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Docking Stations

M

MajorM

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Joined
Aug 12, 2010
Messages
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I think I am using the right term for this but what im trying to do is be able to have a fixed large display and keyboard but use my laptop to run it. From what ive seen most of the docking stations are made for more of what I would call business brands like Dell and Lenovo but I have an Asus laptop. Is this an easy concept that I seem to be missing? I basically want to be able to walk up to the desk and plug my laptop into ac power and connect the display. From there I would like to access and use the laptop with its display closed and out of the way.

The other option would be just to setup an VPN and build a bare bones computer to just leave at the office. The issue with that is we have bad power at night where the office is and get surges. I have everything important hooked into UPS's but a strong surge or a lightning strike could get past that. When I leave the majority of equipment gets disconnected from the outside power for protection. With that said the computers are normally off and unplugged. I could have an offsite storage drive but you can see what this is starting to turn into. (I am self employed) Thats why I was looking at a docking station. That way I can work from home or at the office on my laptop.

Am I looking into the right products or is there some way to do this more simply?
 
What's the end goal? Office work? gaming? All I read there was just one long rambling couple paragraphs without much of a point. What specific laptop do you have? Does it have usb 3.0?

There's two main "docking stations"
One: the business lines as you've already ran into.
Two: The dedicated GPU ones like MSI's graphics amplifier or the one from Dell/Alienware that I forget the name of.

Full performance from external monitors does require a dedicated port and a matching docking station.
You can get usb 3.0 devices that can sort of get you there but those are effectively 3.0 hubs w/ built-in USB video cards. Aka: you're not going to be doing much of any gaming on it.
 
OP your post is slightly confusing, at first it sounds like your just looking for a docking station for your laptop that hooks up via USB, which is going to be easy to find, as your ASUS more than likely does not have a docking station adapter.

Your second paragraph makes it sound like you are also interested in being able to RDP into your office from home. These are two different things entirely.

So yes get a USB 3.0 dock for your laptop and hook it up to a monitor and keyboard.

If you need to RDP into your office then yes a bare-bones VPN desktop hooked to a UPS is probably your best option.

But if your disconnecting the office equipment for fear of electrical damage every time you leave your not really going to be able to do much work remotely with all your systems disconnected.
 
Sorry for the misleading post. I can see how it may have read bad.

What I was trying to get across with the two different goals was that I can either find a docking station solution or go the VPN route were the laptop is no longer necessary. I have a ASUS G51VX which is not a newer laptop by any means but I have changed the CPU,hard drive to a SSD and the LCD to a 1080p display. Unfortunately it is USB 2.0 because of its age. Hovering over a 1080x1920 15" screen gets old doing it all day so that's why I would like a larger display. What are some good brands of USB docking stations that I can start looking through? I can filter through the USB 2.0 and 3.0 versions.

As far as a computer left in place at the office and used as a VPN it would be powered all the time as like you said would be useless otherwise. I have to work from home and from the office so thats where the question stems from. I was just laying out two options with the VPN route being a more expensive and complicated method.
 
If you're primarily looking for a bigger display at home, I'd strongly consider using the HDMI output for video and a standard USB2.0 hub with KB/Mouse/DAC ect hooked up. It will take 2 cables instead of 1 USB3.0 cable, but a USB2.0 'docking station' isn't going to have the bandwidth to do a good job supporting a display output.
 
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