Said It Here

Why does my docked laptop keep disconnecting every few seconds?

Monitors with built-in USB-C docks cause laptops to repeatedly drop and re-establish their connection every 15 to 45 seconds. This constant connecting and disconnecting makes the hardware flaky and completely unreliable for daily use.

What people tried

Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.

  1. 1
    having a secondary power source for said laptops
  2. 2
    Updating drivers for the docking station and GPU
  3. 3
    Replacing cables (USB-C, DisplayPort, and HDMI)
  4. 4
    Using only a single external monitor
  5. 5
    Trying different ports on the docking station
  6. 6
    Disabling USB selective suspend and PCIe link state management
  7. 7
    Power cycling the dock
  8. 8
    Using a high-end certified USB-C cable

In their words

Unedited, most upvoted first, each linked to the thread it came from.

“Monitors are capable of delivering 65W of power, but the laptops non-the-less constantly (15-45 seconds or so) drop the connection and reconnects.”source ↗

“While the workaround is working, I was wondering if anyone else is seeing this same behavior and if you managed to solve it?”source ↗

DrunkMAdmin · r/sysadmin · 2 upvotes

“the image on either monitor just doesn't stay on. It doesn't matter if the monitor is connected via DisplayPort, HDMI or USB-C. It just keeps connecting and disconnecting.”source ↗

“I deployed a couple of different i-tec docks and they were problematic too”source ↗

Ok-Translator1226 · r/sysadmin · 1 upvotes

“they are flaky AF and not worth the hassle.”source ↗

C_pyne · r/sysadmin · 1 upvotes

Where this came up

r/sysadminhardwaretroubleshooting

People with this problem also raised