Thinkpads Forum

Hello All-
My T400 is going back to Lenovo for some emergency repair (constant graphics crashes, failure to start-up, BSOD on shutdowns), hopefully resulting in a new motherboard, graphics card, and hard drive. After packing it up, I went to the Lenovo website to see what a completely decked out machine like mine was selling for these days, and in speccing it out I observed that there was no longer an option for switchable graphics. Seeing as I have disabled that feature on my computer because I have had so many graphics problems and only wanted to use the discrete ATI card, I was wondering if Lenovo has finally come to their senses and done away with it.

Does anyone know the answer to this? Has Lenovo finally admitted that the switchable graphics feature was buggy, a resource hog, and overall a failure in design and eliminated it as a feature? If so, is there hope to get older, faulty cards replaced under warranty? Does anyone have any more info on this?

Thanks in advance for your replies.

RM

No - Lenovo is still offering switchable graphics. I checked both US & Australian websites....

I'd also say that it is likely that they'll be offering switchable graphics on the next model that comes out (likely Nov-Jan?) which depends on when intel release their next chipset. The battery saving is fantastic (if you need it)!

Sure, this wasn't the best implementation partly because of bad drivers and partly because I think Lenovo chose the wrong option in combining Intel and ATI. I think it would have worked better if they'd integrated Nvidia with Intel - hopefully we'll see some better decisions on the next models when they are released.

I'd say the next model will also have a new dock with better display options (if they have their heads screwed on properly or the GFC doesn't undercut it). The next chipset (Calpella) has a new way of handling graphics that should iron out a few things (as long as it doesn't introduce too many of its own problems).

Randle wrote:No - Lenovo is still offering switchable graphics. I checked both US & Australian websites....

Where do you see it on the US site? I just went back to check and founf that you can spec a T400 with either an intel graphics accelerator or a discrete ATI 3470 card. There is no option for switchable graphics that I can find. Can you point me to a link that shows otherwise please to confirm?

Thanks,
RM

As far as I know, all ATI discrete models are switchable, both on T400 and T500. Therefore it is not mentioned explicitly.

If you have a look at the 2764 model in tabook (page 22 of v357) you'll see that it does indeed have switchable graphics (i found the model number at the bottom of the page where you choose your laptop).