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Orange light on docking station NIC
I have an Inspiron 8100, running XP Pro, and I inherited (not by death) a docking station, which works with the laptop. Well almost everything works except the LAN connection. The light on the back of the docking station is orange. When I plug the LAN connection in the combo NIC/Modem connection on the laptop it fires right up.
I have tried the following to no avail... deleting the docked configuration from hardware profiles... didn't do anything. Disabled and deleted the combo NIC/modem card in the computer... nothing. Tried seaching for new hardware while docked... nothing. Searched high and low for drivers on dell.com, but nothing works, and most message threads say XP has the drivers in the software any way.
Any ideas? I need some love!
DELL-Karell
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January 8th, 2004 17:00
Murpheous,
Thank you for using the Dell Community Forum.
You may want to try any of the following steps which you have not already tried.
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1.Upgrade to the latest system bios file
2.Reset the bios defaults:
How do I restore the Setup Defaults on my Dell™ Inspiron™ portable computer?
3.Go to the Windows update site and install all critical updates.
For WindowsXP make sure you have SP1 installed.
For Windows2000 make sure you have SP4 installed.
4.Remove the docking profile and rebuild it.
Boot the system undocked.
Right Click the My Computer icon, and click Properties.
Click the Hardware tab, and then click the Hardware Profiles button.
Delete all profiles showing except for the one flagged as Current (Normally named Undocked).
Click OK.
Click the Device Manager button.
Click the plus + sign to the left of Other Devices, then right-click each item and click Uninstall..
NOTE: In some circumstances, Other Devices may not be listed in the device manager.
Click the plus + sign to the left of Network adapters, right-click each item and click Uninstall.
NOTE: In some circumstances, Network adapters may not be listed in the device manager.
5.Try another docking station if you have one.
Try another system that supports that docking station to see if it has the same problem
with the docking station.
6.Restore your system to a previous working date.
If using Windows98 you can use "scanreg /restore".
If using WinME or XP, you can use "System Restore".
7.Undock and redock the system.
Make sure it is firmly seated and has a good connection.
8.Try disabling devices in the system bios while docked..
-Disable your serial port.
-Disable your parallel port.
-Disable your infrared port.
-Disable your wireless TrueMobile or Bluetooth cards if you have them installed.
-Disable your internal modem.
-Disable your onboard network controller.
Then boot up and see if the use devices work properly.
If they do, enable one device in the bios at a time, rebooting each time, to see which device was causing the problem.
9.Try changing the following bios settings while docked.
-Try setting your "Boot Post" settiong to Automatic, or Thorough.
-Set your "Pointing Device" to PS/2 Mouse.
-Set your "Universal Connect" option to Disabled.
10.The following has been reported to work by other customers.
-Have the system docked on the docking station.
-Turn the system off.
-Unplug all cables from the back of the docking station including your AC Adapter.
-Leave the cables removed for 10 minutes.
-Plug all cables back into the docking station.
-Reboot the system.
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