Thinkpads Forum

Hi,

I have a T60p with the ATI FireGL V5250 graphics card in it. For the first six months of owning the machine, the video playback was fine. I do not remember exactly when the quality degraded and the lagging began. The only thing I have done was upgrade the RAM from 1 GB (two 512 installed by Lenovo), to 2.5 GB (one 512 mb from Lenovo, one 2 Gb another supplier). I would not anticipate this killing my video playback, but I am fishing for answers. I will list comp specs below.

However, during simple play back of full screen videos online (such as Hulu.com), the video is choppy and lags the audio. This is not a buffer issue and has been verified many times. The lag is not present when not in full screen view. The video lag is also present while playing some high definition videos from the hard drive. It gets really bad when playing any kind of game such as the new Call of Duty.


Specs:
Windows Vista 32 bit
2 GHz Dual Core
2.5 GB RAM
ATI FireGL V5250 256 MB graphics card


Attempted Fixes:
Multiple driver changes
Complete reload of Windows Vista from scratch
Change ATI settings to lower graphics performance and reduce lag
Updated all drivers for DirectX, etc.


I have read this issue on various boards and they always point to one thing or another related to the board it was posted on (game software, DirectX, hardware driver's, etc.) No one has come up with a solid solution.

If anyone mimics these conditions, please reply and we can try to work through this. My only assumption is the RAM mismatch. If anyone has upgraded their RAM and has not had issues, that would be very valuable information.


Thanks so much.

I also have a T60p. I ordered mine with one 1gb stick, and immediately added a second (Kingston ValuRAM). I've recently swapped that out for a 2gb stick, from Corsair, with no problems.

I know you mentioned changing settings, but try disabling PowerPlay altogether.

Have you tried removing the new RAM to see if the problem persists?
I might also try removing the factory 512mb stick, and testing it that way.

I verified that this was not due to a RAM issue. I removed the mismatch memory and tested each stick.



One 512 MB installed by lenovo

One 2 GB Corsair ValueRAM

Each individually installed had video lag using Hulu.com on full screen.



I also tried disabling Powerplay, but would assume this wasnt an issue becasue I experience this video lag while plugged in and while on battery. Plugged in setting are set for max performance.

CPU speed - set it to max, I bet it goes away (this happens on mine when on battery...or when plugged in if I'm not on highest cpu speed - I have a 2.4ghz core2duo)

In the power management settings, I have the both the battery powered and plugged as "Adaptive". You are saying I should set that to max, or is there another area where I would have to set this?

Thanks.

That's where I'm talking about doing it. Change it from adaptive to Highest and see if that fixes it. Test it with hulu.com video, because with CoD it might just be that it's graphics intensive. I know with mine (v5200) CoD4 at native 1400x1050 is a struggle so to get good fps I run it at 1024x768 (also turning off things like shadows, smooth smoke edges, specular map, will all give you back a lot of fps)