Thinkpads Forum

anyone have an idea if a 2nd video card is required for these monitors?

pc is 2007-84U

They state they need: (hp,dell,apple)

Input Signal Three dual-link DVI-D inputs
(Windows PC and graphics card that supports DVI ports with dual-link digital bandwidth and VESA DDC standard for plug-and-play setup requires a DVI-D dual-link graphic card that supports WQXGA
(2560 x 1600) resolution.)
Video Cable Two dual-link DVI cables

HP HP LP3065 30-inch LCD Display
requires a DVI-D dual link graphics card that supports up to 2560x1600 resolution,

Dell 3007WFP 30" monitor DVI-D (dual link) with HDCP

Apple 30 "Cinema HD Display.

any help would be appreciated.

In order to get three DVI outputs, your best option is to get an Advanced Dock and add a PCI-Express video card inside the dock.

If you were driving three 24" monitors (that don't require Dual-Link DVI) then it's a slam dunk. Add any two-ported DVI card in the dock and you're done. You'll have a total of three DVI ports (one on the Dock, plus two on the add-in card).

But since you need to drive 30" Dual-link DVI monitors, your problem gets much more complicated. You're battling two major problems:

1. The DVI connector coming off the Advanced Dock is not Dual-link DVI. It's single-link DVI and thus maxes out at 1920x1200. That means that, in order to drive three 30" monitors, you'll need to get a tri or quad ported Dual-link DVI card in the Advanced Dock's PCI-Express slot.

2. The PCI-Express slot takes small format cards. The only card available that drives quad Dual-link DVI is a very large card that won't fit inside the dock. The card is an NVidia Quadro 4500 X2 from PNY.

Here are your options:
1. Reduce your requirements to 24" monitors.
2. Rather than the Dock solution, use MaxiVista to extend your desktop, and have the Dual-link DVI video board(s) installed physically in a second desktop computer. This solution, while cumborsome, is not as low performing as you might think.
3. Get the quad card (mentioned above) and run it physically outside the dock with an extender cable. I discuss that possibility in this thread: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=22358 This is not for the faint hearted.

Also, beware of shopping for video cards that advertise supporting 2560x1600 resolution. Most of them will do that in analog (VGA) mode, but not digital, which you need.

hi..

i posted the info from the monitor website and may have made it misleading. I am only trying to drive (1) One 30" display. the display has 3 dual dvd-d inputs but for the computer I am only trying to run 1.

Would a high end ATI or NVIDIA card fit in the dock? From what you have stated the std dvi out the back isn't dual, so either I could run it from that with 1900x res or add the card if a single source dvd-d card would fit in the dock.

sorry for the confusion..

The 30" monitors support just one or two resolutions. It HP has just one resolution - 2560x1600. The Dell has the maximum flexibility and supports just two resolutions = 2560x1600 and 1280x800. This is because the 30" monitors lack internal scaling circuitry.

To answer your question: In order to drive a 30" monitor from the Thinkpad Advanced Dock, this card should do the trick for you just fine:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814150182

XFX PVT73GUGD3 GeForce 7600GT 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card

I have not tried this card personally, but it meets the specs, appears to be just the right size, and has excellent reviews. It's possible it might even drive TWO of the 30" monitors.

I found out that the dock only supports Low-profile pci cards and also that there is a limitation on power. I need to find a card that supports 1 dual dvi d and the dell monitor with resolution of 2560x1600 and it should for that have at least 256mb ram.. any ideas?

The card RonS lists above will work perfectly.

The dock cannot take two slot cards (i.e. those with tall, double slot heatsinks etc), but strictly speaking 'low profile' means 'half height' and that is not correct, the dock happily accepts full height cards and the XFX card above will fit and work fine. You will not have a power problem either.

So any single slot, full height PCI express card should be ok.

maybe i am doing something wrong but the card has issues because on the left there is a piece of metal that is for the lock and on the right there is also a piece of metal that sticks up and is in the way. i have tried every way i can think of but unless i break of the tab for the security lock and the metal piece on the right the card won't fit in. i of course could be missing something

I have a 2007-93u and i tried the large docking station and the video card but had no luck getting the video card installed, it was just too big. Since I also had a advanced mini dock i tried and it worked. You have to manually set the resolution but i get full 2560x1600 dvi. the connector on the back looks like dual dvi d but i did not think it was and from what i read you could not drive that resolution without the video card. However it does work and rather nicely. just thought i'd let you know. we got a deal on the dell monitor only 1199 and for a 30" monitor thats sweet!

I'm not sure where to start.

