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Old 06-27-2021, 03:27 AM   #1
brdmyldz
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Default 3 External Monitor with Macbook Pro lagging problem

Hi,

My setup is,
Macbook Pro 15" 2016 ( https://imgur.com/a/tiIHgUw )
ASUS VG27AQ 27" 60Hz (using HDMI -> HDMI cable) [QHD]
2x ASUS VA24DQ 23.8” 75 Hz (using DP -> HDMI cable) [FHD] (one is vertical)
Dell D6000 Dock with DisplayLink Support
Setup Picture: https://imgur.com/a/0Ole7Cg

I got the D6000 a week or two ago and I have been facing some problems. There is some fps drop on the middle monitor(VG27AQ) and there are HUGE fps drops on monitor on the right (one of VA24DQ that I use vertical).

For example, I was just talking to my friend on facetime using my macbook and I was mainly using the vertical monitor since the webcam is on that monitor so I put the facetime window on the right monitor to make eye contact with her. There wasn't any other program on during this happening. The monitor was laggy from the beginning of the video call. Interestingly my camera input that was going to her was also very laggy according to her which I believe might be due to dock performance limitation. And at some point the monitor (not the camera input) got completely frozen. Closing the displaylink app and restarting it fixed the temporarily.

Another example, I was playing games on my main monitor using GeForce now. I could easily detect that the quality wasn't 60fps (there was couple fps spikes) and it was not due to GeForce now but rather the display itself (because my mouse was also lagging so the entire screen was lagging). I had my discord on the right screen and at some point, the display on the right (where the discord is) got completely frozen but I was still able to talk to my friends. Again, I had to restart displaylink app to fixed it in the end.

I tried to diagnose the problem. I have couple theories and a possible solution.
1. I think since the webcam is 1080p 30fps, and directly connected to the dock it self, it just decreasing the performance of DisplayLink automatically.
2. D6000 suppose to support 2x 4K 60HZ + 1x 4K 30 Hz according to their website but I'm only using 2x FHD 75 Hz + 1X QHD 60 Hz so I feel like there is something weird going on here.


Note 1: Problem continues if I decrease the side monitors to 75 Hz -> 60 Hz so I don't think it's related to that.
Note 2: I never observed any lag on the monitor on the left side even though it is exactly the same monitor as the left one and has the same connection. I don't think my monitor is broken because When I change the cabling from VG27AQ (HDMI->HDMI to DP->HDMI) and VA24DQ (DP->HDMI to HDMI->HDMI) the main lag problem translated into the main screen. And I used different cables too, so I believe it is connected to the D6000 performance limitation and displaylink.

My possible solution,

I bought D6000 because I wanted to use only 1 Thunderbolt 3 cable going into my Macbook Pro so it would look pretty clean and simple. Well from my research I realized that it is impossible to have a good quality display connection using single thunderbolt 3 port. I was thinking that I could return my D6000 and get a cheaper dock that has displaylink support for Dual Monitor which I would connect my side monitors to that and other usb/ethernet connections. And on top of that I was planning to get a thunderbolt 3 to HDMI cable for the main monitor (VG27AQ), so I would decrease the pressure on the dock and I would have ALT quality on my main monitor.

That bring one question on my mind. If I use displayLink on my two side monitors, when I connect my main monitor using Thunderbolt3 -> HDMI directly from the laptop as I described above, would the connection be ALT or DisplayLink because I would want that to be ALT connetion naturally. Also can I connect both the dock and the Thunderbolt3->HDMI cable on the right side of the laptop?

Let me know what you are thinking. Also let me know if you have any dock recommendations. I basically want 60 Hz support on all of the 3 monitors (2x FHD, 1x QHD) with the cleanest solution because I will plug/unplug my laptop many times in a day. I would appreciate any feedback and let me know if you need further information. Good day!

Last edited by brdmyldz; 06-27-2021 at 03:31 AM.
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Old 06-29-2021, 11:40 AM   #2
xavierr
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I am also experiencing major slowness on my MacBook with external monitor ever since I started using the new DisplayLink driver.

In my case, the slowness seem to start when I join a video conference. The problem seems most acute when I share my screen. I've tried both Google Meet and Zoom and I experience major slowness on both (to the point where I cannot even open a simple webpage while sharing screen).

When I disconnect my DisplayLink docking and share my MacBook's screen the slowness goes away.

