboard to actually login. But the screen went permanently off, not just for a few seconds. To be honest, I haven't checked if there was anything in dmesg.

I don't fully agree that the second problem you've mentioned doesn't depend on load. I've been running with mst disabled past months and even though I haven't had any TB3 connection drops like in problem 1, I've noticed that when there was high load the probability of monitor blanking for few seconds was definitely higher - even to a point of multiple consecutive blanks in a short time.

With mst disabled and with patch applied I didn't experience even a single issue on WD19TB (neither TB3 connection drop nor monitor blanking). For me it doesn't even matter if I start the system after full shutdown or wake up after suspending (as I usually do).

I'll try again with mst enabled and test it better. BTW I don't know if this makes any difference, but I don't use wayland.

Last edited by yaworski (2021-02-02 11:05:05)

Offline

#36 2021-02-02 11:46:17

bulletmark
Member
From: Brisbane, Australia
Registered: 2013-10-22
Posts: 649

Re: WD19TB: Screens randomly going to Standby / Slow flickering / Freezes

Note I also find that when problem 2 occurs, it usually happens multiple times in quick succession. The screens on the dock become unusable so I have to reboot. Do you normally leave power always on to the dock?

These problems may be related to TB3 bandwidth so with different resolution screens and refresh rates, and the fact that you only have 1 external screen, I have 2 so I guess we may see different behavior.

Offline

#37 2021-02-02 12:21:04

yaworski
Member
Registered: 2018-08-05
Posts: 41

Re: WD19TB: Screens randomly going to Standby / Slow flickering / Freezes

There were instances where I had to power cycle the dock, but since you've shared the workaround with disabling mst, I haven't had a need for this (or maybe mostly few times). My dock is always powered.

I have a Dell U3417W connected to WD19TB, running native resolution of 3440x1440 at 60Hz. When working at my desk, the XPS 9300 is hidden under the desk and I only use the external monitor.

As I've probably mentioned before, I also have a two monitor setup at my workplace, using an i-Tec TB3 dock station. It worked with XPS 9570, but doesn't want to work most of the time with 9300. I'll need to test it again next time I'm in office if the patch helped in this situation in any way.

Offline

#38 2021-02-05 12:24:18

yaworski
Member
Registered: 2018-08-05
Posts: 41

Re: WD19TB: Screens randomly going to Standby / Slow flickering / Freezes

Even though the WD19TB seems to be working quite nicely now, the i-Tec's TB3 dock (https://i-tec.pro/en/produkt/tb3hdmidock-2/) doesn't want to behave properly as soon as at least one monitor is connected to the dock. I've tried both HDMI and USB-C to DP cable. As soon as monitor is connected, the connection between the dock and XPS 9300 drops and the laptop itself becomes barely responsive - it doesn't matter if mst is enabled or not. Without monitors connected to the dock the TB3 connection seems to be stable (PD, Ethernet port and USB hub ports work).

Last edited by yaworski (2021-02-05 12:24:42)

Offline

#39 2021-02-06 23:37:37

bulletmark
Member
From: Brisbane, Australia
Registered: 2013-10-22
Posts: 649

Re: WD19TB: Screens randomly going to Standby / Slow flickering / Freezes

@yaworski, note my comment here https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/69487#comment196443.

Offline

#40 2021-02-08 20:37:47

yaworski
Member
Registered: 2018-08-05
Posts: 41

Re: WD19TB: Screens randomly going to Standby / Slow flickering / Freezes

So it seems that 5.11 should help to some extent? I hope that the MST issues are also going to be resolved with the last patch you've not been able to test yet.

Offline

#41 2021-02-08 22:52:48

bulletmark
Member
From: Brisbane, Australia
Registered: 2013-10-22
Posts: 649

Re: WD19TB: Screens randomly going to Standby / Slow flickering / Freezes

yaworski wrote:

So it seems that 5.11 should help to some extent? I hope that the MST issues are also going to be resolved with the last patch you've not been able to test yet.

Well even with i915.enable_dp_mst=0 set and all those patches applied I still get the problem 2 I mention above (random screen blanks with nothing in the journal and dock otherwise stays connected) and I don't see anything pending that will may fix that. As I said, if I make sure I reboot my laptop after connecting the dock then I don't get that problem but it still is a PITA.

