turning an l702x into a desktop, What do I need?

I have my 702x, it's a great machine but my desk is too high to comfortably keep my wrists. I have bought a keyboard tray for under my desk, a wireless keyboard and mouse. While I was at it I bought a 23" hdmi monitor. I have a space where I can keep the laptop close to the desk. It's close enough that I could use the USB ports and dvd drive when needed.

My main question is how to turn it on or return from hibernation? I can't think of a way without opening the lid and pressing the power button. I have never used a laptop dock/replicator but I would imagine that would have a power button but putting the laptop on a dock would make it too big to fit in the space I was planning for it... I could put the laptop on the desk and use dock with a monitor stand but I don't wanted the extra expense of a dock then a monitor stand, also it would look too cluttered.

Do I have any other options or am I stuck with the laptop on the desk with a dock and monitor stand or the inconvenience of accessing the laptop to press the power button?

thanks

 

To be honest you could probably sell the laptop and get a more powerful desktop for the same money, since you already have a 23" monitor it won't be so bad.

 

You should be able to configure the wireless mouse and keyboard to wake from sleep in Device Manager, on the Power Management tab for the keyboard and mouse devices.

Powering on might be tricky. On desktop machines, you can usually configure how the machine behaves when power is applied after a failure. E.g., because I work remotely a lot, I have my work PC configured to start when power is restored after an interruption. If there's power failure, the PC will start as soon as power is restored, and I'll be able to RD to it without having to call someone at the office and ask them to turn it on.

Turning the PC off via a power strip has the same effect; when the power strip is turned on, the PC senses that power has been restored and starts up. If the L702X BIOS offers a similar power configuration, you could do the same with your laptop.

Unfortunately, I actually am at work now and don't have the laptop with me, so I can't check the BIOS. However, I suspect that the "start up when power is restored" option is not common in laptops; the BIOS programmers may expect that the presence of the battery would make it unnecessary.

If it's not an option, you could just sleep your laptop at the end of a work session instead of powering it off. I have a Win 7 HTPC that never gets powered off, just slept.

 

This, and just buy a cheap netbook if you still need a laptop.

 

@ max and Sam,
in hindsight I should have bought a cheaper 15" and a desktop but I got one heck of a deal on a pretty loaded L702X for around $1K from the outlet. It has an i7 quad core, 1080p screen, BRDVD, backlit keyboard, BT, 3yr onsite warranty and more.

@mpalandr
thanks for the advice, I plan to use just that.


I have run into one problem though... Neither my keyboard (laptop or external) nor track pad or mouse will wake the system from sleep mode. Only the power button will wake the system.

I have double checked: control panel>keyboard>hardware>properties>power management and all keyboards/mice are set to "allow this device to wake the computer" but none do. The obvious question to ask is, am I sure I'm using sleep and not hibernate? Yes I am definitely using sleep mode.

Any ideas on this one?

 

Check in the BIOS, I don't remember the one in this system very well, but there is usually an option in REAL bioses (ie not the gimped Dell one) to "allow keyboard wake" or something to that effect, and a similar option for mouse. Check around in there, if Dell wasn't being totally stupid (unlikely I know) they left this option in the BIOS.

 

Try this, not sure if it will work, but it’s worth checking. Unfortunately I don’t have the laptop here with me at work, but I do have Win7 on a desktop. Check in Device Manager under USB Controllers. I show two “USB Root Hub” entries, the laptop may have more.

Double click the first one to open its Properties dialog, then click the Power tab. Look for a keyboard or mouse in the Attached devices list. If one or both is there, click on the Power Management tab and un-check “Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power” and check “Allow this device to bring the computer out of standby”. Click the OK button to close the dialog. Repeat for the other root hubs.

If you don’t find both the keyboard and mouse devices, then go back into each root hub’s properties, Power tab, look for a “Generic USB hub” in the attached device list, double click it to open that hub’s properties, click the Power tab and look for the keyboard or mouse in the Attached devices list. If one or both is there, click on the Power Management tab and un-check “Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power” and check “Allow this device to bring the computer out of standby”. Click the OK button to close the dialog for the Generic USB hub. Then, back in the Root hub properties for theroot hub that contained the generic hub, make the same Power Management settings.

 

It works now... thanks to you both, I think both step helped.

@mad
You were right, the bios had disabled, "USB wake devices" there was not a separate option for keyboard and mouse just a USB wake option, which is now enabled.

@mpalandr
I was not able to see the individual devices attached to each hub. I went into all "generic USB hub" and "USB root hub" and uncheck the “Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power” but “Allow this device to bring the computer out of standby” was unchecked and grayed out, so I was unable to change its status.

 

It quite possibly was a combination of the two. But without the BIOS listening to those commands, nothing was going to happen. "USB wake devices" is exactly the option I was referring to, Dell likely bundled both keyboard and mouse into the one option, which makes some sense. The touchpad and keyboard are effectively treated as a USB device in laptops I believe. It will definitely now work with external ones. Which it appears it is for you, glad to hear it!

The reason the second option that mpalandr was greyed out likely had to do with the fact that you were interfacing with the whole USB controller and not one device. But I'm just guessing wildly here...

I'm just used to building PCs these days, where the BIOSes aren't horribly gimped by not showing most of the options...but I understand why computer manufacturers do it (both laptop and desktop mind you). It just annoys those of us that understand what the other options do...