z60m redocking on Advanced Mini Dock turns off the computer

[tsailipu]

Hello fellow Thinkpad Users,

I have gotten the z60m on Windows XP Pro and an Advanced Mini-dock for two months now. I still couldn't figure out this weird phenomenon, so I am posting to see whether any of you has experienced similar pains and would have working solutions or suggestions.

These days, when I un-dock the laptop, put it onto sleep mode, carry it around, wake it up and use it, then redock it onto the station, the laptop will, upon touching the docking station, immediately turns off.

This occurs whether I redock the laptop while it is running or in a sleep mode. What's annoying is that this used to work "sometimes"; that is, redocking while it is running or in a sleep mode used to work sometimes. Just last week, there were two or three times when I woke the laptop from the sleep mode and ran it for an hour, I could then redock without any problem.

This inconsistent and frequent inconsistency or failure for z60m with Windows XP pro to redock on the Advanced Mini Dock is such a headache for me (Isn't the reason for having a laptop that you don't have to interrupt your work and can resume working in a previous state when you redock?). If you have similar experience or may know how to troubleshoot/rectify this, I would greatly appreciate hearing about it. ("Searching" about this turns out nothing for the past few weeks....)

Thanks a lot!

[tsailipu]

The Active Protection Icon -- that one that senses shocks so as to protect your hard drives -- seems to be the culprit here. That also explains why a few times before I was able to re-dock -- the movements during those few times probably were small enough that they didn't trigger the protection system.

I have tried the following procedure these past three days and it has worked so far. So I think this is the solution. If no, I will follow up later.

Assuming your laptop is in operating mode; if in sleep mode, wake it up.
Bring up the Active Protection System Properties (double click on the system tray icon),
Temporarily suspend for 0.5 or 1 min -- up to you.
Redock.

Everything should be fine -- the external LCD monitor even picks up and switches to the right resolution as you have previously set.

I guess you can also disable the Active Protection System -- that way, perhaps you can redock during sleep mode as well.

Cheers.

[tsailipu]

The same procedure failed to work these past two days (I typically tried it in the beginning of the work day). Quite fun, eh?

[brian-ky]

You're not alone. Same problem occurs on the T60 as well w/ Advanced Mini Dock.

About 50% of the time on redock (awake or in sleep mode), it immediately reboots when docked.

Latest BIOS update still hasn't resolved the problem.

I cannot believe it's taking Lenovo so long to resolve it.

[tsailipu]

What I have ended up trying to do before redocking with good enough level of success (maybe 3 out of 4 times) is to:

wake up the laptop first
disable the active protection system
disconnect the wireless connection (i use this instead of wired)
close programs that may be using I/O
wait a bit of time to let the hard drive activities die down
redock
(if successful, resume the programs and connection)

What all the above is trying to do is to wait till no I/O operations are taking place before redocking. Yeah, Lenovo/IBM ThinkVantage support looks to work better than other vendors, but it sucks when this problem still exists these days.

[tschabo]

My laptop just powered down after docking it in the suspend mode. Hence, that approach does not work without reliably

I will try the approach you suggested above.

Can anyone provide me with the IBM support phone number? I don't want to go through the online thing before getting the number...

[tsailipu]

Yeah, that happend to me, too. That's why I open the laptop, wake it up from suspend mode (by pressing the Fn button; if there is a way to map Fn to external keyboard, that would be great, because I don't need to open the laptop), then go through the steps I describe. It's a pain, but better than nothing / powering up all the time between work and home.