Offline

#42 2021-03-04 14:45:09

yaworski
Member
Registered: 2018-08-05
Posts: 41

Re: WD19TB: Screens randomly going to Standby / Slow flickering / Freezes

There's a new WD19TB firmware update 01.00.15.01, A04:

- Improved the stability on the WD19 dock Ethernet connection when system transitions from low-power state.
- Addressed the condition that results in potential dock connection failure when connected to the system.
- Improved the display compatibility related to isolated combinations of host PCs and monitors.
- Added Thunderbolt firmware security updates.

It's available via fwupg.

Offline

#43 2021-03-04 22:32:28

bulletmark
Member
From: Brisbane, Australia
Registered: 2013-10-22
Posts: 649

Re: WD19TB: Screens randomly going to Standby / Slow flickering / Freezes

I've been running that new firmware 01.00.15.01 since it appeared 4 days ago on fwupd. It didn't make any difference for me.

Offline

#44 2021-03-05 12:46:28

yaworski
Member
Registered: 2018-08-05
Posts: 41

Re: WD19TB: Screens randomly going to Standby / Slow flickering / Freezes

@bulletmark, have you confirmed that the dock is running on new firmware? For some reason, right after update, fwupd says it updated successfully, but after restarting everything it still shows that the same update is available.

Offline

#45 2021-03-05 13:30:53

bulletmark
Member
From: Brisbane, Australia
Registered: 2013-10-22
Posts: 649

Re: WD19TB: Screens randomly going to Standby / Slow flickering / Freezes

Yes, it updated correctly to the new version although I immediately power reset both laptop and dock so probably didn't check the reported version before that. Still get random blackouts unless I reboot laptop after dock power up as I say above. I haven't noticed any changes anywhere running with the new firmware after 5 days.

Offline

#46 2021-03-29 07:03:49

bulletmark
Member
From: Brisbane, Australia
Registered: 2013-10-22
Posts: 649

Re: WD19TB: Screens randomly going to Standby / Slow flickering / Freezes

I'll just add a note to this thread that since Dell XPS 13 9300 BIOS update 1.5.0, WD19TB dock firmware update 01.00.15.01, and kernel >= 5.10.16 that all problems are fixed now for me.

Offline

#47 2021-03-29 13:18:28

yaworski
Member
Registered: 2018-08-05
Posts: 41

Re: WD19TB: Screens randomly going to Standby / Slow flickering / Freezes

Thanks for the info. I've now turned MST back on and I'm going to observe the situation. I can't test it on a multi-monitor setup right now, but I've had issues with MST turned on even on a single monitor with WD19TB.

Offline

#48 2021-04-28 10:54:17

danielkza
Member
Registered: 2009-08-12
Posts: 13

Re: WD19TB: Screens randomly going to Standby / Slow flickering / Freezes

Hi folks, I just got the WD19TBS dock and a Dell Precison 5540. I noticed some issues with displays dropping after being blanked for inactivity and never returning, and USB being a little unreliable.

The dock shipped with firmware 01.00.17.01, and there seem to be no updates available. I tried disabling Displayport MST and am testing to see how it behaves.

Like everyone else I get no kernel messages of any sort when the drops occur.

Offline

#49 2021-04-28 11:48:34

yaworski
Member
Registered: 2018-08-05
Posts: 41

Re: WD19TB: Screens randomly going to Standby / Slow flickering / Freezes

WD19TBS seems to be almost identical to WD19TB - on the outside it only lacks the audio ports (probably doesn't have audio DAC too). The firmware 01.00.17.01 seems to be dedicated to this variant of the dock, as normal WD19TB only has 01.00.15.01 as the latest firmware. It's hard to tell if the lack of audio is the only difference - maybe it got some internal redesign too.
Do you have fwupd installed? How does it see the dock? Does it say it is supported on remote server?
Is your laptop fully updated (BIOS, kernel etc)?
Are you running only on Intel iGPU or do you use Nvidia Quadro in Optimus mode?

I've had XPS 15 9570 before XPS 13 9300 and it worked with WD19TB without any issues.

Offline

#50 2021-04-28 21:48:25

bulletmark
Member
From: Brisbane, Australia
Registered: 2013-10-22
Posts: 649

Re: WD19TB: Screens randomly going to Standby / Slow flickering / Freezes

yaworski wrote:

WD19TBS seems to be almost identical to WD19TB.

The WD19TBS is exactly the same as the WD19TB except that the 3.5 mm audio jack is removed, apparently because the supplier no longer offers the part. Same goes for the newer WD19S over the WD19.

Offline

Board footer

Powered by FluxBB