Hello everyone,
I have a Lenovo ThinkPad T480s laptop running Fedora 39 Kinoite. I would like to use it in a multi-display setup, so I am looking for a docking station. The laptop has a Thunderbolt 3 port. I have attached the details of my device at the end of the post.
People on Reddit are writing that “all Thunderbolt docking stations should work fine” and that’s obviously not the case… I have this Dell Thunderbolt Dock (WD19TB) at home from work and the displays work when I plug it into the laptop but, for example, my mouse (connected via USB-A) doesn’t work. When I connect it to the DELL laptop provided by the company, there are no problems at all.
Docking station requirements: Ethernet, 3x USB-A, 1x DisplayPort, 1x HDMI.
I have two 1080p displays: 75Hz and 165Hz. Obviously I’m not going to be playing any high-frame-rate games on this laptop, but even on a desktop it’s sometimes nice to see a slightly higher refresh rate. So if it’s possible, I’d like it to be able to display things above 60Hz…
I also have a Steam Deck OLED and would like to be able to use this dock with it.
I don’t want to spend too much money on it. Do you have any experience in this area and can you help me choose?
I am from Poland if it helps in any way (maybe some brands are not available here).
LAPTOP DETAILS
Operating System: Fedora Linux 39
KDE Plasma Version: 5.27.9
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.111.0
Qt Version: 5.15.11
Kernel Version: 6.6.6-200.fc39.x86_64 (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: Wayland
Processors: 8 × Intel® Core™ i7-8550U CPU @ 1.80GHz
Memory: 15.5 GiB of RAM
Graphics Processor: Mesa Intel® UHD Graphics 620
Manufacturer: LENOVO
Product Name: 20L8S0SA00
System Version: ThinkPad T480s
That’s strange. I had a T480s (now replaced with a T14), and it always worked with whichever dock I tried. I have the Lenovo Thunderbolt 3 dock, which obviously works, I also have an HP Omen GA1 with an Nvidia 1080Ti inside, and a Dell dock at work, but I don’t have the exact model. Anyway, all 3 of them work fine on the T480s. Check the security settings to make sure the dock is getting granted access. Thunderbolt allows the connected device access to all of the computer’s RAM, so make sure you only use thunderbolt peripherials you trust. The Omen GA1 is also basically a real pcie slot for your laptop. I’ve used it with GPUs, 10 Gbps network cards, SAS controllers… always worked fine, just like a Pcie slot on a desktop.
As I have mentioned in one of the comments below, I had the security level set to “User Authorization”. I also remember KDE Plasma showing me a popup asking for authorization for the Thunderbolt 3 port. However, I will disable this to make sure the docking station has the correct permissions. I will update you then.
However, it looks like these problems may be caused by the Thunderbolt 3 implementation used in this laptop. Described here: https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/wiki/newdocks/