Interference on Monitor w/ X60s and x6 UltraBase

[Celos]

I didn't see this in any of the other threads, so I'll start a new one.

I have an X60s (17044DU) and the X6 UltraBase, connected via VGA to a Dell flat-panel (older 1900FP). I'm seeing some interference on the monitor when the machine is accessing the hard drive. It's a series of bands that dance across the display -- it's pretty subtle, and I've been able to minimize it by making sure the monitor, UltraBase, and laptop are plugged into different outlets (though I'm sure they are all on the same circuit breaker).

I do not see the banding when the VGA monitor is plugged directly into the port on the X60s (whether the laptop is running on batteries or AC), just when it's in the dock. I've played with all the video settings and haven't seen any change. I know that there have been reports of bad latches, charging issues and USB problems with the UltraBase. I suspect I need a new UltraBase, but I wanted to see if I was alone with this problem.

Has anyone seen this particular problem? Any ideas?

In keeping with the new PC lovin', other than that I'm ecstatic about the machine. It's soooooooo much nicer than my previous T30 that it's not even fair to compare.

[Celos]

OK, so....nobody else has seen this?

[Thakur]

hey buddy...

Dont worry, you are not the only one. I have an X60, and when i connect External Monitor using onboard VGA .. its all fine.... but if i use ultrabase VGA out.. i see those lines running on the monitor too, somehow the quality is just not that good.. and those annoying lines dont go away..


I was about to buy a new 17in Flat monitor... but have just stopped short of it.

Hope this helps.

cheers

[javellan]

I have the same problem, from the Ultrabase I get interference, it comes in waves, this is with or without extending the desktop or using both LCD and External. I've tried different LCDs too.


Update: If I use 1024x768 there is no interference, anything aboove that on my external and I gets waves of interference at random times, Tried shutting down Wireless as well. no luck
-Joaquin

[theomega]

Hy,
me and a friend of mine got the same problem:
Whenever we connect your X60s to the ultrabase and connect a TFT-Flatscreen to the ultrabase via its VGA-Connector the image gets interfrences on it. The interfrences appear when there is heavy harddisk-load.
The strange thing is: The whole thing disapears whenever we connect the TFT directly to the X60s (not to the ultrabase).

Is this a fault of the ultrabase or of the notebook? As I told above, we got two notebooks (one from june 2006 and one from nov 2006) and two ultrabases (same dates) and got this problems. Is this a known problem and is it enough to get the ultrabase exchanged by lenovo?

Who knows anythings which might help with this problem?

Thanks
TO

[rek]

There are two versions of the Ultrabase X6; the earlier one had some issues with its USB ports (or some such). I'd call Lenovo and see what they say.

I have one of the newer Ultrabases, and the VGA image quality is excellent even at high resolutions.

[GomJabbar]

I do not have an Ultrabase, but I just bought an external LCD TV/Monitor to connect to the VGA port on my T42. I was noticing some vertical bands of fuzziness, and was disappointed in the quality of the display. I took a look in the user's guide, and it suggested changing the refresh rate to get rid of interference. I changed the refresh rate from 60 Hz to 70 Hz, and all the vertical bands of fuzziness went away.

Something else you could try is to put some ferrite ring magnets around the monitor VGA cable. I was trying to find some for an example, but my slow internet connection tonight has tested my patience.

[theomega]

Hy,
I phoned to IBM these days and they exchanged my Ultrabase because they knew this error. But: It didnt help anything, the interfrences are still there. :/

What helped a little bit was to change the frequency of the monitor to 70Hz, but this cant be the solution.

So is it a error of the Computer or the Ultrabase? Does anybody got any further information?

Thanks
TO

[thibouille27]

Have the same problem. Always. Specially when CPU@100%.
With or without Ultrabse does not change anything.

[thewhippingboy]

I'm sorry to bring back such an old topic but I just discovered I had the same problem with my X60 tablet and wanted to know if anyone may have found a solution.

I just tried the ultrabase vga port and it looked absolutely heinous on a 25" hd display. The interference was terrible - lots of scan lines, fuzzy everything. Using the vga port on the laptop gave a perfect, sharp clear image. This completely defeats the purpose of having a docking station if we have to plug the monitor into the laptop.

Do you think asking for a replacement ultrabase would solve this issue? Surely lenovo wouldn't have designed the dock to have such terrible interference at the VGA port, right? At this point i'll try anything, including trying to find a better cable but I don't think that would solve it.

Any tips would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[bluesceada]

Surely lenovo wouldn't have designed the dock to have such terrible interference at the VGA port, right?

Lenovo probably has not thought of those high display resolutions used nowadays when the X6* was designed (5 years ago?).
The Problem is that analog VGA was never made for such high resolutions which your 19"+ Widescreen TFTs have. It's not really designed for HD or close-to-HD resolutions.

The port directly at the Thinkpad is closer to the Graphics Adapter and better directly connected to it. The other one in the Ultrabase is farer away from the Graphics Adapter and not directly connected, so more noise can be picked up inside the case, before it is transfered out of the notebook.

This is rather a technology issue than a real defect. The real solution would be a notebook using DVI/HDMI/DisplayPort - this would have other shortcomings, e.g. they just stop working at certain cable lengths, where the VGA signal still works to some degree, requiring a repeater every few meters, not good for fixed-installed projectors which usually have lower resolutions, and VGA is okay.