I am wondering if there is a problem with the new driver that causes the MacBook to overheat and throttle.
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Old 07-13-2021, 03:00 PM   #3
vzz1x2
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Quote:
Originally Posted by xavierr View Post
I am also experiencing major slowness on my MacBook with external monitor ever since I started using the new DisplayLink driver.

In my case, the slowness seem to start when I join a video conference. The problem seems most acute when I share my screen. I've tried both Google Meet and Zoom and I experience major slowness on both (to the point where I cannot even open a simple webpage while sharing screen).

When I disconnect my DisplayLink docking and share my MacBook's screen the slowness goes away.

I am wondering if there is a problem with the new driver that causes the MacBook to overheat and throttle.
I am experiencing the same issue. My setup is an Intel Macbook pro with 2 external monitors connected.. As soon as I start a zoom conference, then the CPU usage of a process named "WindowServer" goes to the roof.. I am not experiencing any issues at all if I dont have the screens attached.
Im running Big Sur with the latest 1.4 Displaylink software.
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Old 07-14-2021, 12:56 PM   #4
xavierr
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Quote:
Originally Posted by vzz1x2 View Post
I am experiencing the same issue. My setup is an Intel Macbook pro with 2 external monitors connected.. As soon as I start a zoom conference, then the CPU usage of a process named "WindowServer" goes to the roof.. I am not experiencing any issues at all if I dont have the screens attached.
Im running Big Sur with the latest 1.4 Displaylink software.

Hi DisplayLink / Kate,


Many people are experiencing similar issues, with really bad performance, WindowServer &/or kernel_task CPU usage going through the roof, super low frame rate, mouse lagging to the point where it cannot be used, and ultimately DisplayLink connected monitors not responding at all...

In my case, I have noticed that zoom / google meet video conferences trigger this issue systematically (the only way for me to do zoom/meet is to first disconnect my displlaylink dock, and reboot).

Kate / DisplayLink, do you have any advice for us? I am willing to go through the hoops of collecting the necessary information (I've installed the DisplayLink Information app), but I don't want to waste my time either if no one is going to look into it.

Is this a known issue and we should upgrade to a Thunderbolt dock? What is your suggested course of action. Please let us know.

Many threads seem related to this:

https://www.displaylink.org/forum/sh...ad.php?t=67767
https://www.displaylink.org/forum/sh...ad.php?t=67733
https://www.displaylink.org/forum/sh...ad.php?t=67725
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Old 07-15-2021, 12:10 PM   #5
rboerner
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Quote:
Originally Posted by brdmyldz View Post
Hi,

My setup is,
Macbook Pro 15" 2016 ( https://imgur.com/a/tiIHgUw )
ASUS VG27AQ 27" 60Hz (using HDMI -> HDMI cable) [QHD]
2x ASUS VA24DQ 23.8” 75 Hz (using DP -> HDMI cable) [FHD] (one is vertical)
Dell D6000 Dock with DisplayLink Support
Setup Picture: https://imgur.com/a/0Ole7Cg
If you temporarily change the one vertical display to a horizontal orientation, does that change the behavior?
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Old 07-19-2021, 12:48 PM   #6
xavierr
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rboerner View Post
If you temporarily change the one vertical display to a horizontal orientation, does that change the behavior?
My issue is very similar to brdmyldz's, and it is interesting to note that one of the three monitors connected to my DisplayLink is rotated 90 degrees. I will try to connected the rotated monitor directly to my Macbook such that all monitors on the DisplayLink are non-rotated.

Also, I have figured out the following:
- The problem is clearly with the DisplayLink driver. After several hours of working of my computer some of the DisplayLink connected monitors stop responding (can no longer hover my mouse over them), until eventually all the DisplayLink connected monitors turn black.
- I manually kill the DisplayLink 1.4 manager app, restart it, then it works again (note that it can take several minutes to kill the app).
- Also note that when the DisplayLink 1.4 manager app is having issues, it seems to slowly generate heat (macbook fan starts spinning), until eventually kernal_task goes up in CPU usage (up to 1000% in my case). When kernal_task uses a lot of CPU, the entire computer is sluggish.

I have sent my Display Link debug file DisplayLinkInfo_Output_20210719_072538.zip to the Display Link support team.

I hope they will report back.

