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mark34 · Jul 8, 2003, 01:20 PM

I was reading the instruction manual for the 12" bookenz docking station. I haven't tried it out yet, but was wondering if anyone knew if you really had to power down before docking and undocking? It would sure be more useful if you did not. I almost never power down my Powerbook, certainly not every night.

tomas1119 · Jul 8, 2003, 04:27 PM

Originally posted by mark34:
I was reading the instruction manual for the 12" bookenz docking station. I haven't tried it out yet, but was wondering if anyone knew if you really had to power down before docking and undocking? It would sure be more useful if you did not. I almost never power down my Powerbook, certainly not every night.

I have a new 12" BookEndz that I connected yesterday but haven't undocked as yet.

One way to find out is to try it.

Anybody game?

PBAddict · Jul 8, 2003, 04:41 PM

I was looking Bookendz site, in my opinion these docking stations appear more hassle than they are worth.

icruise · Jul 8, 2003, 07:53 PM

I don't think it is necessary to turn it off. If it was, it would totally negate any marginal gains in convenienvce you would get by having the docking station in the first place. I agree that they are more trouble than they are work in most cases.

Karim · Jul 8, 2003, 08:48 PM

From my experience with my old (!! Not very) 15" Tibook w/Bookendz and OS X (circa early 2003), plugging and unplugging the bookendz with the computer on caused kernel panics.

The cause was the USB devices I had and I guess connecting so many so quickly caused panics. This problem really shouldn't be attributed to the bookendz as much as it should be OSX. 10.2x was being used at the time, I forget which variant, but it was whatever was up to date as of 12/02-3/03.

Even if the Powerbook was sleeping and put into the dock I would have similar problems.

Around 30% of the time it would work OK. I had about 6 USB devices at the time.

Another issue is that as you slide the bookendz onto the powerbook some pins may make contact before others (IE power & signals before ground) which may cause trouble. It's an angle thing.

I would call and ask their opinion on OSX and need to shutdown. Obviously the 12" doesn't allow for use of 9 from boot so they should understand were all using X.

Ideally, you really never need to shut down X unless your installing a kernel extension.

mark34 · Jul 9, 2003, 08:08 AM

Thanks Karim, that is a very helpful reply.

Macola · Jul 10, 2003, 02:47 PM

Like Karim, I don't have a BookEndz for the 12", but my experience was with one for the Ti/400 (first-generation TiBook). I wouldn't recommend "hot-docking" at all, as I had far too many problems with both Firewire and USB when I tried.