I recently purchased a docking station for my Toshiba Z30t laptop and I am having problems with undocking. The docking station is connected to a Dell monitor with a Dell soundbar. The soundbar is connected through USB and appears as an additional sound card. Docking/undocking will normally automatically switch the default playback device between the external soundbar and the laptop's built-in sound card and speakers.

But, when an application has opened the playback device it will prevent the computer from undocking. This could f ex be Windows Media Player or a (even paused) Youtube tab in Firefox. The following error message appears:

"You cannot eject your computer because one of the devices in the docking station, 'Dell AC511 USB SoundBar', cannot be stopped because a program is still accessing it."

It is annoying having to close applications to be able to undock. Is there any solution around this? Could there be some redirecting audio driver that always looks the same to the using applications, but forward sound to the appropriate device at the time?

Thanks
Mike

Hi mikewse,

Have you tried to update the driver for the device from the device manager?

To make a device work correctly ,we should get a compatible driver .It is recommended to download the driver for the device from the manufacturer website.

Considering this is third party product ,it is recommended to look for help from the device manufacturer for help .They are more familiar with their products and they may have more resources to resolve the issue .

Best regards

Thanks MeipoXu,

This soundbar has no downloadable drivers and all installed driver files are signed/delivered by Microsoft. I searched the Dell forums and this fact is confirmed there.

My impression is that this problem has more to do with Windows configuration or the docking procedure (I've seen the same problem with other audio devices) so that's why I'm asking my question here.

Best regards
Mike

Hi mikewse,

Is the soundbar driver listed in the device manager ?How about disabling this one by right clicking it to force the application to use the built-in sound card ?

Best regards

But then sound will not play through the soundbar at all? When the laptop is docked I want to play through the soundbar, and when undocked play through built-in speakers...

Hi mikewse,

The only configuration I can find related to this issue is this (Right below corner ,right click the sound option):

Is the sounbar device listed here ? We can try to change the default device to have a check or manually disable it from the properties tab before we undock the station .

Have you tried to ask for help from the Dell forum for any good ideas ?

Best regards

To accomplish what you described you will need third party software that emulates an audio device or a driver developed to your specifications. You may want to look into audio device emulation software.

Brandon
Windows Outreach Team- IT Pro
Windows for IT Pros on TechNet