Dell Latitude E4200 Info

I thought it was disabled but it was not. Backlight control only works with ALS enabled for me.

 

Thank you so much!! Worked great!!!!!!!

 

Alright, I just had a funky experience with ALS. Armed with newfound knowledge that ALS is enabled, I ventured into the dark territory of Suspend mode trying to invoke it. So after a couple of tries, once my laptop came out of sleep, and I logged in, my screen literally went CRAZY! It was dimming in and out, in and out as if on fire. It freaked me out so I put an end to it by toggling the ALS off switch using the FN key.

You guys should try it in Win7--It's quite entertaining!

 

I put the AML on and it wouldn't let me control the light at all.
Not sure, so I took it off as I love the Windows 7 speed it adds to me.

 

OK, here's a strange one. When docked, sometimes after I put my E4200 on standby, it wakes up all by itself less than a minute later. This doesn't seem to happen when it is undocked. If I hibernate the machine, it stays asleep.

Any ideas?

 

This typically happens if a process is alive and asking the laptop to come out of sleep. Docking can be quirky but the Del docks are pretty mature and this shouldn't be happening. You should see what you are running and see how that process interacts with the docking procedure. I bet it's that.

 

OK, it woke up by itself again, after I had hibernated the machine and then undocked it!!

I have 73 processes running right now, any suggestions how to figure out which one might be waking up the laptop? Apps running are Outlook and 3 instances of Firefox.

Boy, more weirdness -- Just as I was typing this post, the machine also popped up the bubble that says a storage device was connected to the machine (like when you plug in a eSata device) -- but I didn't do that. The machine is undocked and nothing is plugged in other than a USB-powered notebook cooling pad.

Thanks for the help.

 

The biggest offender with me, in the past, with matters such as these is WMP. There is an option in the player that doesn't allow the screen saver to come through and acts funky while the computer is trying to suspend or hibernate itself. I am gonna guess you don't have it running though. Windows 7, right? You didn't experience this with Vista? One of my wacky Brando USB notebook coolers has a SATA 2.5" inch bay built-in, nothing like that on your side, either, right?

 

Win XP Pro actually. I don't see any processes that are obviously WMP related, definitely aren't any applications. I also restarted the machine yesterday and hadn't run WMP since.

Last night I left the machine on standby in the dock. It was fine for most of the evening, but overnight while sleeping it woke itself up again... It was on when I woke up.

FYI, the notebook cooler is a simple Targus that just uses power off the USB, it doesn't appear as a device.

Thanks for the help

 

Ahh Win XP.

Please check your Windows Updates to see when the last updates were installed. MS has a policy of releasing updates every second Tuesday of the month (though it can be a bit earlier or later). The update rules usually override personal preference as far as Microsoft is concerned :/ Rain or shine, your laptop WILL wake up to update itself, docking be damned.

That's my experience anyway.