Hello everyone,
I have a Lenovo ThinkPad T480s laptop running Fedora 39 Kinoite. I would like to use it in a multi-display setup, so I am looking for a docking station. The laptop has a Thunderbolt 3 port. I have attached the details of my device at the end of the post.
People on Reddit are writing that “all Thunderbolt docking stations should work fine” and that’s obviously not the case… I have this Dell Thunderbolt Dock (WD19TB) at home from work and the displays work when I plug it into the laptop but, for example, my mouse (connected via USB-A) doesn’t work. When I connect it to the DELL laptop provided by the company, there are no problems at all.

Docking station requirements: Ethernet, 3x USB-A, 1x DisplayPort, 1x HDMI.
I have two 1080p displays: 75Hz and 165Hz. Obviously I’m not going to be playing any high-frame-rate games on this laptop, but even on a desktop it’s sometimes nice to see a slightly higher refresh rate. So if it’s possible, I’d like it to be able to display things above 60Hz…
I also have a Steam Deck OLED and would like to be able to use this dock with it.

I don’t want to spend too much money on it. Do you have any experience in this area and can you help me choose?

I am from Poland if it helps in any way (maybe some brands are not available here).

LAPTOP DETAILS
Operating System: Fedora Linux 39
KDE Plasma Version: 5.27.9
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.111.0
Qt Version: 5.15.11
Kernel Version: 6.6.6-200.fc39.x86_64 (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: Wayland
Processors: 8 × Intel® Core™ i7-8550U CPU @ 1.80GHz
Memory: 15.5 GiB of RAM
Graphics Processor: Mesa Intel® UHD Graphics 620
Manufacturer: LENOVO
Product Name: 20L8S0SA00
System Version: ThinkPad T480s

  • szelbiOPEnglish
    1·
    6 months ago

    https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/wiki/newdocks/

    40A9 - ThinkPad USB-C Dock Mixed mode USB C dock daisy-chained to an MST hub. It can drive two 1080p @ 60 Hz and 5 Gbps USB ports. ** Warning: ** there’s a credit report of the MST chip dying in there.

    40AC - ThinkPad Thunderbolt 3 Dock Thunderbolt 3 dock + MST hub. Most of the time, a much cheaper USB-C dock or a competitor’s TB 3 dock is a better bang for the buck; this thing is a bit expensive for what it offers. Especially bad purchase for the X2/T laptops because their half Thunderbolt matched with this dock has zero advantage whatsoever over the dual USB-C Pro/Ultra docking stations. In fact, if the Ultra explanation above is correct then the Ultra provides more video bandwidth than this one.