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Can you undock a W520 while it is still on?
Posted: Sun Apr 17, 2011 8:05 pm
by CDKUTTNAUER
I am using a new W520 in a mini dock plus series 3 and wanted to know if you can undock the ThinkPad while still on (using Windows 7 x64). On my T61p with XP it had a Undock option on the Start Menu.
Thanks,
Re: Can you undock a W520 while it is still on?
Posted: Mon Apr 18, 2011 1:04 pm
by davidhbrown
I've been wondering about this, too... I'm a little disappointed that there is no undock button on the dock as there was for theT61p-era dock. (There's also no notebook stand to bring it up to the level of my main monitor... I'm using a slightly hacked Dell D-Series notebook stand and some velcro
)
All of the ports (video, USB, audio, eSATA, power) are by their nature hot-pluggable, so there should be no harm to circuitry.
However, if you had write caching enabled for any external drives attached, that could definitely be a problem for data loss. It could be rather an annoyance to "Safely Remove" a large number of connected devices.
I will probably just sleep/hibernate/shutdown before undocking whenever I have disks attached (almost always... use one for continuous backup).
Re: Can you undock a W520 while it is still on?
Posted: Tue Apr 19, 2011 4:36 am
by commander
Yes, you can. Check the lenovo blog about new docking (series 3)
http://www.lenovoblogs.com/insidethebox ... cking-301/
Re: Can you undock a W520 while it is still on?
Posted: Tue Apr 19, 2011 6:30 am
by davidhbrown
Thanks for the blog link, but it makes no mention whatsoever about data loss issues with the "rip-and-go" approach.
Re: Can you undock a W520 while it is still on?
Posted: Tue Apr 19, 2011 9:24 am
by AMATX
Easy enough to try; how 'bout trying it and posting your findings?
Re: Can you undock a W520 while it is still on?
Posted: Tue Apr 19, 2011 10:53 am
by commander
Personally, I am shutting down the computer anyway. (i have to, I have advanced dock, but I will also with the series 3). I have attached an external soundcard and microphone, and sometimes windows don't recognize them and set them default, so I have to reboot or manually set my programs to these devices. If you have SSD, your boot time should be quick so I think it is safer.
Re: Can you undock a W520 while it is still on?
Posted: Tue Apr 19, 2011 2:58 pm
by davidhbrown
AMATX wrote:Easy enough to try; how 'bout trying it and posting your findings?
'cause I don't like losing data
With the mSATA SSD, power-on and login via finger-swipe is only about a minute anyway.
Re: Can you undock a W520 while it is still on?
Posted: Wed Apr 20, 2011 6:32 am
by davidhbrown
Found this in the Lenovo User Guide on my W520 system:
To detach your computer from the ThinkPad Mini Dock Series 3, the ThinkPad Mini Dock Plus Series 3,
or the ThinkPad Mini Dock Plus Series 3 (170 W), do the following:
1. Make sure that:
• The devices connected to USB connectors are not in use.
• The connection to an Ethernet port has been ended.
• The devices connected to an eSATA port are not in use (ThinkPad Mini Dock Plus Series 3 and
ThinkPad Mini Dock Plus Series 3 (170 W)).
The undock button and Windows' response seemed to take of this for us. Omitting it in the current series of docks is *not* an improvement.