m4400 docking station problem

I just ordered a docking station from ebay. Everything looks good and works fine except when I plug in my power cord to the dock it the computer says the adapter doesnt supply sufficient power to charge the laptop and requests that I plug in a 90W adapter. The thing is I'm using the 130W adapter that came with my laptop. If it makes any difference my adapter is a PA-4E model and the dock is the E-Port Plus Replicator. Am I doing something wrong? is this a faulty dock or is this an inherent problem with this dock/notebook.

 

Are you sure you plugged the AC adapter into the dock correctly? It takes a bit of force to make it go fully in (only a small strip of metal remains visible).

Also, John Ratsey here reported problems where the BIOS would not recognize a 65W power adapter on his E6400, and those were solved by updating to the latest BIOS from the Dell support site. You should do that as well.

 

Ok, I made sure it was fully plugged in and still no change. I'm running BIOS A13 which I believe is the latest. Any other suggestions? Or could it be a faulty docking station?

 

I guess it can be a faulty docking station, but before you assume that perhaps you should call Dell. Maybe they can help.

 

My E-Port Plus has a 210W power supply rather than the 130W supplied with my M4400. Therefore if you have an E-Port Plus (as opposed to the standard E-Port which has only one DVI port and no serial port), make sure you have the huge 210W power supply.

 

Thanks for the info, I have the E-Port Plus but I just had it replaced and it works fine with my 130W power supply now. Curious...I wonder what difference there is.

 

Apparently the E-Port Plus needs the larger power supply in order to support two external monitors, so it may run OK on the 130W if you don't have any external monitors.

 

Im actually running 2 20" montiors via DVI @ 1600x1200 XD and it's working just fine. I also have 1 HDD connected via esata and another connected via usb

 

Did some research, apparently the e-Port Plus doesnt need a 210W adapter, only a 130W as seen on the dell product page:http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/...etail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&sku=430-3114

The 210W adapter is for when you have the m6400 docked, which I dont have.

 

Hi guys, thanks for the info. i'm actually looking at buying a docking station for myself at the moment. i'm looking at the e-port Plus as well... it only comes with the 210W adapter though - is that ok??? i'm looking at just running one external monitor and using the laptop lcd for my emails etc... any info would be helpful...

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Dell m4400 | Windows XP x86 | Core 2 Duo 2.53Ghz (P9400) | 4GB RAM | 1920x1200 RGB-LED | nVidia Quadro FX 770m w/ 512MB GDDR3 | 320GB SATA @7200RPM