Docking Station/Port Replicators

That's weird; I don't have that issue with my D-series dock with Win7. Sure you're set up properly and have any needed drivers installed?

I find it hard to imagine that Dell reduced the functionality in the E-series docking solution versus the D-series.

 

My e-port behaves as I would expect with my E6400. However, I normally hibernate the computer before undocking. I can see that ejecting a running computer could cause confusion, particularly if any external drives are connected.

John

 

Surprisingly yes, it seems Dell did make this change with the E-series docks. I googled the phenomenon and found out that many other people have the same complaints.

 

I have an E-port dock and love it. I use it with my Dell E4310. Have external monitor/mouse/kb/speakers all attached to it and up until recently had eSATA external drives attached as well (got a NAS from QNAP to replace them).

I hot dock/undock regularly (running Win7 64bit) and have never had any problems. When I used to have the external drives I would always make sure to "safely remove" and also physically disconnect the drive just to be safe before undocking. I have hibernate disabled on my system but I do use the "sleep" function quite often. However, I have never docked/undocked a sleeping computer, it is either turned off or on and awake.

The dock is very convenient and I never have to fuss with cables.

I do recall that when I had a D630 with a D-series dock and WinXP that windows would recognize the dock and there was a soft undock button in the start menu. Not sure if this was changed with Vista/Win7 or with the Latitude E-series but in my current configuration the dock is "invisible" and just works (I realize this may be undesired if you want a special docked configuration), but I can report that there are no issues with hot undocking/docking a live system (be sure to safely remove any external hard drives though).

 

I use the E-port dock with an external monitor, keyboard and mouse and I don't have trouble hot undocking either. I just make sure I safely unmount my external drives before I eject it. I usually undock it before I put it to sleep, but I have docked it whilst it was still asleep and it's resumed just fine, picked everything back up where it left off. I think one time mine machine hung and wouldn't go to sleep whilst it was still docked (I've attributed that to my stupid HP printer).

 

I have just ordered my 4310 with E-port Dock. I hope dont run into any problems.

 

Gents, not sure, but with the "small" port replicator DELL Port Replicator : EMEA1 Legacy Expansion Port (Kit) : Laptop Accessories - Accessories | Dell UK the E6510 is not mark as compatible.
Does this mean that it is not compatible with E6510, I though databus was still the same between E6510 and E6500?

 

Think again. The E-Series docks do not have an "Undock" button. So, there is obviously no way to tell the system that you are about to undock from the dock itself. And it does not show up in the "Safely remove hardware..." task bar app or anywhere else I can find.

This is in Win7 on an M4500.

However, when I plug an ESATA drive into the dock, it does show up in the "Safely remove hardware..." app and I can "eject" it, whereon it disappears from "My Computer" until I unplug and plug it in again.

Not quite as convenient as it used to be though.

-Mike

 

As I believe the dock itself is meant to be completely hot-swap, the real question here is whether or not it's safe to disconnect an external drive without "ejecting" it first?

For the most part, you "should" disconnect drives before physically disconnecting them... but I've been kind of doing it on and off for years without any real negative effects. As long as you're not actively reading or writing from the drive when you pull the plug, it shouldn't really be a problem.