Thinkpad Dock II

[Paul S]

I just received a refurbished Dock II that I purchased off IBM Canada's website.

The fan at the back makes a medium pitched whinning sound in addition to the general noise of the Dock II when the Dock II is active. The sound of the Dock II is not nearly as loud as the tower PC that I have but it is quite noticeable compared to the quite of the thinkpad T40 that is connected to it.

Is the noise of the fan and the general noise of the Dock II normal?

[Conmee]

The Dock II is a mini-jet engine!!! ha. I am using a desk that has a hutch and backboard. So it reflects the fan sound right back to me... I couldn't stand it... the only good thing is that you can't hear ANY noises from the Thinkpad when it's in the Dock II.

So... what I did, is I went to Radio Shack and bought a small on/off switch. I drilled a small hole into the front base of the Dock II right in front of the key lock (since internally, that's the only place to put a switch. I then spliced into the fan line, and now I can selectively turn the fan on or off. The only time I turn on the fan is when I'm using the Ultrabay to backup to a hard drive or to use my Ultrabay Multiburner. Otherwise, the heat was quite low without the fan running. The other time to use the fan is if you have a video capture card (like ATI All In WOnder) which generates alot of heat. Then you'll have to run the fan continuously. So that's it...

Not sure if the Mini Dock has a fan or not, but now that my new T42p will have a DVD-R, and I have a USB video capture and TV device, I don't really need the PCI slot of the Dock II, and I could live without the Ultrabay.

Daniel.