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    Docking station for area-51m

    Discussion in '2015+ Alienware 13 / 15 / 17' started by elflegolas, May 14, 2020.

  1. elflegolas

    elflegolas Notebook Consultant

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    Hi guys
    I realised If I connect hard drives or phone via usb hub the computer can’t recognise it correctly
    But since there’s so little port on the area51m itself , I wonder is there any dock i can use like external port hub and actually does read the driver correctly ? thanks a lot
    I’ve tried to google it but most of the people want to find a dock that can supply the power for the laptop, I don’t need that but not much discussion going on at all...
     
    elflegolas, May 14, 2020
    #1
  2. ssj92

    ssj92 Neutron Star

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    You can't charge the laptop itself with anything other than the AC adaptor from the laptop. To power external devices you need to use a powered hub or dock.

    You have 3 choices:

    1) Alienware Graphics Amplifier - allows external GPU to be added in the future and adds 4x USB ports without using any current USB ports.

    https://www.amazon.com/Alienware-9R...9506917&sprefix=alienware+grap,aps,209&sr=8-1

    2) Thunderbolt dock - expensive but here's an example:

    https://www.amazon.com/Dell-Docking...words=thunderbolt+dock&qid=1589506840&sr=8-11

    3) USB3 hub - cheapest but will probably not power high amp required devices (there are powered hubs as well)

    https://www.amazon.com/Anker-Extend...ild=1&keywords=usb3+hub&qid=1589506967&sr=8-3
     
    ssj92, May 14, 2020
    #2
    etern4l, elflegolas and Spartan@HIDevolution like this.
  3. elflegolas

    elflegolas Notebook Consultant

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    No I don’t need the dock to charge my laptop at all, I think I will go for the amplifier coz it saids direct link to pcie express, thanks a lot for the suggestion :D
     
    elflegolas, May 16, 2020
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  4. liviu2007

    liviu2007 Notebook Guru

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    i have firecuda gaming dock connected to my 17 r4 via tb3 and is amazing! plus it has a 4tb hdd plus an slot for nvme ssd! a bit pricey but i reccomend!
     
    liviu2007, May 26, 2020
    #4