Sleep state loss when docked

[dodeca-t]

Has anyone else noticed that if you plug a sleeping t60p into a advanced mini-dock that is NOT plugged in, that you lose sleep state (ie complete hard poweroff)?

I think I may have also noticed this behavior if a sleeping machine that was not software-undocked is removed from an advanced mini-dock, that it also loses sleep state.

I miss the arrangement with my t41 where you could just hot dock/undock as you pleased, without ejecting/waiting/etc.

[johnp126]

I have several of the t60p's (2007 93U) and 2 of my users have complained about this. They however have a powered mini doc. I have same computer and not had the problem. I have the issue escalated with lenovo. Have you updated bios ? current is 1.04. I am thinking it is something physcial though because my users have the new bios and still have the issue.

Do you have an issue with the monitor off in power mgt? We've also seen that and also elevated that with lenovo.

[dodeca-t]

This is on a 2007 94u, running 1.04.

I do have the monitor issue as well, which also seems to only occour when docked. My workaround was to make sure that the top entry in presentation director was for laptop lcd only, so that i can hit fn-f7 enter blindly, and that will turn the lcd back on. Kludgy, but works

[jamies]

This is happening to me too and it's driving me bonkers:

It turns off only sometimes when being warmed docked. I've found it does more often if I do a cold boot while the computer is undocked and try to redock it. It also seems to happen occasionally when the computer remains undocked for a few hours.

I've tried a bunch of troubleshooting and called IBM a few times; they weren't even able to understand the problem but did send me a new Advanced Mini Dock.

The problem occurs on both Advanced Mini Docks I have, so I'm guessing it's either software or the hardware of my T60.

Has anyone else made any discoveries or had an insight from IBM?

[johnp126]

I have Lenovo working on mult issues, they HAVE finally duplicated the problem i am having with video turning off. I personally have not had the dock issue with it turning off but others in my company have. They think it might be the dock. I am getting 2 port reps tomorrow that don't require dedocking to see if they are better. I have other issues:
sometimes when I use a wireless kb/mouse the thinkpad keyboard doesn't work
now i have a problem that when i dock going from wireless to wired sometimes my wired connection won't come on and if you try and enable it you get a connection failed error
sometimes usb ports don't work when docked (power does it shows up plugged in and external monitor comes on)
sometimes in that condition it does not show that it is docked you get no red light
also have had blue screen when docking

there are issues which are making it annoying at best and its getting old and tired now. i love everything else about it but why so many issues with this series, never had such a load of issues before

[jamies]

I have Lenovo working on mult issues, they HAVE finally duplicated the problem i am having with video turning off. I personally have not had the dock issue with it turning off but others in my company have. They think it might be the dock. I am getting 2 port reps tomorrow that don't require dedocking to see if they are better.

I've actually tried two docks and the problem occurs on both. Now I may have been unlucky and gotten a defective dock (twice), but somehow I doubt that.

A very interesting thing to try would be to swamp harddrives from a computer with the problem to one without the problem and see if it occurs.

[skyt60]

We have the same problem with docking/undocking on most of our new thinkpads here (6 t60 and 2 x60).

I managed to have my t60 stable for a week after "System Update" magically downgraded the ATI mobility device driver to:
8-204-051220a1-029804C-Lenovo
from
8-204-051220a1-031127C-Lenovo

I am also always doing hot docks and undocks (i.e. machine still on and user logged in) and have the same screen resolution on my laptop LCD and external LCD. This may help too.

[dodeca-t]

I'll be obtaining a second advanced mini-dock soon, I will see if the problem persists on that one.

I've also noticed occasional bluescreens on resume, I don't remember the exact error, something about a thread being in an infinite loop, in an ATI driver.

The system update likes to install an older version of the display drivers then the software install does, perhaps this is a bad attempt at a driver downgrade to solve some problems. Either ATIs drivers or the ATI hardware seems buggy, solid drivers aren't ATIs strong point to begin with.

I've actually been using the Omega radeon drivers, Because I've found the inability to natively select certain 16:9 resolutions with the ibm shipped drivers (same on the t41) quite annoying.

I'll give a shot downgrading to 8-204-051220a1-029804C-Lenovo, and see if that fixes things. As annoying as dealing with the driver limitations are, hard booting my machine when I get to work is worse.

