T60 - yellow tint on VGA port [driver issue- solution below]

[dr_st]

I realized that my T60 (with ATI X1400) produces the yellow-tint on VGA port, exactly as described here. The symptoms match exactly what is described in the link:

* Whites look yellowish
* Grays look reddish
* Affects both the port on the laptop and the one on the dock
* Happens with all monitors/cables that I tested
* DVI unaffected
* Laptop LCD itself unaffected

I cannot imagine any software/BIOS setting causing this behavior. Looks like a hardware problem to me. sjthinkpader reported similar symptoms here, with no resolution mentioned: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 9&p=539436

Quite unfortunately, it seems that the rather expensive and complicated board replacement has so far been quoted as the only real solution to this. But before going down that route, I'd like to investigate a bit more.

1) Any way to remedy this issue with color balancing? I tried playing with the individual R,G,B channels a bit, and could not get a satisfactory result for all levels of white/gray (if some look OK, others look bad). But I am no professional and don't have any calibration equipment.

2) What would be the cause? Obviously, it is not the end connector, since both are affected. So it looks like one of the pins/wires responsible for one of the colors in the analog video output is bad (although not 100% bad, since none of the pure colors is completely missing). Logic tells me that it can be either somewhere on the board, or inside the GPU itself (I imagine the GPU eventually separates the digital and analog outputs, which would explain why digital is fine).

A weak connection it the GPU may be remedied by some reflow/heating techniques. If it's the board, I imagine it would be far harder to pinpoint the problem, let alone fix it.

3) Just to be 100% sure - this is not a "normal" situation with all X1400-based T60s, is it? I imagine not, otherwise there would be far more reports, and I have only found very few.

Googling for the problem found a few similar reports, but nothing T60-specific, except that first one, and no solutions other than "get it replaced".

If anyone can shed some more light (hopefully, not tinted yellow ) on the issue, it will be great.

[dr_st]

Well, I feel like an idiot now. But a happy idiot.

Nothing is wrong with the VGA output. My first cue was when I saw that colors look normal with the BIOS. My second cue was when they looked normal in full screen command prompt in Windows.

Turns out that in the Catalyst Control Center, in Avivo Color there is a setting to control color temperature. From some reason, when using VGA, it defaulted to 4000K. Setting it to 6500K, or alternatively ticking the "Use EDID" box fixed it all.

What a relief.

[sjthinkpader]

Thank you, I still have this T60 laying around so I'll give it a try.