Samsung Galaxy Book Flex (MX250) with Lenovo Thunderbolt 3 Graphics dock?

[worzyl]

Hello there!

 

I managed to acquire a lenovo thunderbolt 3 graphics dock and have spent several hours trying to get it working on my Samsung laptop. I've looked on reddit forums and youtube, but the laptop doesn't even recognise its very existence. It doesn't even come up in the device manager. I have installed nvidia's geforce experience and still - nothing. I'm using a tb4 cable which is short - nothing. All it currently does is charge the laptop. I also tried disabling the MX 250 driver - nothing. Updated all my drivers aaaaaand - nothing!

 

They work on other laptops like the dell, but I'm not having much luck with the Samsung.
 

Anyone had any experiences with these on non lenovo laptops?

[John Ratsey]

Exactly which model is your Samsung notebook? I can only find this with the MX250 and the specs don't mention Thunderbolt. Thunderbolt uses the USB-C port but has its own controller in the notebook. You can check if your Samsung has this controller by running HWiNFO and seeing what is listed under devices attached to the PCI bus.

[worzyl]

AHh sorry. My Samsung is the Galaxybook flex that has 2 thunderbolt ports and a USB -C port.
I took the dock back to the shop as I was given 2 days to get my money back if it didn't work.

However - I'm more than willing to buy it again if I can find a way to get it working. Any new info and I would be willing to install/update any software or settings, then go back to the store and test it as I think they would be okay with that.

[John Ratsey]

5 hours ago, worzyl said:

AHh sorry. My Samsung is the Galaxybook flex that has 2 thunderbolt ports and a USB -C port.
I took the dock back to the shop as I was given 2 days to get my money back if it didn't work.

However - I'm more than willing to buy it again if I can find a way to get it working. Any new info and I would be willing to install/update any software or settings, then go back to the store and test it as I think they would be okay with that.

Thanks for the confirmation.

 

Did you check the basic dock connectivity and function by plugging something into the USB ports on the dock worked? I think Device Manager would also show some additional USB ports when the dock is connected. If there's nothing showing then try a different cable. This discussion might also be relevant to your problem.

 

Lenovo lists a driver for the dock. Did you install it? The manual doesn't indicate whether the driver should be installed before or after the dock is plugged in but if you've downloaded the driver onto your Samsung you could go to the shop and try both options for the driver installation. I would go with the driver installed and try that first. If no success then uninstall the driver, plug the dock in and reinstall the driver.

[worzyl]

When I plugged in the dock, the light on the dock went from red to amber; amber meaning that it is charging the laptop (the dock does that too). Plugging the duck into the USB-C port, doesn't do that. On 'System Information', it came up with an error that said "Unknown USB Device (Device Descriptor Request Failed)". On Device manager, it didn't come up under Display Adapter and on Universal Serial Bus Controllers, it also came up with pretty much the same error, which is error code 43.

 

I was using a thunderbolt 4 cable which works with thunderbolt 3 devices and I also purchased the shortest cable possible. This cable is used for data transfer which made it a bit pricey.

 

I also installed the dock drivers which did nothing at all (they are however, lenovo drivers) but to no avail. I wish I could have tested the device on another thunderbolt laptop, but I don't know anyone else that owns one.

 

I think this is the reason why Lenovo stopped making and selling these as they are very finicky to get working, as there are obvious compatibility issues.

 

[John Ratsey]

9 hours ago, worzyl said:

On 'System Information', it came up with an error that said "Unknown USB Device (Device Descriptor Request Failed)". On Device manager, it didn't come up under Display Adapter and on Universal Serial Bus Controllers, it also came up with pretty much the same error, which is error code 43.

I also installed the dock drivers which did nothing at all (they are however, lenovo drivers) but to no avail. I wish I could have tested the device on another thunderbolt laptop, but I don't know anyone else that owns one.

I've known hardware which was very fussy about the driver installation process otherwise Device Manager won't know what has been connected and will therefore give an error although this is normally "Unknown device". Error 43 seems to relate to graphics in which case the discussion here about finding the correct video driver could be relevant.

[worzyl]

Yup. Seen and did all of that as I looked at the same reddit page you posted. I also installed nvidia's geforce experience, but nothing happened. I looked at other reddit  pages too but I couldn't find any with Samsung laptops.

 

There are a few youtube videos that had someone got it working on any Huawei Matebook via intstlling and reinstalling nvidia drivers, with another getting it to work on his dell laptop but he didn't say how.