Targus Expresscard Dock

I recently purchase the targus express card dock. Everything seemed to work fine until I plugged in the monitor. It would display still images fine, but as soon as I move a window around or try to move my cursor, every begins to lag tremendously. I tried going down from my native resolution of 1024*1280, but it only provide minimal improvements. I re-installed the driver several times and tried both the VGA and DVI ports, but nothing seemed to work. Is this an isolated incident (so if I exchange another one, would it be better), or is this very common amongst this particular model? Thanks,

 

Anyone?

 

somebody?anybody?

 

I don't know about this model, but I would think it is normal. There is simply not enough bandwith for anything more than still images.

 

I know that WAS a problem, but I thought it had been solved by expresscard, had it not?

 

Pretty nice review:
http://forum.tabletpcreview.com/showthread.php?t=6119

If the speed is 4 times the speed of USB 2.0 there shouldn't be any lag on 1280 x 1024. I'm using the Targus ACP50 usb docking station. It's not "bad" - Really good on 1024 x 768. Wish it was better on 1280. I was thinking about buying the Express card dock but I think it's too expensive right now.

 

Tested:
1) Targus Express Card with Digital Video & Audio
2) Kensington USB Docking Station with Video
3) Dell XPS laptop

Seems this post is already old, but I will add my 5 cents. I have new dell laptop, almost top of the line. Got 2 docking stations: Targus Express Card with Digital Video and Audio and Kensington USB Docking Station with Video.

Kensington:
The Kensington one didn't work too well. I got projector hooked up and a Pinnacle USB PRO HDTV Stick Adapter. When I attached the docking station to laptop and attached projector and USB TV adapter the TV picture became unwatchable. I guess attaching projector will cause more overload on graphic card and processor and then plugging in USB TV Adapter will finish it off. But this setup is not supposed to be measure for performance of this dock. So if you are just looking at attaching external display to your laptop through this docking station, you will be completely fine and achieve pretty good results.

So it really depends on what is the performance of your system, what other stuff is running, speed etc...

Other problem I faced is Audio through Kensington Dock not working. Tried to reinstall all drivers on Kensington, driver for Kensington Audio, driver for Dell audio etc... Tweaking... nothing helped.

Kensington video drivers are incompatible with Vista Aero. So every time you attach the dock you Vista will inform you that it has turned off Aero due to incompatibility with (Kensington Video Driver) software.

Besides, installation for Kensington wasn't very smooth either and I wasn't able to uninstall it after that, I had to do system restore just to get rid of it.

Targus Expresscard Dock:
So far Targus docking station (using Expresscard) looks better, should run smooth video. But ....

Installation was catastrophic. Started installation... In the middle of the installation process, my USB mouse got disabled. Not even mouse, also camera, finger print reader and audio. Then it asked to insert the express card. I did. It stated that it can't install it because it doesn't recognize the card. The system froze. I restarted laptop.... Next restart Mouse worked but other things didn't. Went to Device Manager.... Everything that has to do with USB was disabled! So I re-enabled and all was back. Inserted Targus Expresscard, attached the docking station. Nothing happening. So I decided to reinstall the software and drivers. Again in middle of installation it disabled my mouse. I restarted. After that my mouse worked but the docking station didn't. It asked me for drivers for modem (in docking station).. I had to search in internet and download from softpedia. Restarted computer. Now seems everything worked. Inserted Targus card... Waiting waiting.... nothing. Something is happening in the background... Waiting for another 30 minutes. Wanted to restart, couldn’t system frozen. So I switched off. Restart. Now the card is recognized. BUT THE MOUSE is now not working and the SOUND neither. I checked Device Manager and all seems to be OK. Hell!

Nothing helped. Spent another 2 hours tinkering and reinstalling.

Final verdict - TARGUS Docking Station with Digital Video and Audio is a total crap and badly designed product. Installs 100s of layers that make a mess. The cable sticks out from the ExpressCard like horn of a moose. Because my Expresscard slot is just in front on the right side (stupid design) and the express card cable sticks out from my laptop like a horn.

Shame Targus, it looked this product has decent specs but the overall implementation is terrible. Do not buy this product, wait for another year or 2. Docking stations with video are NEW and the technology is immature.

If you really need video, then stick with Kensington Video dock. Slow but doesn't do that mess.

I am going to give a try to Belkin Dock with Video, just to see how it works.... as a sort of last try. I will post an update.

Hope this helps somebody. It doesn't mean the Docking stations above are no good. They might work pretty well on your system. But I am pretty sure they do not work properly on my system, which is Dell XPS.

- polo -

 

Seems Belkin is also Express Card only dock. Same problem as Targus with this cable sticking out where I use mouse. So I won't even touch Belkin.

Here is another - Toshiba Docking station with Video:
Toshiba PA3542U-2PRP Dynadock USB Laptop Docking Station with DVI Port
Toshiba PA3541U-2PRP Dynadock USB Laptop Docking Station with Video

Here I found a review with similar problems about Toshiba Dock. This also utilitzes Displaylink software, same as Kensington. So problems are related to that and of course to Vista.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000MND6NI/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

Verdict - don't buy any of these docking stations for another year or so. Hope manufacturers get things sorted out with Vista.

Good luck.

 

Hey Polo
Thanks for the reviews. I was actually gonna get the targus because i thought the video lag issue would have been solved by the higher bandwidth of the xpress card. Shame. I guess the best docking out there are still the HP ones with the dedicated port!

 

Yes, actually Targus works well, no problems. The only problem I had when I wanted to combine more USB docking stations. Every time I plugged in it started with adding hardware and sometimes didnt recongnize it and it added ghost unknown devices.... This was because I needed more USB ports, so I bought a 7 port D-Link USB hub and used together with Targus Dock. Now, because Targus eats lots of power and so did D-Link USB hub, they didn't like each other. At least because I am only using one USB port at notebook to connect everyhing ( and I have about 13 USB devices ;-) So I bought another USB Hub, no name. And I connected the new 4 port hub into laptop and Targus Dock and D-Link connected to this 4 port hub. Now there is no problem with devices. The only issue remained is that when I let my laptop go to stand by mode, it again coudn't recognize the chain of USB hubs.

So I bought a USB switch ;-) ... hehe crazy, right... ;-) and attached before the 4-port USB hub. Now before I am putting my laptop to sleep, I press a button on the USB switch to turn off my whole "USB cluster". All works fine and it looks elegant. The only better thing could be a wireless USB. Well, we will have to wait for a year or 2 for this to get mature.

PS - If you want watch high quality video and you have a digital port on your laptop - connect it directly to your Monitor/TV or projector. Don't mess up with docking stations that claim digital video bla bla.... It will never be without problems and quality loss.

-polo-

Good luck !