Aaron surprised me this weekend by telling me his Dell Latitude D610 laptop, which is pretty identical to my D600 laptop, supports hot undocking. He can press the undock button and disconnect without having to put the laptop in standby mode. He and I are pretty mobile with our laptops, but use them as desktop/docked machines. I like the idea of not having to sleep the laptop and wake it back up, log back in each time I leave the desk.

So I found this flyer on Undock and Go which states it’s on all the newer laptops. Daaaamn. That’s a feature I want, and my laptop isn’t that old!

I tried a BIOS update, and a few more seemingly obvious updates for my D600 to have this functionality, but each time I press the undock button, it goes to standby. I hope that this would be a software feature, but maybe it is tied to the hardware/motherboard. I opened a case with Dell’s online support (echat) but I think I’ll take it to email.

Anyone have any ideas/pointers on where I can adjust the Undocking button features in Windows? (Assuming the BIOS and chipsets are set.)

[ Edit: After talking to Dell through their web chat, email, and phone support, it was as I feared. A chipset change between D600 and D610 allows for hot undocking -- this isn't something I can enable via BIOS or driver updates. The best I can hope for is that TSG orders a D610 and I upgrade. Until then, I'm stuck in standby -- literally. ]

[ Edit 9/14/05: Turns out Dell was wrong! While mucking around in the BIOS today for another reason, I found a toggle that controls if undocking goes to standby or keeps the system live. I set that to keep the system live, and now I'm able to undock and go as I had hoped. Yay for the features, but boo to the *three* Dell technicians who didn't know about the BIOS feature, or tell me to look there. Granted, I should have thought to look there too, but that's what you call support for. At this point, I'm just happy it does what I want. ]