Samsung Slate Pc Dock

PROS: Build quality and feel is excellent. Works great. Includes pins to ‘line up’ the slate so it’s very easy to insert the slate onto the dock properly. Includes an RJ-45 network connection, HDMI connection, power connection, audio/headphone connection, and one USB connection.

CONS: It does not include its own separate power supply, which is a real inconvenience and unexpected considering the price. I’m really disappointed that there’s only one USB connection, as now I have to get a USB hub in addition to this dock.

I own this dock and have found it useful for linking to a large hdmi monitor and my wired connections. I recently upgraded the OS on my Slate and found that the LAN ethernet port was unavailable. Searching I saw that numerous others have had the same problem. Samsung support site listed no answer (as of 8/31/12), customer forums were no help. I changed all of my LAN drivers and nothing worked.
UNTIL, I came across a post on a tabletpcreview user forum where another user discovered that the answer was to POWER DOWN YOUR DOCK.
I did it, replaced my slate, replugged the ethernet cable in, and without power connection to the dock I IMMEDIATELY connected to my ethernet wired network.
I saw another user here replaced two of these units for that problem. I was feeling hopeless and thinking wifi was my only option.

Here’s the original forum post text I found:

BabbleBits
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Default Re: Can’t get Ethernet connection to work with dock

I was having the same issue on my Samsung Series 7 Slate … the wired Ethernet kept disconnecting and auto switching to wireless, or the RealTek adapter disappeared altogether while the tablet was docked in its Samsung docking station.

So far, I’ve solved the problem (fingers crossed) by doing a little experiment first. I learned that the RealTek PCIe GBE Family Controller exists in the dock itself, not in the tablet. So even after docking/undocking the slate in the tablet, once the wired Ethernet was gone, it stayed gone. I had a 2nd dock, and after plugging that in and docking the S7S in it, the RealTek adapter came back. So, my first impression was that I had a bad dock.

Not so fast! Curious, I switched back to the original dock, and the RealTek adapter was present and working! Several hours later, I noticed that the Slate had switched back to Wireless, and the wired Ethernet adapter was showing a yellow ! in the devices list when I checked for it. Then when I went to check its properties, it disappeared.

So knowing that the adapter was in the dock, and not the PC, I then disconnected the power supply from the dock, undocked the slate, re-attached the power cord to the dock and re-docked the slate. Bingo, the RealTek adapter re-appeared and was functioning properly. No more yellow ! in the devices list either.

So I think, for whatever is going wrong, the adapter needs to be power cycled in the dock to bring it back alive.

I’ve since gone into the configuration properties of the RealTek hardware device in the Device Manager, and on the Power Management Tab I unchecked “Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power”. This shouldn’t be a problem because when the state is undocked, it leaves the device behind in the dock.

I didn’t have any better luck (with out making any changes) by updating to the RealTek driver directly from the RealTek site. Right now, the “best driver” found by Windows is the Microsoft 8.1.720.2011 driver which is what I’m now running.

Oh, and I am running the Windows 8 Developer Preview on this slate as well.

Let me know if this works for you or anyone else.

B

1/12/2012

BEST OF LUCK ALL! HOPE THIS MESSAGE SAVES YOU HEADACHES LIKE IT DID ME!

The dock is sturdily built, though small. The folding top makes the dock easy to take with you and use to hold the Slate. Since the Slate requires a holder when using it like a laptop, the dock is very useful to have with you when traveling. If you buy a Slate, you should really get a dock as well.

PROs-
1. Compact. I bought the tablet for portability. The accessories should be pretty portable too.
2. Durable. It’s tough. I’m guessing it’s anodized aluminum. It hurt my toe when I accidentally dropped it. So, there’s that.
3. Simple. I didn’t some magical piece of equipment that looks like a model replica of a hydra just to hold my tablet up and do a half decent job doing it. This is well made and of simple enough design I’m certain my three year old could figure out what it’s for and how to use it.

CONs-
1. One more USB port would have prevented me from needing to carry a USB hub with me. Just one. As this has one USB port and the tablet has one, it’s somewhat of a moot point.
2. There’s not enough wrong with this to complain about. I had to really think to come up with #1.

Could have one more usb port (3.0 would be great) and adjustable angle for the tablet.
But overall it’s a good product.

Fast delivery, easy to use nice and compact so it is no trouble to take along with the computer, having a full size HDMI port is a big help, as I have had problems with the micro one.

love the Samsung slate PC, fast, light and with windows 8 boots faster than my galaxy tablet. .The dock allows you to use it just a desktop when at home