T60 and USB IR receiver hangs BIOS

[ptr727]

I have the "2008" series T60 in a docking station.
The docking DVI output to a DVI to HDMI converter.
A SoundBlaster Live USB for TosLink audio (I could not get the T60 SPDIF output to work).
The TosLink output from the SB to the DVI to HDMI converter to inject audio in the HDMI stream.
The HDMI out to a Belkin HDMI switch.
The switch HDMI out to my TV.
A SIIG USB MCE IR receiver, controlled by a Harmony 880 remote.

After assembling all this, and booting, I noticed that while in the BIOS screen the keyboard would sometimes not be responsive, e.g. I would press the arrow button, and a few second later the cursor would move.

I was running XP Pro SP2 on the T60, and the stuttering keyboard behavior did not affect XP after boot.

It turns out that the USB IR receiver I purchased does not have XP drivers, but I wanted to upgrade to Vista anyway, so I did a clean Vista Ultimate install.

Vista would just randomly hang. The numlock key could still be changed, the screen was just frozen, and a 10s power button was the only way to get the machine back.

I restored the XP image and it worked fine, although when navigating the BIOS screen with the keyboard it was still stuttering.

I removed the T60 from the dock, reinstalled Vista, the BIOS did not stutter, and Vista worked fine.

After a few days of experimentation I found the following:
- The USB IR device causes the BIOS stuttering.
- The problem only happens if the IR is plugged into one of the USB ports on the dock.
- If the IR is plugged into the side of the notebook there is no problem.
- If I dock my newer T61 the BIOS has no stutter problems even if the IR is in the dock ports.
- The T61 has the 2.09 BIOS and the T60 has the 2.20 BIOS.
- When the keyboard stutters I can see that the IR device light is flashing, the IR light never comes on during boot if directly in the notebook.

With the IR directly in the notebook USB port all is well.

I am using exactly the same IR device in a desktop media center machine, no problems there.

This is the IR device:
http://www.siig.com/ViewProduct.aspx?pn=CE-000022-S1
http://www.smsc.com/main/catalog/sio1049.html

It is inconvenient to have to remove the USB coneccter from the notebook everytime I undock instead of leaving it in the docking port, I am also concerned that there may be other issues with the dock USB ports, and the stuttering is just a symptom.

Can anybody offer any advice?

Regards
P.