Something must be happening that one of us doesn't understand. Dual-link DVI is not supported by the mini dock. I only have an Advanced Dock, but based on everything I think I understand about the T60, you should not be able to drive 2560x1600 out the DVI connector on the mini dock

Dual-link DVI connectors look exactly like standard DVI connectors, because they are the same. With dual-link, some of the pins carry active signals where otherwise they would be unused.

Please double-check that you're not actually seeing 1280x800 resolution.

$1199 is a great price on a Dell 30" monitor.

We have a t60p 14" with the ATI 256mb gforce card (2007 model) and I thought like you it impossible to drive off the advanced mini dock. The connector on all the docks (even old ones) have all the pins in them for the dual dvi d. Since the card I bought did not work (could not fit) in the advanced dock and since the dell monitor according to spec won't stretch I thought I was in trouble. However just for the heck of it, I connected it, created a profile using presentation director (used the highest it would go which was like 2048 or something) only using the external DVI digital connector on the dock. (the thinkpad monitor is off). Then I went into properties on the display and i saw that the bar would move to 2560x1600. I looked at the screen and WOW unbelievably beautiful. I could open 2 full size docs side by side. I opened one spread sheet that had 20 col's and saw the whole thing. I did notice that if you go into powerpoint and slideshow it does cut the sides off but the std desktop worked. I have no idea how but I was happy and so was my user. I do know it is in this mode because when it first came up before i changed anything in was in low res mode which is like 13xx by 768 and that is aweful. I checked the spec on the dock and it says dvd - d. I don't know enough as to say how or why it works, just happy it does.

one last item. the dell software cd that came with the monitor, after i installed it i got a blue screen. I had to go back to last known good (whew!) that worked. The monitor has no menu system. All changes are done via the software which blue screened me.. i checked on dells website and that is the only release. the monitor as it turned out did not need any adjustments so i left it at that.

Wow, just confirmed this with a t60p, an advanced dock and a 30" Apple monitor. 2623ddu model w/xpsp2, 2560x1600/32bit Some slight video noise on the right side but only noticeable on a solid background. Now to see if we can get a second one working off the pci-e slot. This is wonderful.

pbook, that is very cool. I have been wanting to do that for a long time. Almost ready to switch to a Macbook Pro to get it. What sort of noise are you seeing?

the dell monitor is awesome and with no addtl video card and used the advanced mini dock not the full blown dock. i was amazed.

WOW! DANG! I had FOUR of the 30" monitors here a few months ago, and I didn't even bother trying because everything I (thought I) new about the Thinkpad DVI told me that it didn't support Dual-link DVI. Now, I have to get another one in here and try it out for myself!

I tried this with a 2623C7U (2006 model) and could not get it to go t0 2560x1600.

Will this work with this version video card? Is there any more information on how to get this mode to show up?

I went into Presentation Director as describe and then bacl to Display properties. Alas the Display properties not allow 2560

?

the models i used were the 2700 models with 256mb ram ATI firegl card, discrete graphics not integrated. that worked but.. i did use presentation director to get me to turn off the internal tp lcd and use the max res. once changed i then went into properties of video / monitor and it allowed me to change res to 2560x1600, that was the only issue i had. I still have no idea why it works but i am not complaining

Was this a one time thing to get it configured, or do you have to go into presentation director every time your switch to the external monitor?

johnp126 wrote:i did use presentation director to get me to turn off the internal tp lcd and use the max res. once changed i then went into properties of video / monitor and it allowed me to change res to 2560x1600, that was the only issue i had. I still have no idea why it works but i am not complaining

hi.
once setup i use the function f7 key to make it the sole monitor from the saved profile, the only bad thing if u call it that is you must manually change to the larger resolution but a small price to pay to use the monitor with no additional hardware..

Tried again. Also updated all drivers. My steps:

1. Select saved hi-res/external DVI only setting in presentation manager
2. Go into Display properties and select "setting/display properties"
3. Try to change reso to 2560 -> does not go past 2048.

Perhaps I need to force a mode?

johnp126 wrote:hi.
once setup i use the function f7 key to make it the sole monitor from the saved profile, the only bad thing if u call it that is you must manually change to the larger resolution but a small price to pay to use the monitor with no additional hardware..

guess its based on video do you have 256mb discrete video like ati gforce? like i said i was very surprised at this, and the problem is the dell monitor won't scale so its 2560x1600 or a bad looking screen

Hi there all!
Basically I am a graphic designer. I lived with motion computing tablet pc in the last 7 months, but 1024*768 pixel drive me creazy, and I decided to think to a new machine for design.

Because of this small size I was thinking to buy big screen, dell 3007fpw but I reeally need mobility, most of the time, and at home..... yes I will like big fat display giving me lot of realestate property.

I will want to thank you all that will repley to my next questions below.

