Video card (OpenGL), sound card, keyboard and network issues

[agarny]

Hi,

I have just found out about this website and, so far, I must confess that I am quite pleased with it. I thought I would therefore ask the ThinkPad community a few questions that have been bugging me since I have received my ThinkPad T42p (2373KYG) a few weeks ago. Ok, here goes...

1. When using my laptop on its own (as opposed to with a docking station), the sound card works fine, but if I use it with a docking station together with external speakers (connected to the docking station), then the sound plays on both the internal and external speakers, while I would expect it to play only on the external speakers. Is that normal? Is there a way to make it only play on the external speakers?

2. When using my laptop on its own (after having used it with the docking station -- see below), and up to the point where Windows XP asks me for my password, the numerical keyboard is unlocked, i.e. I can enter letters and therefore my password using the "normal" keyboard. However, as soon as I am logged in, the numerical keyboard is locked, meaning that instead of some of the letters, I get numbers. I therefore have to manually press Shift Num Lock to unlock the numerical keyboard and have the "normal" keyboard back. Then, if I shutdown and restart my laptop docked to the docking station, my external keyboard's numerical keyboard won't be locked (the ThinkPad apparently remembered the "old" settings), meaning it's the arrows & co. that are active. I therefore have to press on Num Lock on my external keyboard to get the numbers back. As it happens, independent of the Num Lock state, the laptop's keyboard remains "normal" when it is docked, which is what I want. This said, there is that issue of the Num Lock in general, which is very annoying. Again, is there a way around this? For information, I checked my BIOS settings and everything appears to be fine, i.e. NumLock is set to automatic. Also, my BIOS is fully up to date.

3. I develop scientific applications, using Borland Delphi 7, that require OpenGL. When I debug those applications, most of the time everything hangs up. I never had that problem before getting my ThinkPad. Now, when running my applications from outside Borland Delphi 7, everything seems to be working, so maybe it's an issue with Borland Delphi 7, yet I thought I would mention it, in case it was an issue with the video card and/or its driver.

4. When booting up, the ThinkPad seems to take an unusual amount of time to connect to the network (be it LAN or wireless). The wireless connection seems to take much longer though. Is that normal? Is there anything that can be done about it?

Ok, I guess this is about it. Sorry for this rather lengthy message...

Thanks in advance, Alan.