Thinkpads Forum

I recently acquired a W510 and am attempting to use it with a 4338-10U dock.
I have 2 of these docks and have used them for the past few years with a T400s
and a T420 without any problems.

I currently have both 90W and 135W power adapters available. The 135W adapter
works in these situations:

1. Plugged directly into the T400s, T420, and W510.
2. Plugged into the dock, using the T400s and T420 (under Linux, can't test under W7)

But, when I try to use the 135W adapter plugged into the dock with the W510, I get erratic behavior under W7. Linux (SL6 and SL7) seems to work just fine. But on W7, the green LED on the dock goes on and off, and the OS beeps and tells me that AC has been disconnected.

Does anybody understand what is going on? I thought that any 4338 would work with a W510 as long as the 135W adapter was connected to it.

I think you will have better luck with a 170w adapter when the W510 is on the dock. I realize there are some differences between the W510 and W520 but my W520 needs 170w to run on the dock, and can run with the 135w undocked.

Thanks for the reply... this has really stumped me.

You probably have some other stuff plugged into your dock
which accounts for the difference.

So far, I haven't been able to narrow the problem down, but I'm not
a Windows guy (other than as a happy user), and I just got the machine,
so I'll just have to run a series of experiments to get anywhere.