'Certified' Lenovo ThinkPad P1 2nd Gen is not working with Doc

Hello Peter,

What brand of monitor are you using?

We used the BenQ EW3270U 4K monitor to verify ‘ThinkPad P1 2nd Gen is working together with the ThinkPad Thunderbolt 3 WorkStation Dock Gen 2’ during the certification process of this machine. We use Thunderbolt3 cable, HDMI cable and DisplayPort cable to connect ThinkPad Thunderbolt 3 WorkStation Dock Gen 2 respectively. No matter which kind of cable connects ThinkPad Thunderbolt 3 WorkStation Dock Gen 2 and the display,'ThinkPad P1 2nd Gen and BenQ EW3270U 4K are both With the correct screen output, there will be no black screen.

At that time, we only had BenQ EW3270U, a 4K monitor. We are unable to confirm which model of the monitor you are using, this is probably a question about compatibility. Do you have other types of 4K monitors you can try?

Looking forward to your feedback, thank you.

Hello,

we use a dual-screen setup. We tried two kinds of monitors, in all
combinations (A and A, A and B, B and B), neither worked correct with
Linux/Dock/P1. Al were used in 4K mode (as those are all 32" monitors).

We had more trouble with Display Port connection then with HDMI, but
even with HDMI there are issues.
We have in total 5 Thinkpad P1 Gen2 and 10 Monitors of Type A and 2
Monitors of type B. We tried in total
at least 30 different cables, Display Port and HDMI, from different
manufactures.
All hardware combinations work without any problem with MS Windows 10.
Neithers works acceptable (with downgrading the firmware) or at all
satisfactoring with Linux (we also tried several distributions, all of
Debian kind. Including Ubuntu 18.04 and 20.04.). Also we tried
all available version of the nvidia driver.

The Monitors are :
A: HP Z32 (10 pieces)
B: Acer B326HK (2 pieces)

All hardware combinations (cables, monitors) with Windows, and worked
well with Linux on our other Laptops (T490s, dual screen 4K as well,
but only one monitor in the dock, which is an USB-C dock, the other
one in the device). And all monitors work well with
Linux on and the Thinkpad P1 2nd gen when connected directly, without
dock, to the laptop, either by HDMI or by USB-C (with adapter cable to
HDMI or DP) in any combination (means works dual screen in all
combinations).

Since you tell you have a combination that worked for you, it would be
good to know whether you used dual screen and what firmware version
for the dock you used. The firmware version plays an important role,
as mentioned not only be me but by many others in the forum to
which I linked.

Please follow also that forum. I'm not the only one reporting these
problems, instead apparently nobody gets this combination of P1 2nd gen
and the mentioned dock running with *the current firmware*.
It would be nice if you could provide your working combination
(including firmware version and used kernel and used graphics driver
version and so on) to that forum.

My guess by the way are issues between thunderbird driver on Linux and
the dock. We also have Thinkpad USB-C docks, and those work well. They
are just no capable of connecting two 4K Monitors with 60Hz.

Kind regards,

Peter Stoll

Am 06.01.21 um 02:55 schrieb Gabriel Zhi Chen:
> Your question #694734 on Ubuntu-Certification changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu-certification/+question/694734
>
> Gabriel Zhi Chen posted a new comment:
> Hello Peter,
>
> What brand of monitor are you using?
>
> We used the BenQ EW3270U 4K monitor to verify ‘ThinkPad P1 2nd Gen is
> working together with the ThinkPad Thunderbolt 3 WorkStation Dock Gen 2’
> during the certification process of this machine. We use Thunderbolt3
> cable, HDMI cable and DisplayPort cable to connect ThinkPad Thunderbolt
> 3 WorkStation Dock Gen 2 respectively. No matter which kind of cable
> connects ThinkPad Thunderbolt 3 WorkStation Dock Gen 2 and the
> display,'ThinkPad P1 2nd Gen and BenQ EW3270U 4K are both With the
> correct screen output, there will be no black screen.
>
> At that time, we only had BenQ EW3270U, a 4K monitor. We are unable to
> confirm which model of the monitor you are using, this is probably a
> question about compatibility. Do you have other types of 4K monitors you
> can try?
>
> Looking forward to your feedback, thank you.
>

Hi, Peter

I'm sorry that you are experiencing the issue, the dual 4k with thunderbolt docking is not well supported with NVIDIA driver. We are looking into the issue now.

In order to help us to understand your setup and environment, could you file a bug on launchpad?

- Please connect the dock with two 4k monitors (that you selected)
- Please run "ubuntu-bug xorg" to file the bug.

I run ubuntu-bug xorg and linked the created bug ticket (1911237) .

Since this is now 3 months ago, can you please confirm that you 'are looking into the issue now'? I provided the requested information by the time when I wrote message #4 on 2021-01-12. Anything still missing?

I was having similar issues as you with x1e and the thunderbolt 3 gen2 dock. I finally got the dock with dual 4K@60Hz connections working (only tested via HDMI) on ubuntu 20.04:
* nvidia-driver-460 (I use the nvidia card, only, no hybrid)
* linux-generic-hwe-18.04
* dock firmware updated with fwupd
* two samsung 4k displays

Initially, I had problems with the dock turning off and on again, but that might have been a single hickup. It seems stable right now.