Getting Latitude C810 Working with Docking Station

Hi,

Are you using a Latitude or Inspiron dock ? It will fit either, but wont work in the Inspiron dock.

                                                                           Regards Chris

Chris,

The ones I have say "Model No. PRX" and then later "Dell C/Port II" and then elsewhere "For use with adapter model PA-6 or PA-9".

What do you think?

Robert W.

Hi,

It should work, it sounds like a port replicator. There may be some drivers for a Dock, what is the message you get ? Does your computer say it is a Latitude ? often when the MBD is replaced, it will come up as an Inspiron.

                                                                           Regards Chris

Ah hah! Chris, you just clued me into something that I think is the culprit. A while back a Dell technician had to change the motherboard. They replaced it with one that reads "Dell Inspiron 8100 1200U Bios Version A15". I immediately noticed the difference (Inspiron vs. Latitude) and was told that they're identical.

Obviously it's now clear that this is not true! I'm going to contact them to see if they'll swap it for a motherboard that works with the docking station.

Thank you SO MUCH for your help with this,

Robert Werner
http://mwtech.com/rw

Chris,

The message is as follows: "The attached docking station is not supported on this system. Please detach the system from the docking station to avoid any damage and press [Enter] to continue."


I've looked for drivers here on Dell.com but found none. What's frustrating is that it seems like it SHOULD work ... but instead I get this message ... even when I press "F2 - Setup".

Any ideas?

Robert W.

Hi,

What model does the Bios say it is ? The drivers are to enable the IDE to work, not the Dock. The " C " bit of the Dock name is for Latitude " C " series.

                                                                              Regards Chris

Robert,

Don't call Dell about it, you can easily correct this problem. I'm a DSP field technician myself and get Inspiron boards for Latitudes and vice versa. The board you have in your C810 is no different than the one the tech removed. Here's what you do to make your C810 a C810 again. The tech should have done this when he replaced the motherboard because Dell ships a set of BIOS discs with every Laptop motherboard. Anyway here's what you do.

First grab your floppy drive and download the latest BIOS update from Dell for the C810.

Make the appropriate floppy and boot to DOS with it.

Next, run the .exe for the BIOS flash and use either the /jabil or /forceit switch to force the Latitude BIOS on your board. Yours should work with /jabil. That's the one that worked with my Inspiron 8200 (I wanted to use a Latitude CDock myself). Then you should be able to use your Latitude docking station with impunity. Like I said though, the technician should have flashed you to C810 BIOS when he replaced the motherboard...I hope he wasn't working for my company.

Hi,

Most of the above is true, [ IMO ] they share the MBD. With the wrong Bios, they dont share the Dock. That is why I asked about it in my 2nd post, some techs are lazy, others well........ Did the tech put the service tag back in ? Slaixth, what company are you with ?

                                                                        Regards Chris

I'm with QualXServ Chris, and to the best of my knowledge we're required to change the Service tag and BIOS to the correct one on Business customers. I always flash the Service tag on notebooks though. Regardless of weather or not it's a home or business customer.

Hi,

That is good to hear, many techs just swap a part, and leave. I know of many cases where the machine wont even boot, the MBD was swapped, but not set for the HDD type. Here in Aus. we have Getronics, Unisys and NCR.

                                                                            Regards Chris

Gentlmen,

Let me be the first to say that you two are geniuses because I'm now typing this from my docked [once again] Latitude laptop computer!!! It works great!!! Thank you BOTH!

Now, because I'm a complete novice to docking stations, let me share with you one small oddity. I stand to be corrected, but it seems that the only way I can get it to dock correctly is to first start it up in undocked mode and then later dock it. I'm sure there must be a way around this restriction but so far it is the only surefire way I've found to get it to connect properly to everything via the docking station.

Obviously what I'd like to be able to do is just open up the lid while docked and start working away. Is there something I've neglected to do to make this happen?

Final question: On the left side of the docking station is a power button. To the right of this is a smaller button with a light and strange symbol above it. What's that for?

Robert W.

Well, the smaller button on the dock next to the power button is the eject button. This puts the Laptop in standby mode so you can eject it from the dock. The laptop needs to be either shutdown, or in standby/hibernate before you can put it in the docking station. Windows XP and 2000 should handle docking quite swimmingly, I'd need more info on your problem before I could tell you a possible fix.