1. Does the LENOVO THINKPAD T60 WIDE with the ATI X1400 128 MOBILITY support the mamut dislay at this 2560*1600? (I saw here people talking about that with the mini doc it can, but not with advanced doc, and also the video card was ati v5250)

2. Is the lenovo so feasible as people say?, or I will go crying seeing first scratches on the machine after 1 week, as happned with my ipod.

3. Will ThinkVantage work with vista? Is Thinkvantege needed with Vista Ultimate?

4. Sincerrly how much the 9 cell battery is up with a fully looaded configuration, like 2gh cpu, 2 g-ram, hdd 7200rpm

5. Do I really got more power with the 7200 drive, or I have to stay calm with 5400, and get more battery.

Many thanks to you all, and I hope you can give me some good answers. I will be so happy to find out that the mini doc and the X1400 works good with the Dell 3007FPW.

Regards
Vladut

So in trying to get a 2nd 30" monitor working out of the pci-e slot with a 1650 pro and a 1300/512 I had to install new drivers to recognize the cards which effectively disabled the 30" monitor via the dock, it would only go up to 2048x resolution as reported above, and so I uninstalled the drivers and took out the cards and still could no longer get the external dvi port on the dock to work at 2560x1600 no matter what I tried. So I gave up and restored from the recovery partition and everything worked fine again, 2560x1600 on the dock dvi port, no problems. I think some windows updates may have snuck in during the numerous reboots of installing the cards. This is with 2623DDU Model/1.04 Bios/V5200/512Mb. The x1300 actually worked in some sense at 2560x1600 but was unusable from streaky video noise . I reported some noise above when I first tried the dvi port at 2560x1600 on the advanced dock, it went away. Is the PCI x1 connection even able to handle the bandwidth of the 2560x1600x32bits via the slot ? Also apparently either an ATI update or a windows update at some point disables this functionality, any theories ?

A year or two back (on a T41p), IBM was limiting their ATI drivers to 1600x200 through the dock DVI, even though the chips were capable of more. It was necessary to install moded ATI drivers to get 1920x1200 through the DVI. I used something called "DNA drivers". Apparently there is a community of people that mod stock graphic drivers to boost their gaming performance. This worked. Eventually IBM gave up on this restriction and the stock drivers started working. Maybe this is another case of intentional crippling. I would try out the DNA drivers.

pbook7777 wrote: Also apparently either an ATI update or a windows update at some point disables this functionality, any theories ?

the 30" dell with 2560x1600 works fine with the adv mini dock without anything else for all programs except lotus notes. 6.5.5 and when a msg has no carriage returns, the program can't tell where the right margin is. it doesn't show the scroll bars on the right or bottom. anyone running notes and the 30"?

I have a T60p 2007-8JG with ATI mobility FireGL V5250.

If I get advanced mini dock or advanced dock can I run without another video card the 30" dell with 2560x1600?

So does the advanced mini dock or advanced dock suport DUAL DVI?

Best Regards.

I just got hold of a T60p widescreen and a 30" Dell monitor. Using the stock drivers, it didn't work at 2560x1600 resolution. It did work at 1280x800.

RonS wrote:I just got hold of a T60p widescreen and a 30" Dell monitor. Using the stock drivers, it didn't work at 2560x1600 resolution. It did work at 1280x800.

Ok. Thanks. I will buy the advanced mini dock and try it with a Apple Cinema Display 30 M9179 = 30 inch 16 ms S-IPS (LG.Philips LM300W01) panel.

Best Regards.

vladut-acrisor wrote:Because of this small size I was thinking to buy big screen, dell 3007fpw but I reeally need mobility, most of the time, and at home.....

1. Does the LENOVO THINKPAD T60 WIDE with the ATI X1400 128 MOBILITY support the mamut dislay at this 2560*1600?
...
I will be so happy to find out that the mini doc and the X1400 works good with the Dell 3007FPW.

Could you give any updates please?

I wonder whether you have achived a success in running 30-inch monitor with ThinkPad T60 ATI X1400 connected to Advanced (Mini) Doc?

This seems encouraging. Thanks to Erik the Moderator for pointing me to this thread.

any of the discreet T6x models can support 2560x1600 over dual-link DVI-D via the advance mini dock and advanced dock.

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=22358

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=35941

since this has been covered before, this duplicate thread will be locked. thanks for understanding.

Did you mean with an additional Card on the Dock or without? I could not clearly get that out of this thread.

Which 30" LCDs supporting 2560x1600 would you recommend on the market?
I know of two:
- Apple Cinema
- Dell 3007 WFP

Any recommendations?

Are there any comparisons on Adv Doc vs Adv Mini Dock?