Cannot connect display to USB-C/Thunderbolt ports, freezes when I try

J

JohanGrande969

Member
Hi,

I just received the Lafité Pro 14'' I ordered with an Intel+nVidia configuration and I don't seem to be able to connect my external monitor to either USB-C-shaped port (the Thunderbolt one and the other one). I tried with a USB-DP cable and with a USB-VGA adapter. In both cases the screen is completely undetected. The result is the same regardless of which GPU is in use (nVidia or Intel).

(The screen works fine with an HDMI cable or with an HDMI-VGA adapter. Both USB adapters work fine with a different computer.)

Moreover, I can't boot with either adapter plugged into the Thunderbolt port. I'm not talking about the OS, I can't get to the BIOS. If I plug an adapter when the computer is on, nothing special happens (actually nothing at all), but if I then try to suspend or reboot the PC, the screen will freeze and I'll have to hard-reboot.

I'm using Linux (up-to-date Kubuntu 20.04 with the nVidia drivers) but this looks like a hardware issue to me (at least the boot freeze).

I don't get it. Am I to understand that I just can't connect a display to my USB-C/Thunderbolt ports? What if I bought a USB-C docking station as I intended to do, wouldn't I be able to connect displays to it? Does this mean I can't ever connect 2 external screens at the same time (as only the HDMI port works)?

Chassis & Display
Lafité Pro Series: 14" Matte Full HD 120 Hz 72% NTSC LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i5 Quad Core Processor i5-1135G7 (2.4GHz, 4.2GHz Turbo)
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair 2400MHz SODIMM DDR4 (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1650 - 4.0GB GDDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1
1st M.2 SSD Drive
1TB PCS PCIe M.2 SSD (2000 MB/R, 1100 MB/W)
Memory Card Reader
Integrated 6 in 1 Card Reader (SD /Mini SD/ SDHC / SDXC / MMC / RSMMC)
AC Adaptor
1 x 90W AC Adaptor
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre Cloverleaf European Power Cable
Battery
Lafité Pro Series Integrated 49WH Lithium Ion Battery
Sound Card
2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack
Wireless Network Card
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® Wi-Fi 6E AX210 (2.4 Gbps) + BT 5.0
USB/Thunderbolt Options
1 x THUNDERBOLT 4 + 1 x USB 3.2 (TYPE C) + 2 x USB 3.2
Keyboard Language
LAFITÉ PRO SERIES SINGLE COLOUR BACKLIT FRENCH KEYBOARD
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Operating System Language
France/République Française - French Language
Windows Recovery Media
NO RECOVERY MEDIA REQUIRED
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft 365® (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Firefox™
Keyboard & Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 1MP HD WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Gold Warranty (2 Year Collect & Return, 2 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
2 DAY DELIVERY TO FRANCE
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 7 to 9 working days
Welcome Book
PCSpecialist Welcome Book - France
Click to expand...
 
SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
USB-C and thunderbolt are 2 different things, so you'd need a thunderbolt 4 to display port adapter to plug in a secondary display.

eshop.macsales.com

What's the Difference Between USB-C, Thunderbolt 3, Thunderbolt 4, and USB4?

There are many different types of connections. Some of the most popular are USB-C, Thunderbolt 3, Thunderbolt 4, and USB 4 – what’s the difference?
eshop.macsales.com eshop.macsales.com

USB-C won't be able to do it as it's a different connection albeit that uses the same connector.

And the straight USB-C connector is just a USB-C connector for data, doesn't carry any video. For that you would need a DP OVER USB-C port which again is a different port.

Don't get me started on it, the whole naming convention is an absolute joke. Nothing to do with PCS by the way, it's the industries fault.
 
J

JohanGrande969

Member
Thank you for your reply. Let's forget about my USB3 port and look at my Thunderbolt 4 port. I talked about a USB cable because of the connector. My cable is actually a Thunderbolt 3 to DisplayPort cable that I just got from here: https://www.amazon.fr/gp/product/B088B3ZFS3/ . Would you tell me that a Thunderbolt 4 port cannot speak Thunderbolt 3 on a Thunderbolt 3 cable? And will freezes my PC if I even try?
 
SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
JohanGrande969 said:
Thank you for your reply. Let's forget about my USB3 port and look at my Thunderbolt 4 port. I talked about a USB cable because of the connector. My cable is actually a Thunderbolt 3 to DisplayPort cable that I just got from here: https://www.amazon.fr/gp/product/B088B3ZFS3/ . Would you tell me that a Thunderbolt 4 port cannot speak Thunderbolt 3 on a Thunderbolt 3 cable? And will freezes my PC if I even try?
Click to expand...
That's USB C, not thunderbolt. At a guess, the fact they specifically refer to it as DP over USB-C which is entirely different to thunderbolt.

I would personally bite the bullet, buy a fully fledged thunderbolt 4 to DP cable. If the same symptoms are present with that then you know it's a hardware issue.
 
J

JohanGrande969

Member
I think it's both. The product page mentions Thunderbolt 3 repeatedly. One sentence translates to "The USB-C to DisplayPort cable is specially designed to connect new computers with USB-C or Thunderbolt 3 to monitors with DisplayPort."

Also, Thunderbolt 4 mandates support of USB4 and I saw messages mentionning USB4 in my boot/shutdown logs. So it's a Thunderbolt 4 / USB4 port and it wouldn't support either my "USB/Thunderbolt3 to DP" cable or my "USB/DP to VGA" adapter? I can't imagine the standard to allow such a case of backward incompatibility, wouldn't you agree?

I'm willing to buy a Thunderbolt 4 cable if that's what it takes but I really expect it to be a waste of money.
 
SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
JohanGrande969 said:
I think it's both. The product page mentions Thunderbolt 3 repeatedly. One sentence translates to "The USB-C to DisplayPort cable is specially designed to connect new computers with USB-C or Thunderbolt 3 to monitors with DisplayPort."

Also, Thunderbolt 4 mandates support of USB4 and I saw messages mentionning USB4 in my boot/shutdown logs. So it's a Thunderbolt 4 / USB4 port and it wouldn't support either my "USB/Thunderbolt3 to DP" cable or my "USB/DP to VGA" adapter? I can't imagine the standard to allow such a case of backward incompatibility, wouldn't you agree?

I'm willing to buy a Thunderbolt 4 cable if that's what it takes but I really expect it to be a waste of money.
Click to expand...
But that's where it can't be right.

USB C with DP is a completely different port to Thunderbolt 3, one cable cannot support both, they're entirely different.

But it's up to you.
 
SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
And then I'm reading USB/DP to VGA, that's a digital to analogue conversion so you'd need an active adapter. An inline cable wouldn't work, active adapters are quite expensive, make sure you have the right kind.

You have to be careful on Amazon, there's a lot of garbage on there.
 
Bhuna50

Bhuna50

Author Level
JohanGrande969 said:
I think it's both. The product page mentions Thunderbolt 3 repeatedly. One sentence translates to "The USB-C to DisplayPort cable is specially designed to connect new computers with USB-C or Thunderbolt 3 to monitors with DisplayPort."

Also, Thunderbolt 4 mandates support of USB4 and I saw messages mentionning USB4 in my boot/shutdown logs. So it's a Thunderbolt 4 / USB4 port and it wouldn't support either my "USB/Thunderbolt3 to DP" cable or my "USB/DP to VGA" adapter? I can't imagine the standard to allow such a case of backward incompatibility, wouldn't you agree?

I'm willing to buy a Thunderbolt 4 cable if that's what it takes but I really expect it to be a waste of money.
Click to expand...

Buy it, try it, return it [emoji23]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
J

JohanGrande969

Member
I think you're mistaken about how intercompatible these things are supposed to be. The other computer I tried these cables on is my work Mac Mini M1. Here are the specs: https://support.apple.com/kb/SP823?viewlocale=en_US&locale=fr_FR

The Mini features 2 Thunderbolt 4 ports which according to the specs support, to sum things up, just about everything. With it I am able to use both the cable I just bought and my USB-C to VGA adapter provided by my IT department. Here it is in case you're interested, it's not so expensive: https://www.arp.fr/en/adapter-usb-c-m-vga-f-0-15m-4406044-5410337

As for Thunderbolt 3 vs. 4, the Mac spec basically uses them interchangeably. The "video" section mentions "Thunderbolt 3 digital video output supports Native DisplayPort output over USB‑C" even though we're talking about the same Thunderbolt 4 ports, like it doesn't matter.