It is likeley that this is fixable by altering a .INF somewhere, or using hydravision or some similar tool.

On a side note, Presentation director also seems to have a limited ability to handle non 4:3 resolutions. I've found a workaround to this: create the profile for whatever displays your using, export it, edit the (text) export file and place the proper resolution in the obvious place, then reimport it and it will stick.

I'll prolly give IBM support a call, and see if I can find someone there who will escilate the issue, or someone who has details. I've had pretty good luck at this in the past.

[skyt60]

We have the same problem with docking/undocking on most of our new thinkpads here (6 t60 and 2 x60).

I managed to have my t60 stable for a week after "System Update" magically downgraded the ATI mobility device driver to:
8-204-051220a1-029804C-Lenovo
from
8-204-051220a1-031127C-Lenovo

I am also always doing hot docks and undocks (i.e. machine still on and user logged in) and have the same screen resolution on my laptop LCD and external LCD. This may help too.

Well, this didn't work forever. My system crashed again (no blue screen but just rebooted) when I docked it this morning.

[johnp126]

anyone understand why the advanced mini uses the software dock / undock? they are nearly the same as previous port reps that did not require it. also the diff bt the new port rep and mini dock is port rep is missing dvi,par,serial, audio and mic jacks but has the usb 4 ports. i thought that the item needing the docking would be the 4 usb ports. i have 8 t60's and have so many isues with the advanced mini docks, blue screen crashing, power off issue when in sleep mode. sometimes they don't connect right (if you push system again it clicks again, sometimes it doesn't dock, somtimes it docks but can't use the usb ports, 1 machine won't be able to use the wired network after a sleep mode connection but another one works. the only reason for using mini docks is the dvi and audio ports, i could live without the par/serial ports and mic jack, are others having such problems with the hardware advanvced mini's that they need a recall?

[GomJabbar]

IMO, making hardware changes while in Standby is a no-no. You should never plug in or unplug hardware while in Standby. When you plug your laptop into a dock, or unplug it from a dock, this is a hardware change. IMO this is a Windows issue, not a Lenovo issue.

[johnp126]

ok got it, but with the port replicator does it do that? i don't have one handy to try now. thats the point i was trying to make, why all of a sudden do we need to dock and de dock on the adv mini when it is nothing more than a port rep with a couple more items? there is no bay device in it, what makes it require docking (hardware profile)?

[dodeca-t]

The downgrade seems to have helped for me, I haven't had a docking crash since downgrading. I was able to alter some of the ati INF files before install to enable some of the odder resolutions.

GomJabbar, If I remember right it used to be that you HAD to make changes while in a sleep/hibernate state, circa thinkpad 600x. I think this has something to do with the os needing to re-enumerate all devices on sleep resume, because many of them don't save their own state fully/correctly. This may have been fixed with the APM->ACPI transition.

johnp216, in regards to the connecting of the system, I've noticed that to get the machine to engage the dock I have to give it a fair amount of pressure for it to click. It's mainly an issue of getting used to it. The t4x docks were much easier to dock.

It isn't clear to me why they would need to require a software undock. Perhaps if I open up one of my adv. mini docks I can devine the reasoning.

I'm leaning towards this being primarily hardware issue, I can't really blame the operating system for powering off a machine while it isn't running. Its also likely that we're dealing with a combination of diffnt issues, one being the power loss/sleep state thing, another being issues in the ATI drivers on resume (the bluescreen).

Also from what jamies mentioned:

It also seems to happen occasionally when the computer remains undocked for a few hours.

It could be that this is a pure power supply/power circuity issue, and that a there is a race condition or some unknnown power draw that occours when docking. With Al esser-charged battery, it could have trouble making the power switchover from battery -> dock.

Lots of conjecture, I still havent called ibm/lenovo to bug them about it.

[GomJabbar]

GomJabbar, If I remember right it used to be that you HAD to make changes while in a sleep/hibernate state, circa thinkpad 600x. I think this has something to do with the os needing to re-enumerate all devices on sleep resume, because many of them don't save their own state fully/correctly. This may have been fixed with the APM->ACPI transition.

I know this is true with the 600E running Windows 2000. I do not fully understand what is going on. It may depend upon the device in question and the type of resources it requires (i.e. IRQ's, DMA, base memory addresses, and even power).