Ugh, I feel your pain. I went through three of those generic Amazon dongles before I finally realized they just cant handle the power draw when you start plugging in multiple drives or high-res monitors. Honestly, flickering screens while doing CAD is a nightmare, especially when deadlines are looming. Unfortunately, most of those cheap hubs share the same internal chips that just overheat and fail under pressure. If you want something that actually stays connected, stop messing with those portable dongles and grab a proper desktop dock. I switched to the CalDigit TS3 Plus 87W Charging Dock a while back and it has been rock solid for my workstation. It handles dual monitors and my massive external SSD without even a hiccup. If you need something slightly more budget-friendly but still professional grade, check out the Anker 577 Thunderbolt Docking Station 13-in-1. It is miles better than those cheap bricks. Quick tip: Make sure you use a proper high-quality cable, because half the time people blame the dock when it is actually just a crappy USB-C cable causing the packet loss. Also, keep the dock away from your router to avoid interference. Good luck with the CAD projects, you will definitely see a huge difference once you ditch that dongle.

To add to the point above: those cheap dongles are total trash for CAD. I tried a budget one and it fried my USB port when I plugged in a SanDisk Extreme Pro 1TB SSD. Total disaster.

• Look into the Plugable UD-3900 Universal Docking Station if you want stability without spending a grand.
• Just make sure you get a powered dock so it handles the load. Saves so much stress.

Late to the party but this reminds me of my brother who tried to fix his monitor flicker by basically duct taping the cable into the port. Ended up shorting out his entire desk setup during a massive storm last year. It was absolute chaos watching him scramble to save his hard drive files while the power was cutting in and out. Seriously, the sheer panic in his eyes was something else.