2504 Advanced Mini-dock and Thinkpad T61

[cappellof]

I have a somewhat different problem.  I'm trying to connect a PS/2 mouse and keyboard to the 2504 docking station using a Y connector to plug them both into the single mouse/keyboard connector on the docking station.  Only the keyboard works, not the mouse.  The limited documentation on this docking station doesn't seem to explain what kind of connector I would need if there's a special one.

Any tips?

Carl

[georg]

Hello Esmail,

I know this is a bit late, but here is a link to the Advanced Mini Dock's User's Guide.

Your notebook should also contain information about how to use the docking station. Open Think Vantange Productivity Center, then choose Access Help. There you can find information about the Advanced Mini Dock.

[esmail]

Hi there,

Thanks for the info and the link. Overall the dock seems to be working fine, there are
times that I have trouble with docking my laptop, but most of the time it says docked
anyway.

I wish there was a way for me to run on battery while docked so that I could put some
use on it instead of having it always fully charged - but when I disconnect the power
supply of the dock, everything locks up.

Otherwise I'm super happy with my setup :-)

Esmail

[billbolton Community Moderator]

esmail wrote:

I wish there was a way for me to run on battery while docked so that I could put some
use on it instead of having it always fully charged - but when I disconnect the power
supply of the dock, everything locks up.

---

A recent BIOS update addressed this issue, so you might want to make sure yiur BIOS is up to date!

Cheers,

Bill

[esmail]

that is good news .. thanks for the heads up, I'll check up on that!


update:

I found the BIOS update and applied it. My first try didn't succeed since the update kept complaining about an
invalid supervisor password - but never prompted for one (nor did I ever set one).

I finally exited and the system restarted fine (that was some nail-biting time).

Anyway, the problem was that my system was still docked when I tried to do the update. Once I undocked it
went through fine.

Thanks for alerting me to the udpates -- I still have to try and see their effects yet, ie pull the plug on the dock and
see what happens :-)




Message Edited by esmail on 04-13-2008 07:30 PM

[thinkmassive]

One of our work laptops was experiencing similar symptoms.  The advanced mini-dock would provide power, and the dock power button worked, but USB and video were not recognized.  Windows was also unaware that the system had been docked, so the green arrow would not light up and there was no "undock" option on the power menu.

tikibomb made the only suggestion I saw that sounded plausible, but we're using the 90W adapter.  I installed all critical & recommended updates through ThinkVantage System Update, including the BIOS update.  When I was about to blame defective hardware I decided to push down a little harder and the laptop was able to dock!

It seems like the dock connector is weak, and I believe it is easily made worse by removing the laptop from the dock.  I expect better from Lenovo, which is why I rely on them exclusively for my company's mobile computing needs.  Hopefully this is improved in future versions, and maybe I will be eligible for a replacement before the warranty is expired.