DellWD15 Monitor Dock 4K with 180W Adapter, USB-C, (450-AEUO, 7FJ4J, 4W2HW),Black,Dual Display

Finally, a dock that works on Linux, USB-C, and charges my computer.I have tried 4 separate docks, Dell's TB15 and TB16 and two from Plugable. The TB15/16 were truly awful products. Each had their own problems: disconnecting the video, dropping Ethernet speeds, garbled audio ports, USB disconnecting, overheating, weird conflicts with strong WiFi signals. Pretty much everything that could go wrong with those docks did. The Plugable docks actually worked *wonderfully* and they have great customer service, but their products are misrepresenting compatibility with the ability to charge an XPS 15 9550 through the USB cable. Their docks that claim Linux compatibility worked great, but I had to keep the power plug into the computer. I wish I would have tried this dock first.On to the WD15. I'm running Ubuntu 17.04 with kernel 4.12. All BIOS updates have been applied, as is critical for any USB-C/thunderbolt functionality to work on these recent Dell machines. For the most part, that means installing Windows to apply the updates. While BIOS updates can be applied from DOS, dock updates MUST be done from Windows. So expect to install WIndows 10 (I recommend Rufus to install it on an external drive) to get everything working.With all updates applied, this thing works AMAZING. I only power a single external display, but I use nearly all ports: HDMI or DisplayPort both work fine, I've got ~4 USB ports occupied, audio out the front port, and ethernet. All work, no drivers or special downloads needed for the dock itself under Linux. I've run the internal and one external display both with the nVidia (running nvidia-381 package) and Intel graphics (with drivers installed from 01.org). All the usual hoops of getting something to work on Linux aside, this dock works great. Audio has been completely consistent (a near miracle).Even with my XPS 9550 power demands, charging through the USB-C port works. It doesn't seem to have any power charging issues as the Plugable docks did. The dock even seems to work okay with sleep and resume. Although occasionally I do have to unplug/replug after a reboot. Some times the second display does not immediately wake up, but a quick trip to the Displays control panel or cycling through the display options with F8 fix the issue for the duration of the session.The only small issue I've had is that external USB hard disks seem to start up and spin down repeatedly when plugged into the USB ports and the computer is asleep or unplugged. This does not seem to be a Linux issue because it happens even if the computer isn't plugged in. For now I'm simply plugging it in after the computer is awake or whenever I need to do a backup.

This review is for the Dell Dock WD15 with 180W Adapter, USB Type-C.I am very pleased with this dock, but I just recently purchased it and there have been a few BIOS updates to the Dell Precision 5510 and a few firmware updates for the dock, so I may have missed all of the bugs that have been fixed with the earlier software. The BIOS updates for the 5510 are easy to find, the firmware updates for the dock are not as easy. When going to the Dell support site, find the BIOS and driver updates by typing in your Service Tag and searching. Select the option to find the updates yourself and down near the bottom of the page in the "Other ways to find drivers" section and click the link to "Browse all drivers..." and the dock firmware should be in there under WD15.Once the firmware and BIOS are updated, the dock seems to work very well. The only issues I have found with it are when I plug the USB-C cable in, the laptop starts up if it was off and my monitors display the correct screens, but my USB keyboard doesn't work until I get past the Bitlocker screen. This means I have to open the laptop, use the laptop keyboard to type my Bitlocker password, then close my laptop screen to go back to my dual monitor setup. This results in another minor issue that occurs rarely. After closing the laptop, only one of my screens is working, so I go to the display options and see it still considers the laptop screen one of my screens, so I have to open my laptop and close it again to get the laptop to recognize the screen is closed.Other than that it works great. I have two of them, one for home and one for work. My home one uses the Mini-DP and the HDMI for video, Ethernet, USB for keyboard and mouse on the back, and USB on the front for an external hard drive. My work one uses the HDMI and VGA for video, Ethernet, a USB hub on my monitor that has keyboard, mouse, and USB headset, plus an Engineering tool on the back ports, USB on the front for an external hard drive and USB memory. So each are fully loaded and I have not had any display issues (other than the easily recoverable one I mentioned), speed issues to the external drives, or connection issues to the external Engineering tool I interface with.The only other downside is, I just got a new personal laptop around the same time (Dell Latitude E5570) that I thought would be compatible with the dock (since it is mentioned on the Dell WD15 website), but it isn't. The E5570 I have only supports the old E-port docking station, which I still have, but now I have to use both and switch my monitors, keyboard, and mouse back and forth. Using and old KVM and a couple HDMI switches made it easier, but not flawless.

Docking station consistently fails after a storm despite being plugged into surge protector. All other equipment in surge protector works fine. If I remove other equipment from docking station and plug directly into laptop, it works fine.