Echo 11 Thunderbolt 4 ECHO-DK11-T4 heavily impacting computer's performance #980
Comments
wiktormowinski
added
USB-C Multi-function dock station
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I recall some guy on chat that also had performance issues when plugging a TB4 dock (Not the same one, but maybe they share a reference design/chips). IGP performance in a graphics benchmark halved by just having the dock plugged in. |
It was I who reported this issue on Matrix. Here's what I know so far: On my own TB4 docking station (Icy Box IB-DK8801-TB4 Thunderbolt™ 4 Dock with PD 100 W), having the notebook connected and powered results in a performance drop of roughly 50% compared to the barrel-jack power connector. I believe the issue in question is related to power delivery. When having both the dock as well as the barrel-jack power plug connected, the notebooks performance is as expected. |
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Results of mentioned tests are included here: |
Note that you are including CPU results only. The benchmarks that were catastrophic (50% difference) were GPU related. You most likely want @PerAstraAdDeum to post his results here and what was his test environment. |
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valid point, here are gpu logs: |
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Well, those do seem within error margin. So I suppose we need more info from the affected users setups. |
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yeah :c |
Sure thing, here I am. I've done cross-testing with various drivers and kernel versions, these were my findings:
Benchmarks were done with Unigine Superposition. I've experienced similar performance impacts with various games, always around 50% slower with docking station than without. |
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After two more months I did another benchmark. Here's the result (last line):
As you can see, the error is persistent. There's also a performance regress for the iGPU of about ten percent, that also occurs when powered by the barrel jack (4820 -> 4423, that's -8,24%). Don't know the cause of that yet. On the bright side, it seems like only the iGPU is affected. Benchmarks with my eGPU are consistent between barrel-jack-powered and TB4-powered. |
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Today I've tried the xe driver once more, with the release of 6.12 Kernel it is rumored to be a lot more stable and reliable. So I've switched the drivers and ran some benchmarks, and, to my utter bewilderment, the performance gap between TB4 charging and barrel charging is gone! I have absolutely no idea how this has happened, given the fact that this issue has been confirmed to be firmware-related in the Matrix chat room and there hasn't been any new firmware release since then. Anyway, everyone affected by this issue should give the xe driver a try and see if this solves the issue! |
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Well, seems like we're back to where we started:
Now this is a benchmark done just a few minutes ago. Coincidentally, I've been helping a dev testing some new patches for Mangohud, and I marveled at the performance of the Intel Arc iGPU:
When I start the game now, my framerate is considerably lower:
As you can see by the time shown in the HUD, there's only about 90 minutes between these runs. So whatever did impact the performance must have happened in these 90 minutes. |
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A cold boot didn't solve the issue. I was however able to trick the notebook like this:
Surprisingly I'm now back to "full-power-mode", if you will:
This is obviously just a hack and no viable solution. |
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@mkopec isn't that because EC just cuts the power by cropping PL4 to the max USB-PD power? When barrel jack is plugged, then PL4 is higher and allows to reach >4000 score. Just a hunch |
Is there any way of testing this? |
That's what I thought too.
Check The dock itself can deliver 90W which is as good as the barrel jack charger. Question is, does it actually deliver that much? That can depend on the USB-C cable. A cable may be rated for 60W, 100W or 240W, so if the cable was changed at some point, that could be the culprit. @PerAstraAdDeum Can you check the maximum power draw in throttlestop while on dock alone and while on barrel jack charger? If it's not the cable, then I suspect the EC is having trouble determining the USB-PD power limit |
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Hey, thanks for the swift reply! Sadly I'm not running Windows. Is there a way to read those values in Linux? (Arch to be precise) Also, about the cable. A few months ago I've changed the dock's TB4 cable for this one here: Cable Matters [Intel Certified] 40Gbps Braided Active Thunderbolt 4 Cable 2 m with 100W Charging Power. The issue is the same with both cables though. |
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@mkopec , I gave this some more thought and I'm sure it's neither the cable nor the docking station that is at fault here. As previously stated both are very well able to deliver 90 Watts (see the benchmark results). This is only possible if the notebook has been "tricked"; e.g. by plugging in the barrel jack charger, running a benchmark and pulling the barrel jack charger again. I believe the EC having trouble determining the USB-PD power limit is the most likely culprit. |
Component
other
Device
NovaCustom V54 14th Gen
Dasharo version
v0.9.0
Dasharo Tools Suite version
Test case ID
Brief summary
There is a problem to reproduce client's evironment to get the same result as them
How reproducible
not sure
How to reproduce
that's the issue- we don't know
Expected behavior
The platform's performance is eavily impacted by dock
Actual behavior
Everything works smoothly.
Screenshots
No response
Additional context
The client complained about the performance of their computer while using Echo 11 Thunderbolt 4 ECHO-DK11-T4.
However, while running stress tests to reproduce such behaviour, the machines CPU clock and power remained relatively the same regardless if the dock was plugged or not. Therefore further investigation of this issue needed.
Solutions you've tried
current approach aimed at measuring CPU's performance, perhaps the problem lies somewhere else entirely
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