Thinkpads Forum

I have been using external monitor (samsung p2350) for some time with my lenovo x301. (running vista sp2)

Today, when I switch the display back to my notebook (using Fn + F7), my display went funny after I pulled out the vga cable (ext monitor still powered on ). By funny I mean it is mostly white with some ghosting imagery of the grahics in the background (my desktop)

I tried to reboot the notebook and the screen comes right and then a short while after the widgets come up ( the drivers are still loading ) the screens goes kind of white.

I can connect my external monitor okay and it defaults to 1440 x 990 and not the normal 1920 x 1080 resolution that it was normally set to. I then set the resolution to 1920x1080 and now everytime I try to go to the desktop and then back to the external monitor, the external monitor changes back to 1440 x 990

I can reboot into safe mode okay without any graphic/screen problems, it just has some problems when logging in normally using full resolution.

Any suggestions how to fix this problem.

Do I need to reload video or graphic drivers or both ??? ( i never loaded the samsung drivers, it all got connected when using the standard drivers that comes with x301)

Any advice would greatly help.

ps. I wanted to upload the image on my x301. I don't know how to upload an image on this forum. I saw the Img button when writing this posting, but when pressing the button it only tries to insert txt which points to a website and not an upload facility. Maybe I am missing something here.

The EXACT same thing happened to me this morning on my X200. Everything was working fine, then just today my external goes white with some ghostly images just like you said. It's fine when it hits the desktop for a few seconds, then BOOP - it goes white. Feels like a software issue to me...

I've tried other monitors, and using both ports (the built-in one on the laptop and the one on the ultrabase) - same thing. I've also messed around with the display settings to no avail.

Any luck? I seem to remember a graphics driver upgrade a few days ago. Maybe a downgrade might help?

UPDATE: I just downgraded to the old intel graphics driver. It fixed the problem on my external - by MOVING it to the notebook display! Now THAT's all white and ghosty...

UPDATE 2: Looks like it's a problem with the new drivers - they load up with the GAMMA setting at maximum. Restore it to the default and it should work fine.
http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/X-Series-Th ... d-p/176451


S.

Rax wrote:The EXACT same thing happened to me this morning on my X200. Everything was working fine, then just today my external goes white with some ghostly images just like you said. It's fine when it hits the desktop for a few seconds, then BOOP - it goes white. Feels like a software issue to me...

I've tried other monitors, and using both ports (the built-in one on the laptop and the one on the ultrabase) - same thing. I've also messed around with the display settings to no avail.

Any luck? I seem to remember a graphics driver upgrade a few days ago. Maybe a downgrade might help?

UPDATE: I just downgraded to the old intel graphics driver. It fixed the problem on my external - by MOVING it to the notebook display! Now THAT's all white and ghosty...

UPDATE 2: Looks like it's a problem with the new drivers - they load up with the GAMMA setting at maximum. Restore it to the default and it should work fine.
http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/X-Series-Th ... d-p/176451


S.

I had a few chats with IBM technitians. I first updated the video graphics drivers but nothing worked. I tried a few other options for hours, but still nothing worked. One techie said it may be a hardware problem. But I said it couldn't be, as I get a clear screen with icons when I boot in safe mode. So I just restored Vista from scratch and it solved the problem. Since i only had this laptop for 4 months and have been travelling, i didn't have a recent backup.

So now I have a backup just in case, until my windows 7 upgrade comes in a week.

Also make sure you install the LCD driver. Normally you don't have to, but it helps to make things smoother.

Hope this helps you.

Thank you globalgmcd for posting the fix...On Friday, I was preparing for a presentation and as I plugged my x200t into our LCD panal I noticed the "ghostly" issue. I knew it had to do with the graphics driver, but I didn't know how to fix it at the time. Unfortunatly, I was unable to resolve the issue before I needed to give the presentation, so I had to print hard copies and give them to attendees. I do hope this gets fixed so it doesn't happen to more folks at a critical time...such as a presentation to someones boss
Again, thanks globalgmcd for updating your post with a temporary solution.

I think there may be some connectivity issues here.

I have since resolved that whenever I am going to either connect or disconnect from an LCD monitor, that the power on the monitor is always off to avoid any sparking or electrical transfers or driver related issues.

I now have windows 7, which doesn't support the FN & F7 key and the presentation director software that Lenovo had. So now I just use win7 drivers and install the LCD driver and it all works, but if you want to view different resolutions on both screens, you can't. So I just select the LCD panel as my main monitor and use the highest resolution possible, and it works fine.

Cheers.