Thinkpads Forum

My office issued me a new T510 three weeks ago and when I plug in an external LCD to the VGA port (either directly or through the docking station), sometimes the laptop screen will shut off after removing the external screen and later plugging it back in. Fn+F7 doesn't help either, even though the laptop thinks the screen is on as I can move my mouse pointer from the external screen over into the dead space on the laptop screen and back onto the (working) external screen. The only way to get the laptop screen to come back on is to reboot the thing, which is a serious PITA if I happen to have a bunch of files open. Is this a known issue? How do I get it fixed? My IT dept is largely clueless even after installing some new video drivers.

REALLY frustrated.

Why don't you just leave the external LCD plugged into the dock? What's with all of the plugging and unplugging?

Harryc wrote:Why don't you just leave the external LCD plugged into the dock? What's with all of the plugging and unplugging?

It remains plugged in. I undock my laptop many times a day to take it to meetings and such. Laptops being mobile devices I wouldn't expect such flaky behavior like this. The problem occurs with the external screen plugged into the dock or directly; I mentioned this to take the dock out of the equation as a potential problem.

I'm experiencing the same problems; I have a work issued T510, docking station with monitors connected to DVI and DP, and once every 2 or 3 undocks, the screen goes black (powered black, with a slight back light, not no power black).

No combo of key press's I've tried has managed to resuscitate.

MBG0001 wrote:I'm experiencing the same problems; I have a work issued T510, docking station with monitors connected to DVI and DP, and once every 2 or 3 undocks, the screen goes black (powered black, with a slight back light, not no power black).

No combo of key press's I've tried has managed to resuscitate.

MBG, this may or may not be worth looking into, but my IT dept ended up swapping in a new hard drive after finding tons of bad sectors on the one that came in mine from the factory. They claim our company is having to do this on a lot of recently issued T510s. Since the new drive install the issue has not reappeared.

Now, if I could only figure out how to get the 2nd external monitor (DVI) working along with the first external (serial), I'd be in heaven. Can't seem to get it working with XP Pro SP3.

Good luck.

I have somewhat intermittent issues with monitors when docking and undocking my T410. Sometimes I have to dock and undock like 5 times in a row, but eventually it works. Oh, and putting the computer to sleep and waking up sometimes helps too (this only takes a few seconds and does not lose any open work).

Follow up;

Problem seems to have gone away. The only change I made was to remove the keys from the lock of the docking station. Anyone know if there is a sensor built in to tell if the key is present?