X41 momentary screen blanking on battery power

[pgoelz]

This just started a week or two back. Might have been after a system upgrade.... the screen momentarily blanks every minute or two but only on battery power. The battery is fine and fully charged. It is th evideo that blanks... it takes a moment to re-draw the screen and I think the backlight stays on while the screen is blanked.

I have not yet tried uninstalling the TP power manager.... do I lose the CPU speed stepping if I do that? Or do I just lose the other incidental features that the power manager gives me?

While I was typing this (on batteries) I took a look at task manager while the screen blanked.... it also blanked the task manager, and during the subsequent re-draw, the CPU went to 100% a couple times.

Anyone else ever seen this?

Paul

[pgoelz]

Just an update....

The first time I noticed the blanking, I simply rebooted and it went away. But it came back some days later. I use the machine on AC power 90% of the time so it is not on battery power very often. And I rarely reboot... I use suspend/resume.

The power profile I was using while experiencing the momentary screen blanks this time around was a custom one. I tried applying the "default Thinkpad profile" and the problem seems to have vanished. I wonder if some combination of my custom settings was causing the machine to switch in and out of a CPU or video mode, causing the screen to blank each time?

And again... does anyone know what (if any) funcitonality I lose if I simply uninstall the Thinkpad Power Manager?

[Martini82]

Hi

I have same problem when running on battery with my x41, i will try to install video driver from Intel that is newer than driver form IBM.

[pgoelz]

Note that it has now been quite a few weeks and the problem is still gone. I did nothing except re-apply the default power profile.

I had been messing with things like CPU speed and the like and I expect something was throttling up and down at odd times, causing the screen to blank momentarily.

Paul

[RainAgain]

Thanks Paul for your off-forum reply I agree problem disappears if set to Maximize Performance or ThinkPad default. Problem appears if set to Optimise for power source or Maximize battery life. The Screen blanks for 1/2 second and I think problem is most apparent when there is a momentary disk access. It looks like a power rail drop which then causes the display adapter to drop out. On my machine I see the same thing with a plug-in monitor so if is not the LCD. I have updated supply Optimiser to the latest release (1.9 I think, updated 1/11/07). Has anybody got a fix that allows use of "Maximise battery life" setting? -Thanks
Mark

[cromas]

This happens on my X41 tablet when the ThinkPad Power Manager auto-dims the display when I've been idle for a certain period of time. It's not pretty, but I don't think it's a critical problem either.

[RainAgain]

Thanks Cromas but what I am describing is not due to idle. The screen blanks for about 1/2 second and then re-paints. To all the world it looks like a hardware fault and if I hadn't have found this thread I would have said it was the display driver crapping out. Only does it if power manager set to maximise battery life or optimise for power source - and under battery power. Completely reproducible. Screen blanks about every 3 minutes also if I go to use the pointer or if there is disk access. Thanks for your suggestion, Mark