Advanced Dock Graphics Card Information for T60 series

[tegelad]

Hi,

First post for me, long-term Thinkpad user (600, T22, T42p, T60p).

I was able to add a Sapphire X1650XT Graphics card (dual DVI with HDCP compliance) to the Advanced Dock station. I did want to share with you it barely fit, since the slot is only 1/2 length, with a full height of a single PCI-e slot.

Why state this? Because finding card dimensions of graphics cards was near impossible, and IBM support was unable to help, but they did try so they get an A

One other note, the PCIe slot is 1X so if you watch your bandwidth.

Cheers and I hope that helps ...

The card information:
SAPPHIRE 100166L Radeon X1650XT 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Video Card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814102068
+-ADT

[scottkeen]

Thank you for this post. I posted earlier that I was looking for specific brand/model recommendations for the Advanced Dock.

Question #1 -- this model you posted has dual DVI outputs. Do these override the internal DVI output of the Advanced Dock? Or can I theoretically connect 3 DVI monitors (1 internal Advanced Dock + 2 on the PCI-e card)?

Question #2 -- what is HDCP and why would I want it?


Anyone else have any other recommendations of DVI video cards to allow dual DVI (or perhaps triple DVI) with the Advanced Dock?

[tegelad]

Question 1:
They work in parallel. This is very similar to a motherboard with two PCIe Video cards. So yes you can go with a triple-headed monitor solution if you like. You may want to check the bios after installation as there is a setting under the display option for preferring the PCI express bus on boot up.

Question 2:
An indepth definition can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDCP

In a nutshell, HDMI / DVI will encrypt the communication "over the pipe". E.g. if you use an HDMI connection with an HD-DVD player the bit pipe between the TV and the HD-DVD player is encrypted.

This card (via the vendor's rating) has been ceritified as HDCP compliant, and as such should have no problem decrypting the stream without issue.

One other note:
I specificially picked this card because it does not have any of that dreaded hypermemory on it. My laptop has 4GB on it currently and I am stuck in 3GB hell right now, and I just can't waste 256MB on a video swap mapping. So by using this card I regained some memory, which IMO is a nice thing to have

cheers,

[jkahng]

i'm assuming the card is based on the x1600 chipset.
have you done any stress tests on this card? (3d games or other bench marks) i ask b/c there is a power limit on the pci express bus on the dock (something like 32watts)
the x1300 cards consume around 30watts and barely get enough power from the bus.
the x1600 would require much more and would cause problems under stress.

it this works, it would be a very nice up from the x1400 in my z61m (which shares docks with the t60)

best regards
john kahng

[tegelad]

Haven't fully tested it out yet as my job has me leveled timewise.

Do you have any suggested tests (benchmarking apps etc). If you give me examples, I would be more then happy to shake out the system.

Power is a concern for me also; as there was scant information on power from the advanced dock; however, I was going to submit a warranty request into the IBM support site to find out the tech specs on this (as I could not find any other references). To see how far I can push this ....

The chipset information per ATI Info Center:
Radeon X1650 Series
Device ID = 7291
Vendor = 1002
Subsystem ID = E140
Subsystem Vendor ID = 174B
Bust Type = PCI Express
Current Bus Setting = PCI Express x1
Bios Version = 009.013.001.025
Bios Part Number = 11X-!E1401SA-002
Bios Date = 2007/02/06
Mem Size = 256MB
Mem Type = DDR3
Core Clock = 594 MHz
Mem Clock = 695 MHz

http://ati.amd.com/products/RadeonX1650/index.html
The X1650 is supposedly based off of the RV570

http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php ... &card2=350

[tegelad]

I have submitted a ticket into IBM and will download 3DMark06 to test between the V5200 in my T60p and the X1650XT and see what happens ....

cheers,

[tegelad]

Attempted both 3DMark06 and the internal ATI overclock tests ....

Boom, docking station shuts down hard and requires a plug pull.

It appears the power draw over the PCIexpress bus is to much for the Thinkpad's internal power supply. I have submitted a hardware ticket to Lenovo.

Will update this entry when I find out more from Lenovo.

[jkahng]

thanks for the info.
you should also look at RonS's thread "Mini review: Advanced Dock with T60p"

it's a considerable read but gives a lot of information on what works and a whole lot on what doesn't...

[tegelad]

Thanks for the link some really good advice in there.

Strike this card for the RMA bin. (sigh) Installing Pinnacle 11 caused the docking station to go "boom". I have ended up going for the ATI X1300 card from Lenovo as it has a rated watt capacity of 32 watts, which should comply with one author's statement of 50 watt max.

Isn't it funny how none of the cards out there show physical card dimensions and power draw (watts + amps). I wish they did ...

Though ... I did like the guise of an external chassis for the graphics cards from Magma .... but can't justify the cost ...

cheers,

+-ADT

[jkahng]

hope you get things working soon...
john.