On amazon.fr I only find one Thunderbolt to DP adapter that specifically mentions Thunderbolt 4 and they say it's compatible with "Thunderbolt 3/4/USB 3.1/USB4".

Is this enough to convince you that a Thunderbolt 4 port should in fact be backward-compatible with everything and that it's just the one on my new laptop that doesn't work?
 
Bhuna50

Bhuna50

Author Level
Looks like you have two choices then.

- Try a new cable to confirm if it’s cable or hardware.

- RMA your laptop to get PCS to check hardware.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
JohanGrande969 said:
I think you're mistaken about how intercompatible these things are supposed to be. The other computer I tried these cables on is my work Mac Mini M1. Here are the specs: https://support.apple.com/kb/SP823?viewlocale=en_US&locale=fr_FR

The Mini features 2 Thunderbolt 4 ports which according to the specs support, to sum things up, just about everything. With it I am able to use both the cable I just bought and my USB-C to VGA adapter provided by my IT department. Here it is in case you're interested, it's not so expensive: https://www.arp.fr/en/adapter-usb-c-m-vga-f-0-15m-4406044-5410337

As for Thunderbolt 3 vs. 4, the Mac spec basically uses them interchangeably. The "video" section mentions "Thunderbolt 3 digital video output supports Native DisplayPort output over USB‑C" even though we're talking about the same Thunderbolt 4 ports, like it doesn't matter.

On amazon.fr I only find one Thunderbolt to DP adapter that specifically mentions Thunderbolt 4 and they say it's compatible with "Thunderbolt 3/4/USB 3.1/USB4".

Is this enough to convince you that a Thunderbolt 4 port should in fact be backward-compatible with everything and that it's just the one on my new laptop that doesn't work?
Click to expand...
So if you're certain the cables work, then have you checked BIOS settings, and have you checked that your Linux distro has support at the kernel level for Thunderbolt 4?
 
J

JohanGrande969

Member
The BIOS settings don't show much, I could find no mention of USB or Thunderbolt in them. Yes I have a >5.8 kernel that supports Thunderbolt 4, but thank you for asking, I hadn't thought to check. (But even if there was some Linux issue it wouldn't explain why the laptop won't even power up to BIOS with the cable plugged in.)
 
SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
JohanGrande969 said:
The BIOS settings don't show much, I could find no mention of USB or Thunderbolt in them. Yes I have a >5.8 kernel that supports Thunderbolt 4, but thank you for asking, I hadn't thought to check. (But even if there was some Linux issue it wouldn't explain why the laptop won't even power up to BIOS with the cable plugged in.)
Click to expand...
The easy way to be sure, is install windows, and try functionality within there.

If it works you know the hardware is fine.
 
SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
JohanGrande969 said:
That makes sense, I'll try that tomorrow.
Click to expand...
My guess is that nomodeset hasn't been set on the graphics adapter or there's some other compatibility issue on the kernel that's preventing boot.

With the adapter in it will be forcing into nvidia adapter at boot so that makes some kind of sense but I know very little about Linux.
 
J

JohanGrande969

Member
Hey, I found a copy of Windows 10 but I'm having trouble installing it. At the beginning of the process, I'm stuck on a "Select the driver to install" window.
I have the PCS driver CD but there are dozens of drivers on it and I don't know what I'm supposed to install. I tried installing a few random drivers listed as "compatible with this computer's hardware" and each time it just said "No new devices drivers were found. Make sure the installation media contains the correct drivers, and then click OK."
Any advice?
 
SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
JohanGrande969 said:
Hey, I found a copy of Windows 10 but I'm having trouble installing it. At the beginning of the process, I'm stuck on a "Select the driver to install" window.
I have the PCS driver CD but there are dozens of drivers on it and I don't know what I'm supposed to install. I tried installing a few random drivers listed as "compatible with this computer's hardware" and each time it just said "No new devices drivers were found. Make sure the installation media contains the correct drivers, and then click OK."
Any advice?
Click to expand...
It's just standard windows install, you don't need any drivers
 
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