Bad buzzing noise thru speakers w/ T440s docking station

[ginger]

Hi all, I'm not sure if this is the right forum area to post this so please feel free to move if need be.

I had a work set up that I really liked (I was telecommuting), it was a T430 with a docking station and it ran easily without any issues. I had pretty much all my extras plugged into the docking station including my little external speakers. I left that job recently and wanted to replicate the set up I had from work, so I purchased the T440s (I was told when I called Lenovo recently that they phased out the T430 and this was the current model that was as close to my former work laptop as possible). I then purchased the Ultra dock docking station even though I read on Amazon that folks were very unhappy with this loud buzzing noise coming through the external speakers when the laptop was in sleep/hibernate mode. I thought they were just not understanding how to set up the docking station, but alas, I had the exact same issues when we set up my Ultra dock - it was horribly loud and totally unacceptable. So I returned that and got a Pro Dock docking station as a replacement because I couldn't find similar poor reviews about this buzzing issue with the Pro Dock version. That arrived yesterday and I have the same horrible loud buzzing through my external speakers. Right now, I have the speakers plugged directly into my laptop and that alleviates the buzzing issue, but the point is, it shouldn't be happening at all, and I'd like to plug my speakers into the docking station so that cord is out of the way.

I should add that I have the following plugged into my docking station: two dvi monitors, polycom, keyboard, and I'd like to add the external speakers as well but for now they're not plugged in due to the buzzing noise.

Both my husband and I looked all over this site Friday evening and couldn't find one post about this awful buzzing noise with the Ultra or Pro Dock docking stations. Is anyone here experiencing this issue and is there a fix for it?

Many thanks in advance ~

[puma]

Just a hunch but did you try trying different speakers or moving them far away from whereever they are? I have a feeling it's an interference thing with them... try moving their cables around too. 2 docks, same buzz? Doesn't seem likely to be them.

[TTY]

Hello and welcome to the forum

there is a small possibility that by accident, you have implemented a ground loop. If you're using a shielded ehternet cable, try to solve the problem by replacing it with an unshielded one. Unshielded ethernet cables are often marked UTP (unshielded twisted pair).