Question Docking stations problems (multi-work environments, Lenovo and I-Tec)

[MaxT2]

I am struggling with setting up two work environments, one at office, one at home, using the same (work) laptop. The issues seem to come from the docking stations.

Work laptop: Lenovo Thinkpad TP00117A - Intel Core I5 10210U with Windows 11 Pro.

At home

• Dock: I-Tec CATRIPLE4KDOCPD (not sure if this: https://i-tec.pro/produkt/catriple4kdockpd/ or this https://i-tec.pro/en/produkt/catriple4kdockpd-2/ )
• External monitor 1: Ben BL BL2711U (monitor/DisplayPort)
• External monitor 2: LG OLED42C3... (television/HDMI)
• Internet: through RJ45 cable (works fine by itself, tested).

At work

• Dock: Lenovo Thinkpad 40AF0135EU
• External monitor 1: Asus PA27....something...
• External monitor 2: Random FHD monitor (doesn't matter)
• Internet: through WiFi only (I don't think my colleagues ever considered having cables).

Initial situation (at home)
Typically, the Internet and External monitor 1 used to work. But External monitor 2 could not work when plugged at the same time as External monitor 1, so the TV HDMI had to be plugged directly in the laptop (which already starts breaking the point of a dock station but I could live with that).

Correction: The TV is actually detect by the dock when both External monitors are plugged, but the TV appears in System > Display as a very small "greyed out" monitor with no resolution option at all. If I go to System > Display Advanced display, I see "Display isn't active".

Change (at work)
Today, I finally received a docking station at work. This morning, the Lenovo dock kept disconnecting and reconnecting and nothing worked (no external monitors, no sound device). Internet work because it's through the laptop WiFi. I spent some amount of time updating firmware, drivers, rebooting... As I was about to give up, I thought of an electrical issue, unplugged the dock from the power strip and plugged it in another plug directly in the wall. This solved the issue.

The problem now (at home)
I come back home, plug work-laptop on its usual home-dock. Now, External monitor 1 cannot be detected anymore and Internet connection is not working, External monitor 2 (TV) now works through the dock, but the image placement is somewhat stretched, part of Windows 11 taskbar is off-screen (vertically andhorizontally.
I tried plugging the Internet RJ45 cable directly on my personal laptop as well as in work-laptop, the cable, router and connexion all work fine. Actually I think that whole dock station works fine with my personal laptop, but with work-laptop, it's a complete mess now. I tried upgrading the home-dock drivers on work-laptop, still no success...

I'm wondering various things now...

• How to solve this so that my laptop can seamlessly be switched between work-dock station and home-dock station?
• Are various dock station brands/models supposed to conflict?
• How could I diagnose this further?

Note: I hope the is the right forum part for the section. I thought it was the most appropriate.

Evolution (at home)
(I guess I'm going to wake up or something...) I simply unplugged the USB-C connector from the dock (not the first time I do this) but for whatever reason, I paid attention that the brand logo on the USB-C plug is on top when re-plugging it. Work-laptop seem no back to the "Initial situation"... Which still has some issues, but it already better.

 

[Ralston18]

One immediate comment/question:

When the laptop is moved between home (wired) and work (wireless) do you change the network adapter between wired and wireless as applicable? Both wired and wireless network adapters should not be enabled at the same time.

= = = =

I suggest taking a look in Reliability History/Monitor and Event Viewer on the laptop.

Either one or both tools may be capturing some error codes, warnings, or even informational events relevant to the described monitor problems.

Reliability Monitor/History is much more end user friendly and the time line presentation may help identify some pattern(s). For example: dates the laptop was being used at work and dates the laptop was being used at home.

Event Viewer requires more time and effort to navigate and understand.

To help:

How To - How to use Windows 10 Event Viewer | Tom's Hardware Forum (tomshardware.com)

There is no need to rush through it all. Key is to look and watch what, if anything, the logs may be capturing.

Compare "when it works" (in whole and in part) with when things are not as they should be.

Also, on the laptop check the GPU's Control Panel configuration settings. Compare between home and work. Ensure that the connectivity (HDM, DP) is correct in both environments.

The laptop may not be fully "switching" between home and work environments.