X1 Carbon 5th Gen - Lock screen and blank screen timers not working when docked to USB-C dock

[jdc]

Hi all, my lock screen and blank screen timeouts do not work when my Windows 10 Pro Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 5th Gen laptop 20HRS15800 is connected to the Lenovo USB-C docking station 40A9. If the laptop is not docked, the lock screen and blank screen timeouts work just fine and the screen goes off as expected. When docked and the timer expires, however, the external monitor and laptop screen briefly turn off for about 1 second, but both screens come right back on when they should not.

I've googled and tried numerous suggestions for fixing this problem, which were mostly about double checking that the windows settings screens and the registry keys match up (Windows 10 has made a mess of the power settings, but I carefully checked and rechecked them to be sure they are set to go off on battery and AC at the same time). I've also updated and reinstalled display and monitor drivers, updated and reinstalled the docking station drivers and firmware, checked and rechecked the lock screen and blank screen timeouts in the Windows 10 settings interface and the registry, disconnected everything from the dock except for the external monitor (a Dell U2415 connected over the normal display port cable), and made sure that Windows and an all other Lenovo drivers are current, but I'm still having the problem.

Has anyone solved this problem? Some help here would be much appreciated.

[w0qj]

HI jdc, welcome to our ThinkPad forums!

Anyone else with solid USB-C Docking Station experience?

1a. Did you try to update your X1C5 BIOS?
Recommended method of upgrading BIOS:
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... er#p830559

1b. Did you try to update your USB-C docking station firmware directly, without using Lenovo Vantage?
(There were issues with Lenovo Vantage automatically choosing to update both ThinkPad and docking station all at once,
which might brick your USB-C docking station as a result).

Previous generations of ThinkPad physical docking stations were bulletproof. No above problems.
As it is, most if not all the USB-C docking stations exhibit similar problems as OP, if you search the internet.

1c. We are so concerned with bricking either our X1E1 or our USB-C docking station, that we will avoid any and all firmware updates until end-2019.
If we observe external monitor / ThinkPad LCD issues, we'll rather live with it, until we update firmware end-2019.
Note: We'll check the internet for X1E1 / docking_station bricking in end-2019 before attempting to update software/BIOS/firmware.
Note: The potential X1E1 BIOS bricking issue is a separate issue, separate from your X1C5 docking station issue.

2. Anyone else with solid USB-C Docking Station experience?

3. FYI, we just started using our USB-C docking station this week (40AN0230UK, the one for workstations and with 230W AC Adapter), for our X1 Extreme 1st Gen (X1E1).

Ours is a simple setup with just one additional external monitor, and we don't use lock screen and no blank screen timers, especially when docked.
No external monitor issues and no ThinkPad LCD issues this past week.

4. We've only tried once to *sleep* and then immediately wake up our ThinkPad while connected to USB-C docking station. only once as a afterthought at the end of this work week.
Upon waking up, no issues with external monitor issues and no ThinkPad LCD.


==> ***Anyone else with solid USB-C Docking Station experience?

[dr_st]

At work I regularly use an X1 Carbon 5th gen with the USB-C dock and dual external monitors; I haven't observed the problem described here, but I will try to pay closer attention during this coming week.

[dr_st]

Update: tried 3 times yesterday with my X1C5 and could not reproduce the problem; screen timeout is set to 10 minutes, and surely after 10 minutes are up without touching the keyboard/mouse, both screens turn off. The OS is Windows 10 1803.

[dr_st]

Another update - I seem to intermittently experience a similar and different problem with my X1 Carbon and Thinkpad 25, when connected to the USB-C dock:

Once in a while when the screen turn-off timer is reached, the displays go blank, then immediately blink and go blank again, and so on, until the PC is "woken up". The screens do not actually turn back on, they just seem to be stuck in a loop of standby, wake, standby, wake.

I couldn't quite figure out the root cause, yet.