Question ThinkPad Workstation Dock not working properly after getting wet.

[Corobori]

This morning on my way to the office I got soaked by a heavy rain while carrying my Thinkpad P51. When in my office I plugged it into my docking station and fired up the notebook. At first, I got a message saying "Can't find the battery" (or something similar). I powered off the device, flipped it over, and saw something I didn't notice is that the bottom part of my notebook got some rain and was wet, not drenched by I could see humidity, I removed the battery to get rid of the humidity and this didn't change anything. Then we got a power cut that forced me to wait. Two hours later power was restored and my notebook fired up all right, the message about the battery missing was gone.
But none of the devices connected to the docking station were working: my 2 monitors (they have power and are connected to the dock), the keyboard, and the loudspeaker, but it is charging the notebook fine, which looks like the only thing that the dock does.

I have powered off the docking station several times and waited for some time (up to one hour) but I never managed to restore connection to other devices. I ran a complete hardware scan on the notebook and everything seems ok.

The docking station looks like a pretty enclosed device I can´t see how water could have gone into it. Perhaps humid connectors but by now that should have dried up.

Any suggestion?

 

[Lutfij]

Make and model of your docking station? In retrospect, you inspect all your devices in case they end up being drenched or even having some form of moisture on them. I think you should use a hair dryer to dry out the docking station.

I don't want to suspect the moisture on the connector might've caused a short but that will be apparent if you can first dry it and if it still doesn't work, you can disassemble it to see the innards.

 

[Corobori]

Make and model of your docking station? In retrospect, you inspect all your devices in case they end up being drenched or even having some form of moisture on them. I think you should use a hair dryer to dry out the docking station.

I don't want to suspect the moisture on the connector might've caused a short but that will be apparent if you can first dry it and if it still doesn't work, you can disassemble it to see the innards.

It is a ThinkPad Workstation Dock 230W see here

I tried the hair dryer.
The devices, monitor, loudspeaker, and keyboard, were in my office so they didn't get wet, the connectors are on the back of the docking station so they are also dry. The only part that yes got some moisture is the actual connector where the notebook connects.

I reckon I might go for the disassembling part.

 

[Corobori]

Tentative diagnosis is that the laptop circuit connecting to the dock is damaged. Ascertain by directly connecting mentioned peripherals to laptop ports.

If you are up for it, you can peruse laptop's HW Maint Manual for relevant troubleshooting procedure. If it's a work laptop, repair should be a business expense.

https://download.lenovo.com/pccbbs/mobiles_pdf/p51_hmm_en_sp40k88791_01.pdf

Let’s see tomorrow: I have disassembled part of the docking station and will leave it part opened during the night to ventilate it, in case of some moisture was still inside.

The Lenovo hardware scan didn’t come up with any issue but I didn’t find anything related to the docking station in that scan, and, unless I missed it, the HW manual doesn’t say much neither about that part of the notebook.

 

[Corobori]

Well, it looks like the issue is indeed with the notebook: I tried connecting a monitor using the notebook's HDMI port and it wasn't detected. Connecting the loudspeaker to the lateral USB port and into the audio port did work.