P17 dock recommendation?

[wkirksnyder]

I've been using Thinkpad's for many years and always buy the docking station, but it doesn't seem like the P17 really has one. According to a sales rep there are three compatible docks: 40AF0135US, 40AS0090US, and 40ANY230US. It seems to me that only the last one is really designed for the P17.

The big issue seems to be power. The first two won't power the laptop. The last will but requires 2 thunderbolt ports to connect.

A few of the reviewers of the third one complain of reliability problems and speculate that the cause might be the high power transformer. And it isn't in stock so Lenovo may be looking into that. Not at *all* sure about this, though, and I should mention that most reviews are very positive. The critical ones are outliers. In any event it's difficult to buy right now.

I guess a general question is whether there is any advantage any more to a Lenovo dock. Powering the laptop from a dock seems problematic, so maybe I should just buy some generic thunderbolt dock and attach power separately. I don't see any advantage to connecting via two thunderbolt ports vs one thunderbolt port and one power connector.

I'd love to hear how others have solved this. Thanks.

[w0qj]

Presume yours is ThinkPad P17 Gen 1.

We have the slightly older 40AN0230UK Thunderbolt 3 Docking Station for Workstations Gen 2 an it works perfectly fine with both our X1 Extreme Gen 3, and also our X1 Extreme Gen 1.
Very satisfied with it. (Ours is the UK electrical plug, yours is US).

Allow us to explain.

We use the slightly older (and apparently discontinued) 40AN0230UK Thunderbolt 3 Docking Station for Workstations Gen 2, which came with two (2) power AC Adapters:

~65W AC Adapter for powering the 40AN0230UK Thunderbolt 3 Docking Station for Workstations Gen 2, mainly in case you plug in other devices which draw power from this Docking Station (as described above).

~Another separate 230W AC Adapter which powers your ThinkPad connected to the Docking Station (essentially it's a Pass-Through power connection for your ThinkPad). It's 230W because different ThinkPad workstations can be connected, hence for "worse case power draw consideration" the 230W AC Adapter was used. Also, your ThinkPad might have other devices which draw power directly from ThinkPad as described above.

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As for your proposed 40ANY0230US, it comes with a single 230W AC power Adapter, and uses the "Y-Cable", which powers both your ThinkPad P17 workstation and the Docking Station, along with powering all connected accessories (ThinkVision M14 external LCD monitor via USB-C, or USB cable charging your smartphone, etc.)
Y-Cable: Part No. 4X90U90620
www.lenovo.com/us/en/accessories-and-mo ... 4X90U90620

Since yours is the maximum power consumption P17, you can consider not to use this above Y-Cable: Part No. 4X90U90620.
Simply buy and plug in two separate slim-tip AC power adapters, as described above:

a) 65W AC Adapter for powering the 40AN0230UK Thunderbolt 3 Docking Station for Workstations Gen 2

b) Another separate 230W AC Adapter which powers your ThinkPad P14 connected to the Docking Station (essentially it's a Pass-Through power connection for your ThinkPad). It's 230W because your ThinkPad P14 workstations definitely needs 230W AC power adapter!

This should solve your power needs!

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As for your comment that the 40ANY0230US uses one (1) USB-C Thunderbolt connection as well, at least your P17 has lots of USB ports left to use!
One of the luxuries of a large ThinkPad

YMMV

[kitor]

The big issue seems to be power. The first two won't power the laptop. The last will but requires 2 thunderbolt ports to connect.

Are you sure it uses 2 TB ports? 40AN or "workstation dock" uses special cable that just combines lenovo square power plug (passed through from 2nd power supply connected to dock) and TB3 cable into single thick one.

You can just power 40AN with 65W+ power adapter, connect dock to laptop using any TB3 cable and power it directly with 230W. Which is basically the same as with other docking solutions. This "one cable" in 40AN is just a factory hack. And IIRC it was much more expensive than one bundled with regular PSU and TB3 cable (not counting even used units).

I use it that way with P73. Additional benefit - you can use longer TB3 cables than factory delivers.