[whateverboat]

> They ordered in every single competing dock they could find, from that era's products, and found that every last one was garbage in some way or other, usually fatally so.

It is so hard to believe that when more than 1000 employees at my employers are also using at least one dock (Dell and Thinkpad both) and using them very well.

[selicos]

In 2017 or so the standard Surface docks were rough. I think we had at least a 60% failure rate, though for the CEO who demanded a surface we swapped his issue dock with the one he had the week prior. And it would work for X weeks until failing to display to external monitors. Then we'd swap it out for the one from X weeks back and continue the cycle. Maybe change the power brick out.

Today I swap the power brick on my Dell thunderbolt dock when it acts up. Given the hours of use and how many times it's been plugged/unplugged from various laptops/etc (it worked great off an AMD desktop PC with thunderbolt on the rear I/O), I think my employer should buy me a knew one out of respect.

[mschuster91]

We are talking about a situation some years past. I member there were USB docks that if you had them attached to external power and ethernet, but not a laptop, they'd instant-kill the network by sending garbage frames that would cause switches to fault off.

Only around 2024-ish the situation with USB and TB docks seemed to stabilize.

[menssen]

I had a CalDigit TB dock -- maybe 2021-ish? -- that every time I unplugged my MacBook would take my internet offline. I thought I was insane. How is that even possible? But I finally gave up and returned it.

Thanks for finally answering this mystery for me.

[mschuster91]

Ayup, it was a topic on HN at least twice: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31268134 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12339902

[semi-extrinsic]

I have a brand new TV where if I plug the HDMI into my M4 MBP, MacOS ceases to have any functioning WiFi capability. Unplug the HDMI and internet returns instantly.

[mschuster91]

That's probably because your TV has support for Ethernet over HDMI enabled. Run ifconfig to check if there's a new (and, possibly, default-routed) interface when you plug that TV in.

[jon-wood]

Holy shit. Is this the mythical TV that actually supports Ethernet over HDMI? The fact that this feature is advertised no every HDMI cable and yet supported by approximately no hardware in the real world has been a source of amusement and mild sadness to me for the last decade or so.

I'd actually really like a TV that properly supports it because the idea of having one ethernet cable running to my TV and then everything else also getting a wired connection via the HDMI cable its already attached to pleases me, in the same way that a single USB-C cable on my desk giving my laptop access to ethernet, monitors, USB peripherals, and power pleases me.

[mschuster91]

> I'd actually really like a TV that properly supports it because the idea of having one ethernet cable running to my TV and then everything else also getting a wired connection via the HDMI cable its already attached to pleases me

I'd more be afraid than happy if a TV were to support that (and even more if laptops would use it to bridge a TV to the home network), simply because a TV that has internet access in any kind will download ads and nagware and upload viewership statistics in return.

Modern TVs truly have become like 1984 - there is no way a 4k 60-inch TV at 340€ is anywhere close to profitable on its own without milking the user's data for all it is worth. The actual cost of a TV is more like 900€+ if you go by the prices for "digital signage" TVs.

[Toutouxc]

> Ethernet over HDMI

Okay, today I learnt.

[cthalupa]

I remember getting my first CalDigit TB dock and being excited - everyone seemed to love them. I expected it to largely Just Work.

That thing Didn't Work more than it Worked, but options were slim. Eventually it fully died about 14 months in. I didn't even bother checking to see what the warranty terms were. TS3 Plus, back in 17 or 18. What a piece of shit.

Sounds like it's a good thing I didn't bother trying again in the early 2020s and only recently bought a new dock.

[phs318u]

Very similar story here. Went through two Caldigit TB hubs most recently a TB4. Soooo many issues. The same Ethernet issue described above, a failure to provide the rated PD power, and the TB linked monitor connection was dodgy af. A very expensive lesson. Add to this the confusing (and deceptive) jumble of TB cable standards. I have so many supposed TB3,4 and 5 rated cables I could probably circle my house. You have to hand Apple one thing and that’s the consistency of their hardware due to tight control of the stack and supply chain. You get far fewer of these sorts of issues.

[bayesnet]

I have a TS3+ that broke about 18 months in. I talked to support, set up a repair, and before I could send it the dock unbroke and had worked since. Truly mysterious and left me with a sense of unease with that thing given the cost.

[jon-wood]

My Caldigit TS4 dock is so close to being perfect except for my secondary monitor turning on maybe 50% of the time if I connect it to the dock via USB-C, I've given up and now have USB-C from the secondary monitor going straight to my laptop but let me be entirely clear in saying I hate that I have to do that.

[davb]

Yes!! The Dell WD19 was notorious for that. My wife’s company used those - we couldn’t leave her WFH dock connected to our home network because of the wild broadcast storms causing our core switch to stop processing frames from her home office desktop switch. My org used HP Dock G5 units which behaved much better (besides the occasional firmware update killing video output until a power cycle, and inconsistent MAC address pass through between hardware revisions).

[exmadscientist]

Yes, this would have been around 2015. (When I said "Surface Book" I meant the original!)

Docks were bad, bad products in those days. They were no longer the dedicated bulky-but-reliable things of years past, or the modern finally-debugged dongles we've got now.

This was Intel's Alpine Ridge and it was hell. (At least, I think that was the one. Certainly, it was hell!)

[mschuster91]

> They were no longer the dedicated bulky-but-reliable things of years past

The old bulky-but-reliable things often enough didn't contain much electronics - it was often enough the raw interfaces exposed directly on these multi-pin connectors. Simple, stupid and reliable as long as no electrically conductive dirt was around.

[esikich]

Ask your helpdesk team what they think of docking stations.

[rtpg]

I think 2017 is the big thing here.

We had those early "blessed by Apple" USB-C LG monitors. Garbage when it came to connectivity. Same with docks and the like.

We're now 9 years later so... I think it's all better now than before.