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jeremy · 04-24-2017, 04:08 AM

Hey Alban,

I recently finished testing with a group of about 30 testers over the last week. My testers are still seeing issues, but the driver has helped some people, particularly with CPU usage! Here are some of the scenarios that I have seen with users with issues:
1. Screens freeze (image locked on screens) and dock crashes. When the user opens up the laptop, the laptop has gone to using the built in display and, if the laptop is using Ethernet through the dock, it is on wifi.
2. Screens freeze (image locked on screens) and dock crashes. When the user opens up the laptop, the laptop's built in display is black. I am able to ping the machine (users had ethernet wired directly into the laptop) and start remote sessions (RDP and SCCM), but the screens remain black, even on the remote sessions. The user must manually force the computer to shutdown.
3. Screens freeze (image locked on screens) and dock crashes. The screens eventually resume and all functionality is normal. The duration is about 15 seconds. I should note that it is rare that the dock gracefully recovers like this.

I also want to mention that we have been telling our users to unplug/replug the USB connection into the laptop. In most cases, this will allow the users to regain full functionality in scenario #1. I did notice that some users have complete USB lock up, meaning that the laptop will not reinitialize the dock on any of the USB ports until the PC has rebooted.

Regarding the print screen, I had the tester take a print screen of when she saw the issue, paste it into Word, and then email it to me. The defect did not exist within the print screen. My tester did note that when she took a screenshot that the corrupted content briefly materialized, but it would immediately go back to the corrupted image as soon as she attempted to refresh the screen. I attempted to update to the latest Intel graphics driver, but I was unable to upgrade using the EXE or the ZIP version of the driver. Windows would not recognize the ZIP version as a newer version than what is installed. The driver version is up to date as far as what is on Dell's site (4574).
Regarding the Creator's update, the enterprise ISO is not available until May 1st. I configured our SCCM infrastructure to do in-place feature upgrades, but our company-wide patching is occurring next week so I will need to wait to do the upgrades since I'll need to reset WSUS's synchronization with SCCM. As soon as it is available, I will put the creator's update out to a test group of users.

For the timestamps, I collected that information at the same time that the PC experienced the dock crash so those are accurate. For the ethernet errors, I'll comb through my tester's logs and get screenshots of those and attach them to this thread. The errors are mainly for NDIS and DLCDCNCM where the Dell Giga Ethernet adapter encounters an internal error, but I'll gather the exact logs. We haven't done any performance tuning with group policy/registry to force these adapters remain powered on at all times or disabling IPv6 or anything like that. My thought was maybe that the OS was powering the adapter off at times and thus disrupting the DisplayLink driver. I had a user unplug the ethernet from her dock and the dock crashed as soon as she had done that, so perhaps there's a correlation.

Lastly, I did want to mention again that my organization functions similarly to a call center. We use on-premise Skype for Business as our telephony solution and our users typically speak up about the dock crashes because they frequently occur immediately before/after or on a call. Do you have any known issues with Skype for Business and docks? If not, do you believe these to be just coincidences, or is there anything I can do to test?

Please let me know if there's anything I can provide or any testing I can do!

Thanks!

04-24-2017, 04:08 AM	#7
jeremy Junior Member Join Date: Feb 2017 Posts: 9	Hey Alban, I recently finished testing with a group of about 30 testers over the last week. My testers are still seeing issues, but the driver has helped some people, particularly with CPU usage! Here are some of the scenarios that I have seen with users with issues: 1. Screens freeze (image locked on screens) and dock crashes. When the user opens up the laptop, the laptop has gone to using the built in display and, if the laptop is using Ethernet through the dock, it is on wifi. 2. Screens freeze (image locked on screens) and dock crashes. When the user opens up the laptop, the laptop's built in display is black. I am able to ping the machine (users had ethernet wired directly into the laptop) and start remote sessions (RDP and SCCM), but the screens remain black, even on the remote sessions. The user must manually force the computer to shutdown. 3. Screens freeze (image locked on screens) and dock crashes. The screens eventually resume and all functionality is normal. The duration is about 15 seconds. I should note that it is rare that the dock gracefully recovers like this. I also want to mention that we have been telling our users to unplug/replug the USB connection into the laptop. In most cases, this will allow the users to regain full functionality in scenario #1. I did notice that some users have complete USB lock up, meaning that the laptop will not reinitialize the dock on any of the USB ports until the PC has rebooted. Regarding the print screen, I had the tester take a print screen of when she saw the issue, paste it into Word, and then email it to me. The defect did not exist within the print screen. My tester did note that when she took a screenshot that the corrupted content briefly materialized, but it would immediately go back to the corrupted image as soon as she attempted to refresh the screen. I attempted to update to the latest Intel graphics driver, but I was unable to upgrade using the EXE or the ZIP version of the driver. Windows would not recognize the ZIP version as a newer version than what is installed. The driver version is up to date as far as what is on Dell's site (4574). Regarding the Creator's update, the enterprise ISO is not available until May 1st. I configured our SCCM infrastructure to do in-place feature upgrades, but our company-wide patching is occurring next week so I will need to wait to do the upgrades since I'll need to reset WSUS's synchronization with SCCM. As soon as it is available, I will put the creator's update out to a test group of users. For the timestamps, I collected that information at the same time that the PC experienced the dock crash so those are accurate. For the ethernet errors, I'll comb through my tester's logs and get screenshots of those and attach them to this thread. The errors are mainly for NDIS and DLCDCNCM where the Dell Giga Ethernet adapter encounters an internal error, but I'll gather the exact logs. We haven't done any performance tuning with group policy/registry to force these adapters remain powered on at all times or disabling IPv6 or anything like that. My thought was maybe that the OS was powering the adapter off at times and thus disrupting the DisplayLink driver. I had a user unplug the ethernet from her dock and the dock crashed as soon as she had done that, so perhaps there's a correlation. Lastly, I did want to mention again that my organization functions similarly to a call center. We use on-premise Skype for Business as our telephony solution and our users typically speak up about the dock crashes because they frequently occur immediately before/after or on a call. Do you have any known issues with Skype for Business and docks? If not, do you believe these to be just coincidences, or is there anything I can do to test? Please let me know if there's anything I can provide or any testing I can do! Thanks!