issues w/ internet connectivity and sound using the Plugable UD 160-a

I’m having two problems:

  1. I have my Plugable dock connected to the wireless router and up until now assumed that while I was on the internet, that it was via a wired connection. I happened to notice that my laptop is actually picking up the wireless router’s wifi. How can I get my laptop to accept the internet access from the wired connection via the Plugable dock instead of the wifi.

  2. When my laptop is plugged into the dock, the sound doesn’t work. I don’t have any speakers hooked up to the dock so I prefer that the sound come out of the laptop.

Laptop specs: Lenovo x220 running Windows 7 64 bit.

Hi Nhu,

Thanks for posting! We will get the sound working through the laptop speakers and Internet connectivity through the Ethernet port of thePlugable Docking Station UD-160-A.

First of all let’s set the configurations to get the sound to play through the laptop speakers-:

By default, Windows 7 makes a new USB audio device the default — even if it doesn’t have any speakers attached! So if speakers are plugged into the dock you will definitely hear the audio. But if you do not have speakers, we can get the audio to play through the Laptop speakers by making it the default playback device. Here is how to configure the settings on Windows 7-:

  1. Click on Start>Control panel and select ‘Hardware and Sound’

  2. Click on ‘Sound’. This will bring up the list of available audio devices, one of which should be your USB audio device. You should be seeing something like this-:

!](https://sslproxy.getsatisfaction.com/sslproxy/SWhAdDNLMG5zdGFuVGlWenar5LbrtG5uQdJhvnMZ-SujIWTcSz2OAdpzYOSIMvO58sXbuh96upLPYRVNeksVgioLg1tGp7ShriPRHFje784i5EEdQpKQU4ft464qpoTtQXNAWAtFv7e9z6hGorZLKQ==.png)](http://plugable.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/win7-sound-control-panel-default.png)

  1. This is the place where, if you’re not actually using your USB or docking station audio, you can select a different audio output (e.g. your laptop’s built-in audio) and click “Set Default” to make it the default for sound output. Windows will persist this setting.

Once you change the default audio output device to the laptop speakers, all sound will be coming through it instead of going to the Docking Station’s Audio ports.

Next, about the Internet connectivity through the Ethernet port on the Plugable Docking Station UD-160-A, can you post back or send an email to support@plugable.com with screenshots of -:

  1. The ‘Network and Sharing Center’ (Click on The Internet Icon and Click on ‘Open Network and Sharing Center’ OR Click on Start> Control Panel > Network and Internet> Network and Sharing Center)

  2. The Device Manager (click on Start->right click on Computer and click Properties, then click on Device Manager) with the ‘Network Adapters’ expanded.

The screenshots would give us enough clarity to proceed further.

Regards,
Roze

Hi Roze,
the fix for audio worked. Thanks a ton.

Also, I just sent the screenshots to the email address that you provided. I look forward to the resolution.

Thanks,

Nhu