USB-C enabled classrooms?

[psydii]

@DrBeaker  Just out of interest, how many classrooms, how many periods per day, and how many calls per day are you getting? 

 

Desktop PC's done properly  result in <1 per day call across 1000 lesons. But laptops (with all their connections etc) even when done well, you are looking at between 2 and 5 calls per day.  This is an acceptable trade-off for some schools, that *want* the flexibility of laptops, but not so for others.

 

Higher than that* indicates hardware problems, either with the cables or the laptops/docks.

 

*except driver/firmware updates, which can  really mess things up, but that impacts desktops too these days.

 

[chazzy2501]

Every classroom we have (50ish) uses a teacher laptop with a tv or projector. (usbc dock, direct hdmi & wireless,) it is rather hands off. it feels like 1 day and is usually a sound issue. So acceptable for us.

 

The teachers much prefer using their own device and we save on total PC count.  

 

Wireless is the most involved with troubleshooting but we use very few.

Edited April 14 by chazzy2501
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[Mr.Ben]

3 hours ago, supportman said:

 

Would love to get some links for those cables.

 

 

We have AV plates in our rooms, so have the long cable plus a shorter one in each - here are the links for everything we use:

 

For the USB 2.0 touch we use:

 

Lindy 8m USB 2.0 Active Extension Cable Pro, Long Distance Repeater, Extends USB devices, PCs, Laptops, Xbox, PS4, PS5, VR Headset, Printer, Scanner, Webcam, Interactive Whiteboards : Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

 

(These are nice as they have an LED to confirm if they are working)

 

LINDY 0.5m Printer Cable USB 2.0 Type A to B Cable, Compatible with Printers and Scanners, Epson HP Canon Envy Lexmark Dell Brother Printer DAC Xerox : Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

 

Lindy USB 2.0 Type A to A 5m Cable, 480Mbps Data Transfer Speed, Robust Dual Shielded Cable, Compatible with PC. Printer, External Hard Drive Enclosure, Docking Station : Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

 

For the HDMI we use the following:

 

Cratree 8K Fiber Optic HDMI Cable 15M,HDMI Cable High Speed 48Gbps,CL2 in Wall,8K 60Hz 4K 120Hz HDCP 2.2 2.3 HDR10,Compatible with HDTV Xbox Blu-ray Monitor Laptop Projector : Amazon.co.uk: Electronics & Photo

 

Cratree HDMI Cable 2M 2Pack Certified,8K Ultra High Speed HDMI Cable 4K 120hz 8K 60hz 10K 48Gbps,HDCP 2.3 Dolby Atmos Vision eARC Compatible with HDTV PS5 Xbox Blu-ray Gaming Monitor Laptop PC : Amazon.co.uk: Electronics & Photo

 

We then go into Dell Docks, (WD25), which we put a short USB C extension lead on to save damage:

 

Cable Matters 40Gbps USB 4 Extension Cable - 0.5m, Supports [8K@60Hz/4K@240Hz Video, 240W Charging, 40Gbps Data Transfer] USB C Extension Cable, Thunderbolt 4/5, Nintendo Switch 2 Compatible : Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

Edited April 14 by Mr.Ben

[psydii]

I concur regarding Lindy and Cable Matters cables linked. We use Bluestream for our HDMI cables (which are so good it feels like the HDMI protocol/speed negotiation happens just before you decided to plug it in), but they are twice that price.

[MrEprise]

On 14/04/2026 at 09:51, DrBeaker said:

Many months later still NOTHING but issues since replacement of older working setup of PC with DP/HDMI with laptops/docks with USB-C.

Constant display issues, disconnections, weird sound issues.

 

Didn't have any say on the change except to say my predictions of unreliability with it I'd raised and were brushed off, unfortunately came to pass as truth.

 

I almost feel like we're working in the same school. We used to have desktops in every room, most teachers had 1 monitor & some with 2 but everyone had their computers set up to connect to a projector. Prior to the summer of 2024, I rarely if ever had to go out to sort a projector or speaker connection issue in any of the teaching rooms - it all just worked leaving me with time for other things.

 

Since then I have had no end of weird issues where our docks also have display issues, disconnections and moments where our laptops can't find the docks as a valid audio output device. Most of the tickets on the helpdesk are usually to help a teacher connect their laptop to the projector as the dock in their room has again malfunctioned even though I can't find any logical reason for it not to work. It's even worse when supply teachers connect laptops to the docks as they're actually less likely to figure out the setup on their own and I subsequently get called out to these teachers on a regular basis also. We've tried telling staff if in doubt to use Win+P and select either extend or duplicate but this isn't foolproof as the docks again have a mind of their own and this only works successfully in some rooms.

Like you, I did protest that this would not go as smoothly as they think it would, especially where we couldn't do any testing of these setups before putting the whole thing into production from day 0 but my concerns were also brushed off. This all turned out to be part of a long-term plan where as we just had an old RoSLA building demolished, we had limited classroom spaces and growing student intake numbers so staff were expected to move around to different classrooms where the IT setup would mirror all the other rooms and staff have a laptop where they weren't having to worry about logging onto desktops then logging off at the end of lessons, rather than having their own rooms with the existing setups. It wasn't an issue during Covid so I don't quite get why it became a problem now? As it turned out, this never came to fruition (and nor will it) and yet I'm to continue supporting this setup despite teachers never leaving their rooms.

