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18057
October 7th, 2008 04:00
D/Dock Blues - Shut Down and Restart Issue
Greetings,
I have a Precision M6300 set up with a D/Dock Expansion Station and 24”Widescreen. The issue I am having is in regards to restart and shut down whileconnected to the D/Dock. To put simply, the computer will not restart or shutdown.
What the system does do is remain in a power onstate with the monitor on, receiving a signal, but black. There is no cursor,blinking or otherwise.
The computer acts the same way when eithershutting down or restarting: the Windows shut down screen is shown includingthe spinning circle icon. The spinning circle will freeze, the screen dims abit then goes black. There is hard drive activity for a few seconds after this,but then rests. The power light and undock light remain lit as does themonitors power button.
In order to power off, I have to hold the powerbutton down for about 5 seconds. When the system is powered back on, everythingis normal – no error pops up and there are no issues listed in the event log.
When the computer is not docked, behavior is normal. I have checked for all updates, both at Dell and Microsoft.
Any ideas??
0 events found
TMcCaine
262 Posts
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October 7th, 2008 11:00
Is the dock a Dell dock, or an aftermarket? It is possible that the dock/port replicator is beginning to show signs of hardware failure or the MB on your laptop is.
But you can check the BIOS update and see if there is a fix for a Dock Shutdown error and attempt to update if one is provided. It may be a simple software fix like that so make sure the Dock has the correct drivers installed.
If it is a Dell dock then head over to Dell's website and make sure you have the dock utility installed. If this doesn't fix it, I have never been able to stop this problem without reinstalling the OS. You might want to save that as a last resort, but when I installed the OS with it nested in the dock it stopped the problem from happening again.
After all that, then you can suspect hardware failure.
One thing I have never attempted was the Dell diagnostics function (Function key + Power button) with a dock in place. It would be interesting to see if the diagnostics utility worked for the Dock too.
sofsoldier
82 Posts
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October 7th, 2008 23:00
My entire setup is Dell and nothing is older than 3 weeks. What is this "dock utility" and why didit not come wirh my D/Dock?
TMcCaine
262 Posts
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October 8th, 2008 00:00
Certain docking stations come with a software pack for the included equipment and hubs that are found within. Often they help the MB communicate properly with the dock as the unit technically works as a detachable daughter board and needs drivers to communicate properly. Simple port replicators do not always fall in this category.
I didn't find a specific 'dock utility' for this laptop, but you might want to download and update your BIOS if your are not running version A10, the "OpenManage Client Instrumentation" 7.5 & 7.6 as it includes several updates and fixes for your system. Also download the system utilities if you haven't already and the Dell Application Quickset. Some of these may be installed on your system, but some of them have updates, especially the open manage client instrumentation which include a couple of BIOS fixes and patches.
sofsoldier
82 Posts
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October 9th, 2008 07:00
I installed the Open Manage software, both versions with the latter version upgrading the first, as you suggested.
There was no change what so ever, and I did not notice any additional BIOS entries to test.
TMcCaine
262 Posts
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October 9th, 2008 11:00
sofsoldier
82 Posts
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October 10th, 2008 00:00
TMcCaine
262 Posts
0
October 10th, 2008 12:00
I remember this happening with a lot of Win95 machines. Back when the AT form style was the case design. You had to wait while it said "Windows 95 shutting down" and the scrolling animation would play in the bottom. Then it would say "it is now safe to turn off your computer" except that it would never get to that second part.
The only way it could be solved was a fresh install of the OS. There was a corrupted script but I never found out where it was and that solution was much faster than anything else. I shrug my shoulders at this right now and say that you will have to do some experimenting.
sofsoldier
82 Posts
0
October 21st, 2008 23:00
The problem has worked itself out, after I received a message that "Windows has recovered by a shutdown error" message - not the exact words. The message indicated the issue was with the video card driver. I recieved this message after I decided to let the machine resart on its own regardless of how long the docking station would keep the machine on. I did not time it, but I had to wait at least 30 minutes before the resart occured.
Since that time, everything now works normally.