Troubleshooting Docking Station Issues
Description:
This article covers troubleshooting steps you can preform when having issues with your computer or peripherals connecting to your docking station at your desk.
Since everyone in the firm is issued a laptop as their primary computer all of the desks in the firm will be equipped with a docking station to expand the capabilities and ease of use.
We use our docking stations to make it easy to connect several external devices (monitors, keyboard, mouse, etc) through one plug to our laptops.
All of the docking stations are generally compatible with all of our laptops, so you can connect any of our laptops to and of our docks using the USB C port on the side of your laptop.
It should be noted that even though our docks have removable media (SDcard) slots, for security we have disabled the ability to mount external storage devices on our laptops. The only exception to this is a few laptops in each office operated by IT.
Symptoms:
"How do I know if my docking station is the issue?"
There are several tell tale signs that your dock is the cause of a problem, other times it's not so obvious but you can still perform some steps to eliminate it as a possible cause for your issue.
Some of these are signs that you will need to troubleshoot the dock when your laptop is connected to it:
- Laptop not charging
- External monitors not showing an image or the image appears wrong in some way
- Peripherals like keyboard, mouse, USB camera that are connected to the dock are not functioning
- Hearing a repeating device connection notification sound from your computer while the dock is connected
- Internet connection stops working when docked
Troubleshooting:
"So what can I do about it?"
Troubleshooting the dock has a few simple steps:
- Confirm the dock is getting power.
- All of our docking stations have a power light that is always on, even when a computer is not connected to it.
- If you don't see a power light, confirm the power cord is connected to the dock and to a working surge protector.
- Disconnect dock from computer, wait about 5 seconds. and reconnect it.
- Disconnect dock from computer, disconnect power from dock, wait 5 seconds, reconnect power to the dock, reconnect dock to computer.
If you are having a problem with one device connected to the dock: like a single monitor, mouse, keyboard, etc. you can determine if the dock is the problem by directly connecting the device to your computer if it has the correct available port.
For example: If your mouse isn't working when plugged into the dock, but does work when plugged directly into the computer, then something is likely wrong with the dock.
Escalation:
"Nothing worked. What next?"
If none of the above troubleshooting resolved your issue, or you aren't comfortable with performing the above steps yourself, please contact IT Support for further assistance.