Thinkpads Forum

Last November I purchased an X60 with free Vista Business 32 upgrade. In January, before receiving the upgrade, I installed a retail version of Vista Ultimate 32. The screen starting changing resolution from 1024x768 to 640x480. This happened for a about two weeks and then stopped (perhaps there was some driver update fix). About two weeks ago, the screen resolution changing started happening again.

I decided at this point to install the Vista Business 32 upgrade disk (doing a fresh install) that I received as part of my purchase. I get the same screen resolution changing problem. I have updated to the most recent BIOS, 2.14 and updated the drivers. The problem may happen every ½ to 1 hour or so.
I emailed someone at Lenovo in marketing and he said that others have had the same problem.
Specifically, it changes to 640 x 480 resolution and then back to 1024 x 768. Also, sometimes the "thinklight turned off graphic" comes on on the bottom of the display, along with the seven bars full brightness graphic and the full sound on graphic (the speaker with the 10 bars). In each case, the graphic displays for a moment and then disappears.

Edit: It just changed resolutions and back twice within the last minute.

Anyone else have this problem and any suggestions? TIA David

Could it be Windows Vista problem?

We used Windows XP (factory preload) on Thinkpads X61s and X61 tablets for a while, did not experience any issue.

ryengineer wrote:Could it be Windows Vista problem?

We used Windows XP (factory preload) on Thinkpads X61s and X61 tablets for a while, did not experience any issue.

The X61 ran fine under XP Pro. It is a problem with the Lenovo Vista drivers.

Back in the days with the release of previous Microsoft operating systems namely Windows 2000 and XP, many problems were reported but they were solved with time as the system softwares got mature.

I had a similar problem on my x60 when I installed Vista Ultimate 32bit edition. This resolution change happened when I switch between users. I uninstalled the ThinkPad Trackpoint driver, rebooted the system and the problem went away. It'll install the vista drivers instead. Give that a try and see if works for you.

Peter

I think what you're seeing is the Screen Zoom function being triggered. It can also be activated by pressing Fn-Spacebar.
I've been struggling with the same issue since I got my ThinkPad. In addition to the Screen Zoom you may also see sound muting, ThinkLight displays, screen brightness changing and other things associated with the Windows Mobility Center. In my case it seems to happen when my battery is either charging or discharging. There's another thread about this issue called "Something messing with hotkeys on my X60?".
I suspect Lenovo software but I haven't nailed it down yet.

uninstall access connections. yeah, i dont get it either, but it stopped the said problems on my machine.

Thanks for the tip. Unfortunately, that didn't work for me. I uninstalled Access Connections, Power Management, and Keyboard Customizer but still have the problem. Maybe it is hardware. I guess I'll have to call.

ronny wrote:uninstall access connections. yeah, i dont get it either, but it stopped the said problems on my machine.

Vista has some funky new display profile configuration stuff, that appears to be very broken (no surprises here).

It runs as a scheduled task & is called Microsoft Transient Mulit-Monitor Manager (TMM).

/Task Schedule/Library/Microsoft/Windows/MobilePC

Try disabling this & rebooting your machine, just be aware that from time to time when you login with this disabled, you might find yourself with a blank screen, any keypress on the keyboard will bring it all back to life.

PS - I'm having all kinds of problems with Presentation Director on my X61 with Vista, anyone else?

I used to have these problems:
- The resolution would change when resuming or docking.
- The system would mute by itself (and flash)
- It would flash the brightness bars on the screen.

The docking resolution change went away when I disabled the Lenovo Presentation Director.

The flashing mute and brightness stopped after a system rebuild minus some of the Lenovo software.
My disk failed and I had to rebuild the system from Restore DVDs.
The 3rd DVD (with the Lenovo software) had a read error about 2/3 through. Enough to finish Vista but not get all the Lenovo stuff.
Most likely the Lenovo hot-key software caused the flashing mute/brightness.
The system runs fine without the Lenovo stuff that didn't install.
Faster and more stable.


After the rebuild, I did have an instance of resolution changing on resume.
This happened after updating the Intel video driver.
The problem went away when I disabled power-saving in the Intel driver configuration.

Thanks for the detailed input. It's very helpful. At this point I'm just trying to narrow it down to hardware vs. software. Your post seems to confirm what I've suspected, that it's related to the Lenovo or Intel software. I've tried removing the Lenovo applications to no avail. I see a rebuild in my near future but I'd like to be sure of the offending application before I rebuild. Many Lenovo applications I can live without but some, like Access Connections, I've grown quite used to. I'll be sure to post if I find a solution.

I have exactly the same issue with a thinkpad x60 tablet with vista ultimate 32 bit. I think it may the multimonitor facility that is causing it as my problem seemed to arise after I started using an external monitor.

rickgordon wrote:I have exactly the same issue with a thinkpad x60 tablet with vista ultimate 32 bit. I think it may the multimonitor facility that is causing it as my problem seemed to arise after I started using an external monitor.

That's very interesting. Thanks for posting. I'm running Vista Ultimate 32 bit on an X60 tablet as well. I'm also configured for dual monitor although I usually encounter the problem when I'm undocked. I wonder if there is anyone out there with this problem who is not running Vista Ultimate in multimonitor configuration.