Advanced Mini Dock: FOUND THE PROBLEM!!! READ ON!

UPDATE: Hey everyone! GREAT NEWS!

After I got home I hooked my dock back up, and individually, 1 device at a time, hooked all my items into the Advanced Mini-Dock.

I THINK I found the problem!!! I got EVERYTHING to work perfectly... I even got my Belkin Thumb Mini Hub (Self Powered) to work! The ONLY thing that didn't work was when I booted the computer on WITH my external Seagate Hard Drive powered on before the Laptop was. If I turned it off before I booted the PC, everything works! In fact, if I tuned the Hard Drive off WHILE the Thinkpad screen was frozen, the laptop continued to boot! So basically the Hard Drive can stay plugged in on boot, it just cant be powered on. Based on someone else's issue with an externally powered USB drive also not working, I think we can safely come to a conclusion that the Advanced Mini-Hub does not like "powered" USB devices to be "on" while cold booting. For me, this is ok.. I can just turn my external Hard Drive off when needed as I use it for occasional backups... this might be a deal killer for others.

Im curious if maybe a stronger wattage/voltage AC Adapter would fix this issue, or if its something else all together?

Eitherway, I'm SOOO stoked that all is working well again. (Outside of my fan still needing to be fixed from rubbing up against a wire)

As an added Bonus, I'm also happy to say that I have Vista Ultimate installed on my T61 (with NVIDIA) and when I dock and undock the resolution outmatically goes back and forth between the 1440x900 native of my Thinkpad and the native 1680x1050 of my 22" External LCD! I couldn't be happier! I was seconds away from RMAing this machine... glad I took the time to test Too bad Lenovo support couldn't figure this out on their own... but thats a whole other joke...errr, I mean story.

Hope this is of help to many!

 

do you have a post on your Ultimate install?

 

No... did you need any help or have questions about it?

 

not specifically, what guide did you follow?
Did you do the 64 bit?
nothing different in the install compared to 32bit?
thx...btw, good to see the dock working.

 

The 64bit setup is identical to the 32bit....

 

You are "My Hero"...

 

Sounds like you discovered an easy enough solution.

Did you report this to Lenovo tech support? I wonder if this could be fixed with a BIOS or driver update.

 

Really!?! Awww shucks!

 

I'll be reporting it tomorrow to Lenovo as I have to call them to confirm Im still having someone come out to fix my fan.

 

I've had the same problem with an older Sony Vaio, no dock. It won't book with a connected, externally powered USB hub. As soon as I unplug that, it boots, and I can plug it back in.

I wonder how common this problem is.

 

My belkin powered hub & powered extenal HDD works fine with my advanced mini dock. When connecting USB items for the first time you should always do one at a time.

 

Interestingly enough... I ended up getting a new Externally powered USB Harddrive... a 500GB Seagate FreeAgent, and while its plugged in and on it works fine. In fact, it shuts down completely when the PC does and starts up when the PC does. Maybe its just older or specific pieces of hardware.