Thinkpads Forum

T440s on basic docking station: I would like to resume by clicking an external usb mouse or hitting a key on an external USB keyboard. Have set both to allow resume from standby in device manager. but only way is to press power button on dock. Any ideas?

More details: I treated myself to a new T440s (downgraded to Win7) 5 months ago, and am generally very pleased. It replaced an 8 year old T43 which worked brilliantly for over 7 years!

By and large everything has worked flawlessly, although I still find the new style touchpad / trackpoint difficult albeit it has benefits like using gestures to scroll and zoom.

When at home I use it on a Basic Docking station, with large screen and separate mouse and keyboard. This works very well in general. I normally just suspend (or suspend is automatic after 30 minutes) when I leave my desk for an hour or so. To resume I have to press the power button on the docking station, and this is fine although it takes somewhat longer than I'd expect (maybe 20 seconds before the network is working etc). But I can't just click the mouse etc and the docking station is difficult to reach. I wonder if anyone has managed to get resume from standby to work using (say) a USB attached mouse?

@bblake: I have similar concerns with my t540p. Great machine if used with a Bluetooth mouse ( I use a Logitech M557) but really annoyed by start up times after a night's sleep.
I think it is controllable by going to Control Panel, System and Security, Power Options, and then setting Sleep to Off ... which is OK if the beast is plugged into the mains..
Try it and see.

Thanks, but I still want to sleep when the machine is unattended.

My power meter shows that when in sleep mode then power consumption is just 1 watt, compared to about 8 watts when sitting idle on a dock. Not much difference but worth having in these environmentally sensitive times. Hibernation is another alternative but the time to resume is longer.

I guess I just have to get used to pressing the power button on the dock to resume! Not a huge effort. Also, get used to about 12 seconds to resume from sleep (plus more for the network).

Traditionally the way to wake up a system when it's in Standby is to press the blue Fn key. I have not tried this with an external keyboard but if you have a Thinkpad-layout keyboard, give that a try.