-> Try using a shorter and/or better shielded cable to the Monitor, this could reduce the banding. (Especially trying a shorter cable could help)

If not, disassembling the Ultrabase and putting in more shielding at the right parts could help, maybe, maybe not....

One issue is probably that the (analog!) VGA is routed next to the same signals as other high frequency digital signals are through the ultrabase connector. Additional shielding at that point is probably impossible.

I don't have the ultrabase, but if you have a harddrive in it, you might want to remove that. If you have USB (especially 2.0) devices plugged into it, you might also try to remove them temporarily. Maybe then you can find a setup that is only slightly limited, but removes the banding for you.

[pkiff]

I just tried the ultrabase vga port and it looked absolutely heinous on a 25" hd display. The interference was terrible - lots of scan lines, fuzzy everything. Using the vga port on the laptop gave a perfect, sharp clear image.

I have an X60 Tablet attached via my Ultrabase's VGA port to a Dell 2009FP monitor running at 1600x1200@60MHz. I don't get any banding. I am using a 3-foot, thick VGA cable with a ferrite core.

I am fairly certain that the quality of my picture is not as good as it would be if I were connecting from a proper DVI port to the DVI port on this monitor. However, I have two other 2009FP's that I am in the process of setting up for a multi-monitor setup, and I can tell you that the video that is getting pushed out of a Voodoo 5 5500 PCI card in a SelectaDock III with a Thinkpad 600X is very noticeably degraded compared to what gets pushed out of my X60 Tablet.

I haven't actually tested to see if I can tell a difference between the Ultrabase VGA port and the one coming directly out of the laptop, but that is because the picture is already very good so I haven't gone looking.

I'm not sure what might be the cause of your banding. Maybe it is simply caused by trying to push a VGA signal into an LCD monitor at a very high resolution. The cables I got for my setup explicitly claimed that they were good enough to carry a 1600x1200 signal, but I think it gets harder and harder to carry the VGA signal cleanly when it also needs to get converted by the monitor into something the LCD can display? But I would expect this problem to show up regardless of which VGA out port you used.

Phil.

[thewhippingboy]

I have an X60 Tablet attached via my Ultrabase's VGA port to a Dell 2009FP monitor running at 1600x1200@60MHz. I don't get any banding. I am using a 3-foot, thick VGA cable with a ferrite core.

Thank you for the advice everyone. I procured a very thick cable with ferrite and unfortunately there didn't seem to be any difference.

Phil, if you don't mind, would you be able to take a quick peek to see what is the FRU of your X6 ultrabase? As far as I can tell, there seems to be three variants of the X6 out there for the tablet and since a few people have this problem and others don't, I wanted to see if it might be specific to certain models. I have FRU 42X4322. Thanks so much, I appreciate it.

[dejx]

When I have attached monitor with 1680x1050 on dock i also get phase problems.

dock FRU is 42X4320 and i have x61s

When i attach vga cable into laptop when its connected to dock, i don't get "no signal" on monitor, i get blank screen, when i undock laptop i get screen immediately.
Is it possible to configure that on dock, i get signal from laptop's vga output?

[pkiff]

Phil, if you don't mind, would you be able to take a quick peek to see what is the FRU of your X6 ultrabase? As far as I can tell, there seems to be three variants of the X6 out there for the tablet and since a few people have this problem and others don't, I wanted to see if it might be specific to certain models. I have FRU 42X4322.

Forgot to respond to this earlier. My FRU is the same as yours: 42X4322, My P/N is 42X4323.

I wonder if it is a problem with specific screen resolutions on specific monitors? I know that can be the case for LCD monitors because they are doing some converting of the VGA signal.

Phil.

[thewhippingboy]

Just wanted to update. I called lenovo and they offered to have the laptop looked at under warranty. It came back with a brand new motherboard and no interference issues whatsoever anymore. 1080p over VGA is crystal clear.

If you still have a warranty on your laptop and you have this issue, definitely have it sent in for a fix.

The service was really impressive. Sent on tuesday, received on thursday and they even replaced the entire bottom half of the laptop case to fix a problem i had with the stylus not staying in its slot. What blew my mind was that i didn't even tell them about that.

[pkiff]

Great to hear that they fixed it for you. I guess that solves the mystery!

Phil.

[dejx]

Well, i did went on ibm service they replace the main board but interference is there here,
x61s (7666-a8g) on dock with 1680x1050
ow well...

[apakal]

I have the same issue with an X60 and a Dell 23" monitor at 1920x1080. The problem seems directly related to CPU usage when in the dock, but I don't see any bands when using VGA with the laptop out of the dock. However, the problem appears to go away if I use a power profile that sets the maximum CPU speed to "Low" or "Lowest" in the Lenovo Power Manager (running XP with the latest BIOS).

[cros]

I've an X61 connected to a Dell 2209WA 1680x1050. It gives a pixel-perfect picture on both the dock and laptop output.

The clock/pixel phase changes by 10% - 20% as the combination warms up: high contrast adjacent pixels are slightly muddy for maybe the first few minutes after turning things on. I've no real issue with that though and it could be due to the X61 or the monitor.

Sometimes the pixel phase transiently kicks when the fan turns on. The image does a half-pixel shimmer as the fan spins up. It's not directly related to CPU load (obviously), but shows that there's some kind of unwanted power rail coupling between the fan and graphics controller. I'd guess that some of the on-board voltage regulators have marginal output filters.