U2725QE USB hub recognized as 2.0 when connected to MacBook Pro

I purchased one of these and the hub is useless for me. If a hard drive mounts at all (which is 50/50), it will disconnect as soon as I try to transfer a file to it. I've tried this with a small SSD (that my phone is powerful enough to use) as well as an external HD with its own power supply. When I try to connect a Sony camera over USB, it fails to connect and says "Check the connected device" on its display. Dell support also tried telling me that it might be a power issue, but a Thunderbolt hub with 140W PD should be able to handle a small hard drive or digital camera.

I am on my second display now as I returned the first hoping it was faulty, but the second one is exhibiting the exact same behavior.

I'm on a M2 MacBook Air, which has Thunderbolt 3/USB 4 so it's not an issue there. Most recent up to date MacOS.

Torn between waiting to see if Dell wants to address this issue or return yet another display that is not performing as advertised.

<< or if Apple engineers can weigh in from the macOS USB initialization side>>

Apple movers and shakers do not troll the Apple community discussions looking for problems. Apple engineers are prohibited from posting here.

if you want the attention of an Apple employees, you can post a terse description of the problem using the Product Feedback links:

Product Feedback - Apple

...or contact Apple support and work with them to get a resolution or a Formal, Tracked, Bug Report onto the reporting system. It will take working with a Specialist (not just a First responder) to get someone with enough depth.

Official Apple Support

Yes this setting is on the display itself. Click the joystick on the back, then toggle up for the full menu. Scroll down to the "Display" section and you'll find the MST option there.

Good luck! It didn't help for me, unfortunately.

[Edited by Moderator]

b8xter wrote:

Thanks krzysiexp i've followed your thread in the dell community and also here. Ive got 2 x U2725QE monitos via daisychain and only after the full computer reboot with the cable unplugged do i get the full 2.5gb hub connection via thunderbolt. I also called dell to inform them of this issue and asked the team to follow this up and try and provide an update ASAP as this is so fustrating when all I want to do is have a single cable from the laptop to the monitors. This is why i bought them

Note that Macs do not support DisplayPort MST daisy-chaining.

So if you are daisy-chaining two Dell UltraSharp 27 4K Thunderbolt Hub Monitor - U2725QE monitors, you'd presumably be connecting and daisy-chaining them using the Thunderbolt upstream and downstream ports. (Rather than using one of the DisplayPort 1.4 output ports to do the daisy-chaining.)

smorebelt wrote:

Same here, display looks good, Thunderbolt upstream to Macbook and Thunderbolt downstream to LaCie SSD Pro work reliably, so does the Magic Keyboard plugged into a USB-A plug in the back of the display. iPhone connects reliably on the front of the display too. Anything else is a gamble, LaCie HDDs with or without power supply mount occasionally. LAN seems flaky too. What I don't get it is that these are all 10Gbps ports. That's excellent for HDDs, no keyboard needs this. Dell advertises this display as the perfect companion for Apple products, but the hub is a mess, right? Any updates on your end? I contacted my local Dell dealer who's getting back to me on the subject next week. He said these hubs should be plug and play. The 10 year old Dell U2414H that I'm upgrading from did all of this no problem. I tried different settings, different cables, etc. nothing works. The MST option below worked for one session. Then again nothing. I'm confused...

Yeah, I think the hubs on at least some of these these are just flaky. I've seen enough people saying they've had issues. The hub functionality was half of the reason I chose that Dell and I never got it working so I returned mine. I got an Asus and the build quality is much better, the hub is only USB 3.2, but it works, and the screen is arguably better.

The answer from any Apple official support you contact will likely be: "This hardware is inside a third-party device, is NOT running Apple software, and Apple does not provide Direct support for third-party hardware.

--------

Believe in yourself. You are on the right track. Be polite and professional, but insist that they treat your concerns seriously. Their response to date does not suggest they even listened or understood your concerns -- they assumed this was an Apple hardware malfunction.

My response was to check the specs on the interface on the display, to see if it was indeed sold as 2.5 Gig Ethernet capable. And yes indeed it was sold as 2.5 Gig Ethernet interface.

it is possible that the device can generate clocks and handle bursts of traffic, so as to participate on a 2.5 G Ethernet network. But not being able to provide sustained support at those transfer speeds is extremely deceptive.

Having the port always flow-controlled back to less than one-fifth the nominal speed (USB-2 of 480 M bits/sec rather than the assumed 2,500 M bits/sec) is not a full-featured interface. if there is no technical relief available, Selling it as a 'real' 2.5 G Ethernet interface is a deceptive business practice.

Same here, display looks good, Thunderbolt upstream to Macbook and Thunderbolt downstream to LaCie SSD Pro work reliably, so does the Magic Keyboard plugged into a USB-A plug in the back of the display. iPhone connects reliably on the front of the display too. Anything else is a gamble, LaCie HDDs with or without power supply mount occasionally. LAN seems flaky too. What I don't get it is that these are all 10Gbps ports. That's excellent for HDDs, no keyboard needs this. Dell advertises this display as the perfect companion for Apple products, but the hub is a mess, right? Any updates on your end? I contacted my local Dell dealer who's getting back to me on the subject next week. He said these hubs should be plug and play. The 10 year old Dell U2414H that I'm upgrading from did all of this no problem. I tried different settings, different cables, etc. nothing works. The MST option below worked for one session. Then again nothing. I'm confused...

<< My resosolution, hertz, main display were not being remembered >>

The Mac does not rely on Windows-like side-loaded "Drivers" which are actually packages of resolutions and settings for a specific display. Instead, it goes straight to the immutable source -- it asks the display itself.

To get a Mac display to become active, you need the Mac to query the display, and the display to answer with its name and capabilities. Otherwise, the display will not be shown as present, and no data will be sent to the display. "No signal detected" is generated by the DISPLAY, not by the Mac.

This query is only sent at certain times:

• at startup

• at wake from sleep — so momentarily sleeping and waking your Mac may work

• at insertion of the Mac-end of the display-cable, provided everything on that cable is ready-to-go

• hold the Option key while you click on the (Detect Display) button that will appear in Displays preferences (from another display)

NB > Be sure you are running your experiments accordingly.

Grant Bennet-Alder wrote:

My response was to check the specs on the interface on the display, to see if it was indeed sold as 2.5 Gig Ethernet capable. And yes indeed it was sold as 2.5 Gig Ethernet interface.

The only downstream port on that monitor that looks like it has any business being on an internal USB 2.0 hub is the "Analog 2.0 audio line out port (3.5 mm jack)."

Dell – Dell UltraSharp 27 4K Thunderbolt Hub Monitor - U2725QE

I could not easily find specs on the chips used to create the Hubs used in the display.

What I wanted to see was whether those Hub chips were capable of higher than USB2 speeds, IF they were properly programmed. Or if that hardware was inherently not capable of higher speeds.

I thought it just resolved the issue but have to toggle the MST to restore USB3.1 speed whenever I switch between DisplayPort to Thunderbolt source device. So, this is not a fix to the issue being reported.

Hi All

After dealing with Dell tech support that have told me its an Apple issue adn i need to raise with their support. I think i have multiple issues that steam from it being 2 x u2725qe via thunderbolt daisy chain. I will keep everyone updated once i get a ticket raised and i will create a specific thread for those issues.

Hi Bretstat

I also feel the same way, i'll post here again once i log a new case with Dell. I posted a new comment on the https://www.dell.com/community/en/conversations/monitors/u2725qe-macbook-pro-m1-usb-hub-recognized-as-20/6800ea1c452ab070263c8a2e?page=2 expanding on my current position right now