How to fix the USB ports on the Dell Thunderbolt TB16 Docking Station
Entry posted by Steve K.
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Recently I got a new Docking Station from Dell (Thunderbolt Dock TB16) to use with my Razer Blade 14 Laptop. Up until now, I had just one monitor, so I didn't need a docking station. That is until I got a 2nd monitor.
Razer, as you know, is far from being a "standard" laptop. However, its Thunderbolt port follows all the standards (assumption), so my hope was the Dell TB16 would just work. And it did... for Video and Network. USB, however, was dead on the Docking station. None of my USB devices would work when plugging into the TB16 - Webcam, USB Mouse, Headset, etc.. Plugging directly into my laptop, however, everything worked just great.
Scanning the internet, it appears this is a fairly common issue with the TB16 Docking Station. Fortunately for me, I was able to fix the problem very quickly by grabbing a single driver, off of the Dell support site.
The update you want to grab is the September 12th, 2017 (or later) ASMedia USB Extended Host Controller Driver.
Here's the description of the download from its details page:
QuoteThis package provides the driver for the ASMedia USB3 Host Controller and is supported on XPS Notebook, Dell S&P, Latitude, Precision and Tablet running Windows 7/Windows 8.1/Windows 10.
Once I installed the ASMedia Controller, poof - All USB ports on my dock were working flawlessly! I also noticed the following app in the Icon Tray also after the install.
And here it is listed as installed on my Windows 10 settings under Apps & Features.
To be clear, your mileage may vary on this fix. I'm going to guess however that if it worked on my edge-case Razer, it will probably work on your system also.
Article Update:
I got a great question below from Randy in the comments. His question was "What how were my monitors connected to my Docking station?" So - here's my setup:
Great question Randy. My setup looks like this:
- TB16 Docking Station - Mini Display Port OUT to Monitor 1 DisplayPort IN - Yes, I have a Mini DisplayPort to DisplayPort cable.
- Monitor 1 - DisplayPort OUT to Monitor 2 DisplayPort IN - Yes, my monitors are daisy-changed together.
My setup works just great since I have monitors with DisplayPort In/Out. Not something most Monitors support, however, shouldn't be an issue since the Dell TB16 Dock supports HDMI, DisplayPort, and Mini-DisplayPort.
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