Will a Docking Station Solve My Problem, or I Need a More Power Laptop?

LBargainHunterMYz on 02/09/2022 - 15:01

I have a HP Probook 440 G8 Notebook PC with Intel i5-1135G7, 16GB RAM laptop.

I work from home most of the time, connecting my computer to 2 x Dell 4k monitors, one with USB-C connection while the other one with HDMI.

The problem though is my computer seems to be overworking. The interface becomes slow and choppy sometimes, especially during Microsoft Teams meeting. The HDMI connection obviously supports only 30Hz on HDMI, which doesn't help the user experiece.

My question is does adding a docking station help? Will the docking station take over the workload of display signal processing, or I need something more power and expensive?

Thank you.

Computing Docking Station

Comments

  • DiscountForThee on 02/09/2022 - 15:07
    +3

    Open your task manager and also download a GPU load tracking application. Expand the task manager to see all threads and see all cores for the GPU. See if your laptop is hitting its limits on any of them.

    I have also found that when a 4K screen is running at 30hz it has far greater latency than just half the framerate. It was very painful to interact with

    • BargainHunterMYz on 02/09/2022 - 15:14

      I opened the task manager, and could see that the GPU is not at full load (in fact not even half most of the time). hmm…

      • DiscountForThee on 02/09/2022 - 15:20
        +1

        I was supposed to say, also have a look at the CPU in task manager (all cores) and have a look at the GPU in another program, because the task manager doesn't track all GPU usage details well, depending on the application

  • AustriaBargain on 02/09/2022 - 15:19

    You should want 60hz regardless of your laptop running slow. 30hz mode is for TV and movies, not for desktop or gaming.

  • garetz on 02/09/2022 - 15:59

    Check your video driver settings, the refresh rate should be user specific. Also check your hdmi cable, if its old it may be limiting the connection speed to 30Hz.

  • Roman Sandstorm on 02/09/2022 - 16:50
    +2

    Despite the comments here, I'm not sure that refresh rate will have much to do with the slowness you are reporting.

    You saying 'choppy' certainly indicates to me lots of CPU/Disk/network activity. For non-graphic intensive situations (ie, not games), with normal office-type use I doubt the graphic side of things would be responsible.

    Looking at the CPU load seems a reasonable first step. But make sure you do so while the slowness is occurring.

    I have never noticed that Teams, in itself, seems to slow down my PC (similar specs to yours). What else is open? Outlook? Excel? Anything made by Adobe???? Perhaps reduce your open apps - only have Teams and see if the issue persists.

    Your virus checker may be scanning everything all the time. Check settings. Make sure it's only scanning on access. Beware of having a USB disk (esp a USB 2.0) plugged in all the time. Virus scanning can take forever on those if there are a lot of files.

    And while on virus scanners: if you have one of those enormous 'home suites' (yuck) like Norton, BitDefdender, etc, their default settings often scan/block/annoy everything coming in by network. (And can be terminally slow if only on WiFi.)

    Also, check your Windows Updates. Some are huge, and be downloading/installing in the background for a looooong time.

    Let us know how you go.

    • DiscountForThee on 02/09/2022 - 23:45

      Teams can have a massive impact on performance, especially if it is trying to upscale video calls to a 4K screen without a dedicated graphics card. Massive load to the iGPU and it struggles hard.

      Check in the apps I mentioned to find what is using the resources. But yeah the refresh rate can have major impact on the choppiness depending on how the PC or monitor handles less than standard input rates. It sucks but the impact can be massive, I've seen it first hand

  • jjjaar on 02/09/2022 - 23:58

    I have actually noticed just in the last week that when in Teams calls, the calls are glitchy if I’m opening/closing files/websites in the background. It had never been a problem prior. Other colleagues have said similar.

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