Thanks for letting me know that this docking station will not utilize my NVIDIA GPU. I have a PC for gaming & a laptop I use for work & was looking for a way to use 1 monitor for both along with Pluggable's USB Sharing Switch. Although I still think these products are excellent, I now don't think this is the solution I'll go with. I can add a few hundred dollars now to my monitor budget & look at the ultra wide monitors 🙂.
I think thunderbolt 3 or 4 is one of the few ways to utilize multiple monitors using a laptop w/discrete gpus (with desktop having more options.) Most hubs are definitely not for gamers since most of them use displaylink. Happy gaming buddy!
So, the actual usable monitor port is only 2 ( the hdmi 4K is useless if the laptop manufacturer blocked it) or can I use it as a regular 2k hdmi so I still get 3 monitor port?
Just started new business and wanted to setup 3 additional monitors to my current laptop. Bought 3 monitors and plugged in and to my surprise only two working. Did some research and found that my laptop only has the ability to set up 2 additional monitors and not 3. Went to local computer shop and they advised to get a video card and that should help. Before that I tried all the below option but nothing worked 1. HDMI to USB 2. VGA to USB 3. DVI to USB What I haven't tried is the external docking station as that is bit expensive. My laptop is Acer Aspire F - 15 F5 -572G - 77KY Intel Core i7 with turbo boost NVIDIA GeForce 940M with 4 GB Dedicated VRAM 16GB DDR3 l Memory If my only option is Video card can you please suggest which one to go for and if that can be plugged into usb or something. If there is any other option please let me know. Regards
You don't have enough ports - it's a limitation of the laptop. Docking station can only output what the laptop is capable of, so it's not worth spending money on that. What might work is an HDMI splitter only if you're ok with two monitors showing the same output (e.g. one output is for you while the other one is for a customer who's facing a different direction.) Add to that video over USB (DisplayLink) and you have three external screens (with two of them showing the same output). If you have a thunderbolt port, it might be possible to daisychain several monitors because it does have the bandwidth to support more than one screen's video data, but otherwise it's not looking good.
I suppose it's just one less thing to connect. Actually, it saves on wear and tear too - like stupid audio jacks. Keep plugging them in and out and they'll start making crackling sounds because the contacts will fail. But you can use a USB hub for this, which is cheaper. The "gotcha" is mostly for gaming laptops. If you dont' have one of those, it'll probably work with one connection (making sure video and power over USB-C works first.) Otherwise, discrete video cards need more power and video bandwidth than USB-C can provide.
The short answer is, probably not. Long answer is, it depends what version of MacOS you have. Version 10.13.3 and earlier versions will work, and there might be updated drivers from the DisplayLink company (not from Apple) that works too. You can check here first: plugable.com/2018/03/30/macos-10-13-4-disables-displaylink-duet-display-devices/ The problem is Apple's lack of DisplayLink support, which is a kind of graphics technology over USB. Without this working on your OS, you might only be able to get 1, maybe 2 extended external displays.
Basically, we don't use the laptop only, we have been using our PC also. If I want to use PC and laptop with one mouse and keyboard, how could I connect to PC and laptop at the same time?
You need a KVM switch like this: amzn.to/2TXviIN This one does not let you share a monitor, but you can share 4 USB peripherals like keyboard, mouse, printer, etc between two computers. If you want to share a monitor too, it probably gets more expensive. Hope this helps!
Quick question, I have the Lenovo 720 which according to pluggable actually supports the pass through power but for the 4k labeled port. Does this mean I need a 4k monitor or does it just mean that the laptop must support the USB alt?
Power should be passed through the USB-C port if implemented by the laptop maker (so it shouldn't affect the 4K port in any way.) But just to be sure, contact the manufacturer on the plugable website - they're pretty good about getting back to people.
Nope. And just so you know, you can't send video signals from discrete video cards (like Nvidia) over usb-c. Only integrated gpu. So you'll habe to plug in the hdmi directly from your video card or laptop to your monitor. Sucks, I know.
Don't use this - or any hub - for gaming purposes (more specifically for video or power delivery.) USB-C isn't equipped to handle those two requirements adequately for gaming. If you meant plugging your gaming monitor directly via hdmi into your laptop, that's a direct connection and works fine. But it also means you don't need a dock with video - you can get a much cheaper hub instead.
@@FirstL00k what if my old laptop does not have usb-c but I want to use this one (I want it to work with my new laptop)....can I use usb-c to usb3 adapter and get this to work with old one ?
If you're gaming, forget about it. USB hubs in general aren't meant to deal with that much video data so you may see a combination of lag, skipped frames and tearing. As far as lag for non-gamers, it isn't much of an issue. Things like excel sheets, word docs, and video playback work just fine.
Just the basics (data and low power, like for charging your phone), nothing more. In practice, it's impossible to know what type of USB-C has been implemented in any device until you buy the product (and the manufacturer usually doesn't specify.) It's safe to assume data transfer and low power, unless they actually say it does something else.
Apologies if this point wasn't clear - you can find the reason at 6:50 time. 4K HDMI should work AS LONG AS your laptop maker enables it. Ours didn't implement it. We're basically at the mercy of the laptop manufacturers right now. To minimize on this, Plugable lists known issues on specific laptops on their website: plugable.com/products/ud-ultcdl Hope this helps.
There's a new update - Apple has enabled the graphics to work with displaylink again with some exception. You can find info here: plugable.com/2018/03/30/macos-10-13-4-disables-displaylink-duet-display-devices/
7:10 expensive trial and error. I have spend hundreds of dollars looking for a docking station that will do what i want it to do. you basically connected 3 items that worked for you. that is great but you don't need to buy a $200 hub to do that. the reason you bought that hub is to do three displays in extend mode and only trial and error tells you if it works. frustrating but good video. thank you.
That IS frustrating, yes. The dock wasn't the culprit (mostly), but it's really a shame my laptop doesn't support usb display. But yes, it doesn't make sense to spend that much money before you know you're laptop supports it. Thankfully, more companies seem to support it so it's getting better at least.
UGHHH... USB "C". If we had USB-C in our laptops, then we wouldn't be combing the internet looking for USB solutions for our 2 or more generation old laptops.
Might have been a strategic decision. Gaming laptops (with discrete graphics like mine) needs up to 180w of power. USB C only delivers max 100w. So even if it did have USB C charging, I'd have to plug in the power brick anyway. Might as well do it from the start instead of having to stop my game to plug in power. The second thing is this: if my laptop had USB C charging, I'd probably never take the power brick with me, which could pose huge problems if I'm gaming or doing graphics intensive work away from home. Laptop could turn off in the middle of my session and I could lose all the work I did up till then.
