[FIXED] X61t no auto screen rotation

[Fiddlenep]

I recently got myself a thinkpad x61 tablet, and I've been trying to get everything working in windows 7 for a few days now. I've got what seems to be all the relevant drivers, but no matter what I do neither of the auto screen rotation functions under the lenovo tablet utility seem to work.

It's supposed to set screen orientation to secondary landscape when switched into tablet mode, but it doesn't do that, it just sits there on the same orientation, doesn't blank the screen or anything, just sits there as if nothing's happened. It's also supposed to change based on the accelerometer, I've made sure the airbag protection is set up and active rotation calibrated, but it just doesn't want to work. It's as if it doesn't even realize it's being changed into tablet mode, so that's what I'm going to assume is happening.

Does anybody know if there's a driver that might cause this? How about a physical switch or sensor? Any help is greatly appreciated.


EDIT: It was the Lenovo System Interface Driver. Installed a newer version and now it works fine.

[Thinkpad4by3]

I dont think any of the tablets have an accelerometer for screen rotation, only the HDD heads. Thats why there is a button on the front.

[Fiddlenep]

Lenovo's tablet utility under control panel seems to indicate otherwise. There's a setting called ActiveRotate that asks you to set the tablet flat down on a table, then flip it this way and that for calibration. If that's not for acceleration-based rotation then it's extremely misleading.

[Thinkpad4by3]

Ok, only the X60, X61 and some X200 Tablets have them. I saw it mentioned in a CNET article but he PSREF has no mention of it. Wierd.

Some accelerometers can get jammed. I've had it happen to a few smartphones if they were dropped hard and the accelerometer in a certain direction would read some crazy number like 5g in the X direction.

[Fiddlenep]

That doesn't seem to be the case here (and thank goodness for that). Airbag protection is using the accelerometer for hard drive active protection and it's not doing anything goofy.

Even if it were, it wouldn't explain not switching to my selected orientation when I switch between tablet and laptop modes.

[Fiddlenep]

Okay, I figured it out, now I feel like a bit of an idiot.

The Lenovo System Interface Driver was either out of date or just improperly installed. Grabbed a newer version, installed that, everything's fine.

[Thinkpad4by3]

Good to know your X61T was treated better than my smartphones .