I remember a while back, a member of Trust staff came round to project manage the conversion of one of our IT rooms back into a standard classroom (that never should have happened either but who was I to say otherwise...) and he came out with a comment which irked me a bit. He was surprised our school was still using desktops in teaching rooms whereas all the other schools in the Trust had now all switched over to laptops and we were the odd ones out. This turned out to be a fib as there was only 2 primaries and 1 secondary who were using laptops, the rest still deploying desktops for teacher use. From that, I got the impression they'd try and switch us over - I just didn't know in what way. Having had to support the secondary who do use laptops recently, it's not quite how it was portrayed to me. Most teachers use a laptop but some have managed to keep a desktop as they felt it much easier to use to teach with. As I've found here, although we had a few teachers who were overjoyed to get a laptop, a lot of teachers weren't and I've ended up giving some of those teachers a desktop for much the same reason. Admittedly I'd like to put desktops back in all the classrooms (for ease of management if anything) but as I ended up re-purposing the desktops for Music, I don't have many to give back out and no one will entertain buying any more to put back in for teacher use.

Edited April 15 by MrEprise

[psydii]

@MrEprise who ever mandated the change should be made aware of the hard data from the helpdesk showing there is a problem.

 

Explain what you’ve done thus far to fix things. Then (crucially) in the spirit of being seen to be supportive of the senior person who “sponsored” this change, you offer three solutions:

 

plan a: ask them to authorise spend to  try a room or two with the cabling @Mr.Ben recommends, and if the doesn’t improve things, try also the specific dock he uses. 

Make sure that laptops used in these rooms are fully up to date with drivers firmware, os updates etc.

 

plan b: arrange things so you have hdmi direct to the laptop. (You may still need to upgrade the AOC @Mr.Ben recommend)

 

plan 😄 revert to desktops

 

Also, float the idea of calling in central IT to review/consult since they exist, thought it was a good idea and sometimes problems like this are bigger than one person can resolve.

 

To be clear: I moved to usbc docks. It was a disaster of similar scale. We ended up going direct hdmi (with aoc) . We’ve since moved 10%back to docks (newer laptops, newer docks, new cabling as per @Mr.Ben) and docks are now fine.

Laptops are never as reliable as desktops, but the trick is to make them reliable enough.

 

[Roberto]

We've had dock reliability issues. We used the Lenovo "Thinkpad USB C Dock Gen 2" to plug laptops into in all our offices and it's fantastic until it suddenly isn't. Very different environment (hot desk offices rather than classroom) but this is 100% laptop use across thousands of desks/devices, we've seen it work well then suddenly die when nothing obvious has changed. When working, this model of dock was very tolerant of whatever was plugged into it, Lenovo, ASUS Chromebooks, Macs, HP laptops, Microsoft Surfaces, a huge range.

 

Cables, sockets (and we're only plugging/unplugging a couple of times a day) have been a pain. I think overall I love USB C for this kind of thing but if I'm worried about anything its how robust the connection is - and if you guys need anything in education, it's robustness.

 

[psydii]

If the Gen 2 docks overlapped with the faulty laptop usb-c/thunderbolt intel hardware/firmware from 2018/19/00, then them dying suddenly was likely a function of the contagion from that disaster. We had many gen 2 docks fail 2021-2023. More recently we've been deploying previously unused Gen2's and ThinkPad Universal USB-C Dock, and they've thus far lasted longer than the ones that had been exposed to the older laptops, but not yet at scale. That said, what docks did your desktop team settle on after the Gen2's?

 

(We've found the Cable Matters USB 4  cables to be reliable and have replace only a couple of the 20 or so we've deployed in the last year and a half, and those had clearly been mistreated)

[Roberto]

20 minutes ago, psydii said:

If the Gen 2 docks overlapped with the faulty laptop usb-c/thunderbolt intel hardware/firmware from 2018/19/00, then them dying suddenly was likely a function of the contagion from that disaster. We had many gen 2 docks fail 2021-2023. More recently we've been deploying previously unused Gen2's and ThinkPad Universal USB-C Dock, and they've thus far lasted longer than the ones that had been exposed to the older laptops, but not yet at scale. That said, what docks did your desktop team settle on after the Gen2's?

 

(We've found the Cable Matters USB 4  cables to be reliable and have replace only a couple of the 20 or so we've deployed in the last year and a half, and those had clearly been mistreated)

I suspect you're right about the USB-C docks. We have some old warriors in our estate there and they've almost certainly been connected to all kinds of nonsense over the years. We've now tidied up the desk space for both office and WFH and now when those docks die we replace them and the current multi-monitor deployment with a Dell monitor (U3425WE) with a built in USB-C hub. Probably not viable for classrooms but we've had real success with it in an office environment.

 

Not sure where our replacement cables come from. I take care of my equipment, so very rarely need replacements of anything.

[p858snake]

On 16/04/2026 at 16:07, psydii said:

Make sure that laptops used in these rooms are fully up to date with drivers firmware, os updates etc.

 

Also ensure the docks are running the most up to date firmware as well, Vastly improved our surface dock issues when we went dual screen years ago.