The core problem is that modern sleep does not work when the machine is connected to a docking station. My requirements are straightforward - most of the time the laptop is connected to a docking station and works with the lid closed. When it goes into sleep mode for a short period it's fine, but after a while it seems to switch to a lower power mode which leads to a restart. Every morning when I do a wake from sleep the machine does a hard restart, losing any open windows, documents etc. If it is undocked it doesn't happen. I have tried two different docking stations and the behaviour is the same.

As a compromise I have tried using hibernate and not sleep, but the problem there is that wake from hibernate using the mouse or keyboard only works with the lid open. If the lid is closed there is no wake.

I have tried the following:

* clean install of Windows
* BIOS update
* update of all drivers from Dell and Intel

As it stands the machine does not meet what I think are basic requirements for a laptop used in an office environment. I have looked through the Dell forums and these issues are common across a whole range of laptops - and it has been going on for more than a year. I have tried numerous BIOS setting changes, registry changes and so on but nothing works. As there seems to be no solution than I would like to return my machine and get a refund. If I had known about these issues I would never have purchased a Dell.