Thanks,
Xavier
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Old 07-23-2021, 02:52 PM   #7
xavierr
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Here's an update I sent Kate / DisplayLink in case it can help anyone else:

Unfortunately my setup is a bit inflexible so it's difficult to put all screens in landscape mode.

I kept on troubleshooting these last few days and here are a few additional pieces of information that will answer some of your questions:

- I'm definitely having issues with DisplayLink Manager 1.4:
I installed it when I upgraded my OS to BigSur, and that's when I started having these issues.
- I used to be on the legacy driver, and on a positive note the layout of the monitors is much more stable on v1.4 (yeah!) -- I used to have to reconfigure my screens ~once a week on the legacy driver, which was so annoying that I wrote a script based on "displayplacer" to automate that process.

ISSUE #1
---------------------
- After working on my macbook for prolonged periods of time, some of the monitors connected to the DisplayLink will inevitably stop responding.
- I can no longer hover my mouse over them and eventually they turn black.
- At that point, I have to manually kill DisplayLink Manager v1.4 and manually start it again.
- Restarting DisplayLink Manager v1.4 restores my monitors to a working state.
- I typically have to kill/restart the driver once or twice a day.
- Now that I have pin pointed the issue, it's annoying but at least I have a workaround.
- The DisplayLink Information .zip file that I sent 3 days ago was taken after experiencing Issue #1.

ISSUE #2
---------------------
- When using Google Meet / Zoom, and typically after sharing screen, my macbook's fan starts spinning loudly, my mouse starts lagging massively, and when I open activity monitor kernel_task runs above 1000% CPU usage.
- My best course of action when this happens is to shutdown my macbook, wait for it to cool down, and restart it.
- I've had this issue systematically when using Google Meet / Zoom, so I have taken the following measures for it not to happen:
* I disconnected all external monitors and confirmed that I can do a Google Meet/Zoom and share screen without any issues.
* when kernel_task runs above 1000% it seems to be because my macbook is overheating, so I have propped it up ~1cm and I have directed a fan towards the macbook
- I had a successful Google Meet yesterday:
* I kept the Google Meet Window on my macbook's monitor and I have not moved the Google Meet Window on to any external monitor.
* I have successfully shared my macbook's monitor without experiencing the kernel_task above 1000% CPU issue.

Hope that helps.
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Old 09-09-2021, 07:20 PM   #8
xavierr
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another update, after trying v1.5.0 Beta 1 (Build 58.111) for ~2 weeks:

* i noted an improvement in performance compared with 1.4
* my CPU/GPU does not overheat quite as often
* i.e. I do not have the kernel_task using 1000% CPU as often as I used to
* that being said, the PERFORMANCE IS STILL WAY WORSE than it used to be with the previous driver (i.e. before I was forced to migrate to the new generation of driver after upgrading the BigSur).
* amongst other things, my macbook's fan is still running continuously (it never stops running). the fan running 100% of the time is only something I started to experience after upgrading to BigSur
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Old 09-09-2021, 07:28 PM   #9
xavierr
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2ND UPDATE: QUITE FED UP WITH THIS, I POSTED A REVIEW WITH 2 STARS ON AMAZON:

MacOs drivers have known performance issues, especially when rotating screens.

I have 3 external monitors connected on my Dell Docking / DisplayLink:
- my 2019, 32GB macbook pro's CPU/GPU started overheating with the new driver (after BigSur update).
- this would happen every time I would share one of my screens on Zoom / Google Meet with version 1.4 of the driver (June 2021).
- it is still a problem as of today (September 2021), though the problem is less acute with version 1.5 of the driver (released two weeks ago).

Here are the problems remaining as of September 2021:
- my macbook pro's fan runs continuously when the 3 external monitors are plugged in (was not the case with the old generation of drivers, before BigSur)
- CPU/GPU overheats only sporadically now
- the fact that my macbook is continuously slightly overheating is likely to decrease its lifetime

Please see the complete thread on the DisplayLink Forum:
https://www.displaylink.org/forum/sh...2309#post92309
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Old 09-13-2021, 04:53 PM   #10
xavierr
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MORE INFO FOR DISPLAY LINK... IF THEY CARE...

i can confirm that the issue is with the DisplayLink external card / driver: today I had an important video conference so I unplugged the DisplayLink from my computer altogether. My 2019 Macbook had 2 external monitors plugged into it directly via USBC.

I had none of the performance issues that I experience all the time since upgrading to BigSur
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