Thinkpads Forum

Ok, here is another one.

I am running my dock with 2x DVI monitors attached.
Since Lenovo again messed up the BIOS and only displays LCD on the boot screen settings, I can not run in Hybrid Graphics mode. So I disabled Optimus and run the discrete Graphics only.

Everything boots fine, but, as soon as I right click on any executable to bring up the context menu, it takes about 5 - 8 seconds for the menu to come up.

A quick look at the file activity with process monitor reveals, that the explorer is accessing the registry over and over again for some Graphics driver information.

In the meanwhile I have my doubt if I am getting happy with this machine.

If anybody has any suggestions howto fix this, I would be really happy.

Thanks,

Wolfgang

I disabled Optimus a couple of times for various testing and did not observe what you describe. I have only one DVI monitor on my dock, though.

Standard suggestion is to remove and reinstall drivers. BUT NOTICE that because the system is designed for the Optimus configuration, there are slightly extended instructions for uninstallation at Lenovo's site: http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... #uninstall In particular, notice that you want to uninstall both the nVidia software and Intel -- and in that order. I failed to uninstall the Intel and so it got out of sync with the nVidia, leading to BSODs.

I would encourage you to make sure that for reinstall you use the driver released on 2011-04-20 labeled version 8.17.12.6696 and with the filename 83de32ww.exe Interestingly, there was a version that had a higher nVidia version number, 8.17.12.6763 (filename 83de35ww.exe) that was released on 2011-03-29. If you have that version installed, and do an overwrite install (without manual uninstallation), it may not result in a stable system (didn't for me). To me, it is highly suspicious that they seem to have downgraded the nVidia driver version. I don't think I'm hallucinating... Google still has some links to pages that are no longer found on Lenovo's site with that driver number, and processorbenchmark.com has that in its W520 benchmarks as well.

I wouldn't suggest you try to install the separate Quadro driver unless you are actually running Vista/XP for which they're labeled.

Good luck.

And there is a 275 series Optimus driver available from Nvidia. Newer than anything Lenovo has vetted yet.

It could be worth a try. I am good with that .6696 driver (with a VGA connection) but if it doesn't work try something newer.

I do have a couple of displayport to DVI Lenovo cables that the UPS gal brought today. May try that.

Perry

Hi David and Perry,

thanks for the hints.
I tried a few things, e.g. reinstalling the drivers, but it is a real mission.
So finally I wiped out the OS and did a clean fresh reinstall.

The machine is flying again, no issues after I installed directly the Optimus drivers (8.17.12.6696) from Lenovo.

Wolfgang