XPS 13 9370 & TB16 USB Keyboard Lag/Missing Keystrokes

If you haven't already, try plugging the Unifying Receiver into one of the TB16's USB 2.0 ports rather than the 3.0 ports (USB 2.0 ports are black rather than blue).  The reason for the suggestion is that the Unifying Receiver uses the 2.4 GHz range for its wireless signal, and that is known to interfere with USB 3.0 traffic, which incidentally is why most routers that support having USB 3.0 hard drives attached typically have either solid 2.4 GHz wireless performance and slow hard drive transfer speeds or vice versa.  Otherwise, does the intermittent aberrant behavior happen to be correlated with heavy activity from a USB 3.0 device attached to an adjacent port, such as large file transfers to/from an external hard drive?

Thanks for the reply,

I tried your suggestion of plugging it into a back USB-2.0 port and there was no improvement in the lag/missing keystrokes issue.  Given that I have seen reports of the wired USB keyboards also exhibiting the same issue, I don't believe that the issue is the wireless signal from the unifying receiver. I don't have any external HDs connected right now, but I am accessing some network drives.  However, the keyboard issues are independent of any network file access.  

It seems pretty clear that this is an issue with the USB hub in the TB16, hopefully, there is a firmware upgrade that Dell can supply that will resolve the issues in the future.

I haven't seen any firmware updates for the TB16 except for a minor firmware update for the network adapter.  Other than that, there's a KB about major USB issues on systems that have an old version of Citrix Receiver installed, which is fixed by installing a newer version of Citrix Receiver, but the issues in that case are much more severe than what you're describing, so if you're already current on system firmware and the ASMedia USB Host Controller driver, I'm not sure what else to suggest.  Maybe a hardware replacement, but I haven't researched the other reports on this issue enough to know if that's likely to improve anything.  Sorry I don't have a better answer!

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@Barthawkwrote:

So the problem seems to have been somewhat resolved.

Thie USB keyboard works if all the USB devices are plugged in, everything is powered down(unplug the power to the TB16), then powered back up and rebooted. No lagging or missed keystrokes.

If I disconnect the TB16, take my laptop elsewhere and plug the TB16 back in, the USB keyboard doesn't work at all.  I need to reboot with the TB16 plugged in to get full functionality again.

Bart

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Good to hear you've at least got a workaround, but it's strange that either of those fixes works.  From your laptop's perspective, disconnecting and reconnecting power to the TB16 while your laptop is powered on and connected to it should be functionally equivalent to disconnecting and reconnecting the Thunderbolt cable going to the laptop itself -- but the latter apparently results in USB keyboard issues persisting.  If we assume that the underlying cause is some issue internal to the dock itself, then power cycling the dock could certainly account for the problem going away even though disconnecting and reconnecting the laptop from the dock wouldn't, but if that were the case, then rebooting the laptop while the dock remains attached and also connected to power shouldn't make any difference, and apparently that solves the problem as well.  Very strange....

So the problem seems to have been somewhat resolved.

Thie USB keyboard works if all the USB devices are plugged in, everything is powered down(unplug the power to the TB16), then powered back up and rebooted. No lagging or missed keystrokes.

If I disconnect the TB16, take my laptop elsewhere and plug the TB16 back in, the USB keyboard doesn't work at all.  I need to reboot with the TB16 plugged in to get full functionality again.

Bart

I will try power cycling the TB16 next time i disconnect/reconnect to see if that results in a working keyboard

Some additional experience -

Scenario 1:

If I boot the system with everything plugged in (TB16 with Logitech Unifying Receiver plugged into the dock) then the keyboard works until I disconnect the dock,  work somewhere else, and then plug the dock back in - At that point the keyboard doesn't work. I haven't fully tested whether the other USB devices plugged into the TB16 function at that point.

Scenario 2 If I boot up WITHOUT the TB16 plugged in, and then plug it in(with unifying receiver plugged into TB16), the keyboard functions correctly.  

I will test to see if power cycling the TB16 in Scenario 1 will restore USB device functionality.

Bart

So power cycling the TB16 doesn't restore USB keyboard functionality after the TB16 has been disconnected/reconnected.

If I move the unifying receiver to a USB port on the laptop after I reconnected the TB, the keyboard functions fine.

It seems like the issue might be with the XPS 13 USB drivers rather than the TB16 because power cycling would have resolved the issue with the unifying receiver not being recognized by the TB16?? Not sure what the answer is, for now the issue has a workaround, but it would be nice to be able to take the laptop to a meeting and then just be able to plug it back in to the dock and continue working without having to reboot.

Not sure if you've found a solution yet, but wanted to chime in with my experience.

XPS 15 9570

TB16 180W HUB

Logitech G710 Keyboard

Every morning when I get in to work I plug in my USB C cable and I'll begin typing something and experience exactly what you're describing.  I'll start typing my password and the input will stop updating and then spam a bunch of the key I was pressing when the lag occurred.

I've tried power cycling the TB16, I've tried unplug/replug the USB Devices.   I pretty much have to reboot every morning with everything present in the machine and things work normally.  I did run whatever firmware update was available to the TB16 but no solution.

Have you had any luck?

I'm also experiencing the exact same problem on my XPS 9570. Happens with both the mouse and keyboard which are both connected via the Logitich Unifyyyyying Receiver (<<
Keyboard and mouse work fine when plugged into the laptop directly. 

