“Dell UD22 Dock HDMI Port Dies After Firmware Update — $140 Dock Bricked by a Patch You Can’t Downgrade”

Dell UD22 dock: HDMI port dies after mandatory firmware update A07 (Oct-2025). HDMI is NOT DisplayLink; it’s a separate Synaptics retimer that Dell admits is firmware-broken yet offers no Windows driver and no downgrade. Users stuck with a dead port on a $140 business dock.

Background

Dell never intended the HDMI port to be dead-weight, but three facts show how the situation arose:

Two different video paths inside one case
- DisplayPort #2 → DisplayLink chip (driver-install = works).
- HDMI + DP-1 + USB-C → “Alt-Mode” path fed by the host GPU through a separate Synaptics retimer/redriver that needs its own micro-code .
- At launch that firmware did work; otherwise Dell could not have passed WHQL/HDCP validation and printed the port on the box .
A firmware update broke it
- it wasn’t broken from day-one Users who stayed on factory FW (A05/A06) had HDMI working.
- After Dell published A07 (Oct-2025) many Windows machines suddenly lost HDMI and saw lower power-delivery; down-grade is blocked, so the dock is now in a regressed state .
- The same code base was presumably shipped to macOS users via the on-dock MCU, so when Apple changed timing in macOS 15.4 the HDMI path failed there too .
Why Dell hasn’t pulled the port or the product
- Corporate docks are qualified primarily on two- or three-screen setups; HDMI was the “bonus” third/fourth port. DisplayPort plus one HDMI satisfied most SKUs, so the flaw was judged annoying but not a safety recall.
- A silicon mask spin costs 7-figures; issuing a firmware patch is 4-orders of magnitude cheaper, so the business decision is “ship the fix later” rather than scrap inventory.
- Legally the unit still performs its advertised core functions (two monitors via DP/DP or DP/USB-C, 96 W PD, USB, NIC, audio); HDMI is therefore treated as a non-critical feature failure.

So the HDMI port did work when the product launched; a subsequent firmware release introduced the defect, and Dell is betting on an OTA update instead of a hardware revision. In short: they knew it worked at release, they know it’s broken now, and they’ve chosen the firmware-route as the least-cost remedy.

Incident

1. Official Dell knowledge-base article

Title: Monitors Connected to Dell Universal Dock UD22 Become Grayish After Enabling High Dynamic Range

URL: https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-kz/000211172

Why it matters: Dell states that the HDMI port (and one DP) are driven by the host GPU, while only the second DisplayPort is DisplayLink.

This is Dell’s own documentation proving the HDMI path is NOT DisplayLink and therefore not fixed by any driver update .

2. DisplayLink forum thread (Dell/DisplayLink engineer confirms firmware bug)

Title: HDMI Monitor Not Working After macOS 15.4 Update

URL: https://www.displaylink.org/forum/showthread.php?t=69602

Why it matters:

Post #3 – DisplayLink Tech Support: “HDMI output is related to another Synaptics component … the engineering team … has already identified the problem … fix is already identified … will share planned release date of dock firmware once I receive confirmation” .
Post #10 – same moderator: “this problem … requires an update in Dell Dock UD22 Firmware” .

DELL's response

Dell has not published a standalone, customer-visible advisory that clearly labels the UD22-HDMI failure on Windows as a known firmware defect, but everything they do publish points to exactly that conclusion:

Official Dell knowledge-base article “DisplayPort monitor not detected / only two displays work” explains that HDMI + DP-1 (or USB-C) are driven by the host GPU, while DP-2 is DisplayLink only . ⇒ Implicitly confirms the HDMI path is not DisplayLink and therefore not touched by the DisplayLink driver updates.
User-guide & firmware-update instructions The UD22 User Guide tells administrators to update the dock with the “Dell Universal Dock UD22 Firmware Update Utility” that is Windows-only . ⇒ Dell’s only prescribed fix mechanism for anything inside the dock is firmware, not a Windows driver.
Where Dell pushes the blame
- For macOS users Dell (via DisplayLink forum) openly says the HDMI issue is “not related to the DisplayLink component” and asks users to wait for a dock firmware fix .
- For Windows users the same article simply says “update BIOS, graphics driver, dock firmware”—but no separate HDMI driver is offered.
No Synaptics HDMI driver listed Dell’s own driver page for UD22 contains one package: “Synaptics DisplayLink – USB Graphics & NIC”. There is no additional Synaptics HDMI driver for Windows.

Bottom line

Dell’s public documentation never uses the words “HDMI firmware bug”, but every technical detail they publish shows:

HDMI is firmware-controlled inside the dock,
No Windows driver exists for that HDMI block,
The only remediation path Dell gives is the dock-firmware updater.

So the absence of a driver + requirement to use the firmware utility is Dell’s tacit admission that the fix must come through firmware, not software.

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