T43p Speaker and MiniDock

[davidski]

I recently acquired a MiniDock for my T43p. Everything seems to be working as expected with the exception of sound. I have powered speakers plugged into the sound out port on the docking station, but this does not disable the onboard speakers of the T43, resulting in sound from both the laptop and the external speakers.

Short of using the headphone jack on the laptop, is there a way to get the T43 to recognize that speakers are attached via the dock and disable the onboard speakers automatically?

Thanks for the help.

[greghead]

You can use the volume control buttons on the TP to turn down the volume on the laptop's speakers. Turn it all the way down. It will not affect the volume on the dock jack.

This all works fine if you're using the laptop's screen. However if you set up an external monitor, and use the TP with the lid closed, you'll find that you can't access the volume buttons (obviously, they're under the lid). And yet, those are the ONLY volume controls that work they way you want. If you turn the volume down using the Windows slider, that will kill the volume out the dock audio jack, too.

Worse, if you get one of the IBM keyboards that looks just like the ThinkPad's -- complete with Fn key, and the volume buttons -- THOSE volume buttons do NOT work like the ones on the laptop. They control the Windows volume, not the laptop speaker volume.

So the only thing you can do, is open the laptop lid, and turn down the volume using those buttons. Of course if you close the lid again, you'll put the laptop asleep. The whole thing is rinky dink. You shell out for a dock and expect better.

Although hardly earth-shattering, it's a shame this wasn't handled better. It's the kind of detail that, when they get it right, makes you feel the guys who designed it actually used it in real life. Which usually is my ThinkPad experience. Oh well.

[davidski]

Thanks, Greg.

Using the keyboard volume controls did the trick. It's definitely a hokey solution, but it gets the job done. Why this particular element was looked over in design is beyond me. Perhaps IBM engineers expect users to hook up external speakers and then want the tiny laptop speakers to still play for extra "oomph"? ;)

Thanks again.

[davidspalding]

This was discussed at great length recently in a previous thread. Search for it, you'll find it. (You can narrow the results by looking at threads I've posted to.)

[davidski]

Thanks, David. From purusing those threads, there seems to be quite a bit of confusion about what the capabilities of the various docking solutions. For the benefit of the search index, it appears that the MiniDock is a slightly glorified port replicator, without the hardware profile management and docked status detection that are present in the pricer solutions.

Thanks again for the pointer.