I've run all the updates and power cycled to no avail. 

I'm also running into this issue with the TB16 with the latest Precision 7530. My guess is that the ASMedia extended USB controller has a driver issue or something of that nature. Given that this dock is used in an enterprise environment, this kind of poor behavior is unacceptable—especially in such an expensive dock.

Anything that you plug into the USBs on the dock may incur latency. Both my mouse and my keyboard simultaneously encounter issues with latency. Additionally, some USB-C devices fail to be recognized, at all on the dock.

Last week I installed the new BIOS update and a new USB Ethernet driver for the TB-16 and it seemed to have resolved the issues.  The wireless keyboard is recognized when I unplug from the dock and then plug back in.  I'm also not seeing any missed or repeated keystrokes.  

The BIOS version is 1.5.1 dated 8/9/18 and the TB16 USB Driver version is 2.44.2018.0504 dated 10/9/2018.

Bart

I'm having the same issue with my new Precision 5530 (almost identical to XPS 9570) and TB16.  I'm using a Microsoft Sculpt Comfort Keyboard and have the same behavior reported here with sticking keys (repeating characters), lagging, etc.  If I plug the USB receiver directly into my laptop, even while TB16 USB-C still plugged in, everything works fine.

I actually have an identical setup of TB16, keyboard, mouse, and monitor in my work office and home office.  The USB TB16 issues behave in an identical manner as you would expect.  I'm running the very recently released 1.7.0 BIOS for my laptop but this was also occurring previously with 1.6.0.  The TB16 was updated as well when I first ran Dell Command Update after installing the new laptop a few weeks ago.

Very disappointed in Dell with this issue.  I've had several glitches like this on what is a brand new $4K laptop and another $1500 in Dell monitors and docks.  $5500 is a hefty sum to pay for something that has been released for some time and still doesn't have all the bugs worked out.

I had a very similar problem on my brand new Dell XPS 15 9570.  I exhaustively explored options, and the *only* thing that worked for me was getting the TB16 dock (and following Dell's very specific installation instructions here: https://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/04/sln304347/dell-thunderbolt-dock-tb16-driver-installation-guide?lang=en )

I was running v1.7.0 of the 9570 firmware.  If I plugged in any external keyboard (I tried 3 different ones) to the laptop, it would work fine; but if I plugged it into a generic USB hub (...I tried 3 of those, too), and then plugged that into the laptop, I would experience occasional repeated and or skipped/dropped keys.  

It seemed to get a lot worse if the USB bus was busy; so for a more reliable repro, I connected an external USB hard drive and copied a large file to the laptop, then opened notepad and tried typing during the copy.  Typing "testing" over and over into Notepad would produce text like this:

etitestiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitestingtestttttttttttttttinggggggggtest
testtttttttttttttttttttttttgggggggggggggggggggggggg

Note that I can't repro these glitches *under any circumstances* on my old machine (a mid-2012 Macbook Pro running Win7), despite putting it in the exact same configurations and carefully testing.

Here's what I tried before talking to Dell tech support (none of which worked):

1. I tried a fresh Windows 10 install carefully following Dell's driver order guidance ( https://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/04/sln148687/how-to-install-dell-drivers-in-the-correct-order?lang=en ) but that didn't fix it.

2. I tried disabling 'Panel Self-Refresh' in the Intel Graphics Settings (just right-click the desktop and select 'Intel Graphics Settings').  Others have said it worked for them, but it DID NOT work for me.  https://www.reddit.com/r/Dell/comments/92h0b9/xps_15_9570_keyskipping_issue/

3. I tried airplane mode, to no avail.  (I've seen some articles saying the 2.4 ghz Wifi might interfere with the XPS's USB-C.)

I finally called Dell tech support and over about 45 minutes, they had me try a few things, all unsuccessful:

4. They (remotely) ran SupportAssist to make sure no drivers were missing.

5. They (remotely) went into Device Manager, and under USB Controllers, and for each of the ~4 USB hubs showing up there, right-clicked -> Properties -> Power Management -> unchecked the "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power."

6. They had me reboot and go into BIOS settings and enable USB powershare.

None of these worked, and at that point, Dell told me that they were out of ideas.  They said that they don't officially support non-Dell hubs, and encouraged me to try the TB16 dock, and that if I installed it carefully, it would work. 

I took a gamble and bought the TB16.... and IT WORKED!  Even if I connect a keyboard and mouse to a vanilla USB hub, plug THAT into the TB16 dock (I used the lowest USB port on the rear), and then on to the laptop, it now works, every time - even when copying large files from an external HDD.  I have yet to experience a dropped or repeated key.

This is basically smoking gun proof that the laptop's built-in USB controller is the problem, though.  The keyboard is now working *through the vanilla non-Dell USB hub* as long as it passes through the TB16 dock before reaching the laptop.  That means that whatever USB packet processing the TB16 is doing (that the laptop would normally do) is now being done correctly.

It's very sad that Dell can't fix this problem in their laptops.  And they're not heavily incentivized to fix it, because if it remains broken, they sell more hubs... 

That said, it is a great dock, and I'm thrilled with my new laptop + dock.  It just took me FOREVER to get to a working solution.

***TL;DR***: Get the TB16 and follow the installation instructions carefully, including the driver install order:  https://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/04/sln304347/dell-thunderbolt-dock-tb16-driver-installation-guide?lang=en