Lenovo USB 3.0 Dock performance terrible

[sebbelcher]

Luckily I am running Windows 7. It seems that despite having USB3 drivers installed from the factory that port on the Lenovo was operating at USB 2.0 speeds, the Intel drivers have fixed this, now there are no more slowness or lag issues - additionally the firmware update worked once USB3 drivers were installed.

Crazy really that these laptops come with USB3 ports and still no proper solution to ensure USB3 ports and devices are operating with the right drivers.

It would be good if DisplayLink could integrate something into their software to warn users if the dock is connected to a USB3 port but not operating at USB3 speeds.

Finally - this has not solved the issue of screen blurring/pixelation under heavy 2D graphics loads - I am desperately trying to get some visual evidence of this but you can't capture it with a screen-shot as the whatever buffer screenshots are grabbed from is before where the corruption/compression occurs. I'll see if I can get high-quality video of it happening. Is this also a known issue?

[JamesH]

Hi,

This may be resolved by the following:

Open Control Panel
Open Power Options
Select Change plan settings
Select advanced power settings
Choose High Performance from the drop down box

Thanks,
James

[sebbelcher]

Ok, so I just turned OFF the 'Optimize for Video' setting and now I'm not getting any more problems with pixelation or blurring on webpages.

Ironically turning ON optimize for video was another suggestion on a forum to improve the mouse lag problem I was having!

So, I take it all back DisplayLink, your product is actually pretty damn good ;-)

All it took was updating the USB3 drivers. I hope there is a similar option out there for Windows 8 users soon!

[frentica]

Originally Posted by JamesH

Hi,

This may be resolved by the following:

Open Control Panel
Open Power Options
Select Change plan settings
Select advanced power settings
Choose High Performance from the drop down box

Thanks,
James

What about overall bad performance? High CPU usage? It makes the system perform terribly, and mouse lag is very obvious.

[sebbelcher]

I'm not seeing this issue since installing the USB3 drivers. I get about 4-6% CPU usage from the DisplayLink processes during normal use and it does peak around 10% as you say when moving windows around - but nothing as high as you mentioned.

Currently configured:
Latest Intel USB3 eXtensible Host Controller drivers https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Det...usb+3.0+driver

Latest Lenovo Dock firmware http://download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub...updatetool.exe

Latest DisplayLink Drivers http://www.displaylink.com/support/sla.php?fileid=93

There is some info on Intel's website about forcing USB 3 support in the BIOS if you have problems with devices running at USB 2.0 speeds. The Lenovo has an option for USB 3 in the bios which is "Auto, Enabled, Disabled" and 'Auto' is default. You could try setting it to Enable which forces USB 3.0 mode.

[frentica]

The displaylink process only shows 5-15%, however if you look at your overall CPU usage while resizing a window you can see it jump significantly which doesn't happen when it isn't docked. I've installed all of the latest drivers/firmware. I even went as far as using some little "hack" I found on a forum to get the Intel USB 3.0 drivers installed on my Lenovo with Windows 8.

Originally Posted by sebbelcher

I'm not seeing this issue since installing the USB3 drivers. I get about 4-6% CPU usage from the DisplayLink processes during normal use and it does peak around 10% as you say when moving windows around - but nothing as high as you mentioned.

Currently configured:
Latest Intel USB3 eXtensible Host Controller drivers https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Det...usb+3.0+driver

Latest Lenovo Dock firmware http://download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub...updatetool.exe

Latest DisplayLink Drivers http://www.displaylink.com/support/sla.php?fileid=93

There is some info on Intel's website about forcing USB 3 support in the BIOS if you have problems with devices running at USB 2.0 speeds. The Lenovo has an option for USB 3 in the bios which is "Auto, Enabled, Disabled" and 'Auto' is default. You could try setting it to Enable which forces USB 3.0 mode.

[wolfindersteppe]

Using Helix i7 with Windows 8 Pro and two Samsungs S27C450 monitors. The ThinkPad USB 3.0 dock makes the whole system unusable - the same symptoms, mouse lag, temp 68°C and higher, DisplayLink CPU usage betwen 1% and 25%. The workaround for Windows 7 does not feet. It seems that the ThinkPad USB 3.0 dock is unusable with Windows 8

[wonderose]

My setup: Lenovo Helix, Windows 8, a Toshiba Dynadock USB 3.0 and one external monitor (Acer S243HL).

Every time I close the lid of my laptop, the external display shows my cursor stuck at the very same position on the screen, with a context menu about to be open (in form of a quadrangle) or already open (with all the menu points I don’t want to choose from).

To free my stubborn cursor, which won’t move from the center right of my Acer monitor, I reopen the lid, and indeed, it is gone quite easily. But if I shut the lid again, it reappears on the dot. It’s a nice game to play, and in the end, after a few moments of despair, I always win, having reconquered my cursor and made the quadrangle (or the context menu) disappear.

Yet, in the course of time, my despair grew ever deeper, and on expert counsel, I replaced the Dynadock (and DisplayLink’s software) with a standard HDMI cable. My problems are now gone. No quadrangle, no unwanted context menu. And I am relieved.

But if this problem is going to be fixed sometime in the future, I will certainly be glad to reinstall DisplayLink.

PS: I forgot to add that without DisplayLink manager the CPU usage is down by 5 to 20 % (depending on monitor activity), which in turn has a positive effect on the fan noise.

PPS: Before giving up on DisplayLink and reverting to a simple HDMI cable, I had installed the very newest version of the software (7.4.51587.0 and 7.2.8000.17).