Dell WD19 USB-C dock erratic fan behaviour.

[Techo238]

I have a Dell WD19 non-thunderbolt dock for my XPS 15 and for the last few months as I've used it the fan is mostly inaudiblble but every so often the fan would slowly pick up a little then sharply rise to (im assuming) 100% before quickly dropping back to being inaudible. 

For the last while its done that once every week or so at most but for the last few days its been multiple times a day, every day and sometimes it will even do it 2 or 3 times in a row. It's infuriating.

I dont think its getting too hot, I used compressed air on it and nothing really came out and even when the fan is going full bore it doesn't really feel hot. 

It's just really weird and annoying as it hasn't done any firmware updates (to my knowledge) and it has suddenly started being obnoxious.

 

If anyone has any suggestions before I throw it against a wall, please do let me know

 

Thanks

[SUPERCAR99]

I would recommend updating the firmware on to the dock and see if that changes the behavior any. I don't believe the firmware gets updated automatically through SupportAssist or Dell Command Update, so you would know if you updated it or not. Link for that is here.

 

Before you update the docking station firmware however, I would try to grab any driver updates you may have by checking through SupportAssist or Dell Command Update and make sure you have those updated beforehand, especially if it's a BIOS update or Thunderbolt firmware. If it's a BIOS update, please before updating, make sure to disable Bitlocker if you have it enabled in the off chance it gets triggered throughout the BIOS update.

 

Something else you can try is that through Dell Power Manager, you can set the profile to "Quiet", as it seems that somebody over on the Dell forums is having the same problem that you're describing. 

 

[Techo238]

2 hours ago, SUPERCAR99 said:

I would recommend updating the firmware on to the dock and see if that changes the behavior any. I don't believe the firmware gets updated automatically through SupportAssist or Dell Command Update, so you would know if you updated it or not. Link for that is here.

 

Before you update the docking station firmware however, I would try to grab any driver updates you may have by checking through SupportAssist or Dell Command Update and make sure you have those updated beforehand, especially if it's a BIOS update or Thunderbolt firmware. If it's a BIOS update, please before updating, make sure to disable Bitlocker if you have it enabled in the off chance it gets triggered throughout the BIOS update.

 

Something else you can try is that through Dell Power Manager, you can set the profile to "Quiet", as it seems that somebody over on the Dell forums is having the same problem that you're describing. 

 

So my laptop was already on "quiet" mode as the fans can get quite shouty at times on it and funny you should mention that, my laptop just did a bios update. It was ONLY a bios update though and unfortunately no update for USB or thunderbolt controllers unfortunately. Did also check on the dell device firmware update utility and there was a new version of the dock firmware and it seems to be behaving a bit better now. Fan is definetly spinning more than before. Its ramping up and down constantly, but it stays relatively quiet and it seems to be behaing itself now. I just wish dell would give you access to set the fan to a speed and leave it there instead of either spinning the fan up to 'I'm about to take off' level or even bobbing up and down constantly but I doubt theyll ever do it...