Windows 7 on my X31 & my ATI drivers story

[Tasurinchi]

Folks

I was following some threads regarding Windows 7 ATI drivers for older thinkpads, but most of the discussion was around newer models than my X31, which has the ATI 7500 graphic adapter with 16Mb RAM.

First I tried to follow the instructions of this page: http://www.driverheaven.net/modtool.php

But this didn't work and Win7 would still recognize my screen as Standard VGA, ATI CCC (Catalyst Control Center) was showing as an extra option if I did a right click on my desktop, but I've got no reaction at all.

I then tried following the instructions from this other page: http://orestech.wordpress.com/2009/05/0 ... ty-radeon/

With same results

Finally I did a search in the Lenovo site and found the following drivers: http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-41918

At the beginning I was reluctant to install this, as the title of the page says “Video Driver for 2000/XP” but as none of the previous solutions would work, I gave it a try. I downloaded the drivers to my hard drive and installed it. Unfortunately, this also did not worked.

It was late that night and I did a last attempt and tried to update the drivers manually (something that was mentioned in one of the sites above). The install program from Lenovo will first extract the file to a directory and then run the installation program automatically. Knowing the directory I did the following:

1- Opened the Device Manager (Go to the Control Panel – Hardware and Sound – Device Manager)
2- Right clicked on Display adapters and select “Update Driver Software...”
3- Clicked on “Browse my computer for driver Software”
4- Clicked on “Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer”
5- Clicked on “Have disk”
6- Browsed to the following directory and clicked on open
(C:\DRIVERS\WIN\DISPLAY\Driver\2KXP_INF)
7- Clicked on “Next”, the software got installed. I had to reboot my computer but after that I got the right screen and the right card detected

Hopefully this helps for those having the same Thinkpad as me...

Cheers

Tasurinchi

P.S.: I have no clue how to insert pictures in a post, I've saved a document with the instructions and pics, if you are interested just PM me

[paul*robertson]

How do you find Windows 7 compared to XP on the X31.

[Tasurinchi]

How do you find Windows 7 compared to XP on the X31.

I'm very happy with it!

Performance-wise I don't see any differences with XP. I personally feel it's a tad faster, but I haven't done any benchmarks, it's my purely unscientific observation. As you can see in my signature, the little lady was upgraded and it's pretty maxed up. So response time may vary to a X31 with original hardware.

Handling wise, I find Windows 7 to be more comfortable and ergonomically better than XP.

If you have a Win7 license around or are in need of a reinstall I would recommend to move to Win 7. Unless you want/have to to reinstall lots of software.

I did a clean install and after that just downloaded 3 packages from the Lenovo site. And that was! Only the ATI drivers gave the headaches, the rest went really smoothly.

Hope this helps...

Cheers

[zhenya]

An X31 was one of my main test beds for Windows 7 over the last 6 or 8 months, and i thought that it ran really well, even with 1 gig of RAM. No Aero interface was the biggest downfall for me, since Aero is actually used to improve productivity in 7 as compared to being truly just a window dressing in Vista.

[Tasurinchi]

since Aero is actually used to improve productivity in 7

Never used Aero. Why it does improve the productivity so much?

Let's says while using Firefox or watching videos or copying my fotos (that's the main usage for my TPs), how much will my productivity improve?? Will it make it faster

I think I may switch my Desktops to Win 7 in the near future, but for now I spent enough licenses to MS

Cheers

[zhenya]

In Windows 7 the taskbar is obviously completely re-designed, the basics of which are visible with or without Aero (glass icons that change color as you mouse over them, jump lists, progress bars built into the icons, etc). With Aero you also get live thumbnail views of windows of open programs, which makes it easy to manage lots of windows. You can then hover over those icons to get a quick peek at that full size window, with all other windows becoming transparent. When you mouse off you go back to your original window. From those thumbnail views you can also directly close windows. The lower right corner of the taskbar is a 'hot corner' turning all windows transparent and letting you see the desktop and your gadgets. You can grab and shake any window to make all other windows fade away, etc. I'd still like a real Mac expose like view to complement these other methods, but it's much improved in 7. In Vista I found no benefit to the Aero theme - it made it look pretty but provided no real UI improvements. In 7 they actually thought to try and put that window dressing to work.

[Tasurinchi]

Thanks for the explanation!

In Vista I found no benefit to the Aero theme

I skipped Vista so for me the (non Aero) Win7 interface is a big improvement! I'm a minimalist, I even switched off the Luna Style in XP. With Ubuntu I use the gnome desktop without Compiz or something similar...

Cheers!

[Tasurinchi]

Well... I re-run the Windows Experience Index with the new ATI drivers and it went from 1 (with the standard VGA drivers) to "cannot be computed"...

I'll consider this as an improvement

[meshua]

Folks

[...]
1- Opened the Device Manager (Go to the Control Panel – Hardware and Sound – Device Manager)
2- Right clicked on Display adapters and select “Update Driver Software...”
3- Clicked on “Browse my computer for driver Software”
4- Clicked on “Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer”
5- Clicked on “Have disk”
6- Browsed to the following directory and clicked on open
(C:\DRIVERS\WIN\DISPLAY\Driver\2KXP_INF)
7- Clicked on “Next”, the software got installed. I had to reboot my computer but after that I got the right screen and the right card detected

Dear fellow,
Awesome! Now Seven knows some nice 3D/fading FXs, and even offers sleep mode.
But there are a couple downsides around this work-around giving me some hard time:

• Mouse starts stumbling when I move cursor over links or buttons showing some animations (Firefox 3.5 only!)
• Running Lenovo's Power Manager blows off Seven (blue screen appearing complains about ati3duag.dll)

Keep this in mind when going that way.

Cheers, meshua.

[Tasurinchi]

Running Lenovo's Power Manager blows off Seven (blue screen appearing complains about ati3duag.dll)

Oh dear! I will try tonight if I have the same problem. I had no mouse issues at all, neither with FF, IE or other software.

OTOH the instructions I provided above was the only way I could install the software, it's not that I'm recommended to follow these steps to everybody. I wish the installation file from Lenovo would have worked just with a double click. Maybe it didn't work for me because I was messing up with other ways to install software or did something wrong?

I hope to hear some feedback from other X31 users too...

Cheers

[Tasurinchi]

I tried searching Lenovo's Power Management Software but it's not available for my X31

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... R-43800#pm

So I will not be able to test if the drivers screw up the PowerMgmt tool...

[Mornsgrans]

After 9 months no solution?

Try the T43 - Powermanager. It ist designed for Windows 7 down to X32 ans also should work on X31.
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-70601

[Tasurinchi]

After 9 months no solution?

Try the T43 - Powermanager. It ist designed for Windows 7 down to X32 ans also should work on X31.
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-70601

Ups! I forgot this issue. I gave my X31 to one of my best friends in February 2010, and he is using WinXP now. So I guess I will never know (unless I buy a new X31)

Cheers

[ParatoOptimal]

Which three packages (downloads) did you need from Lenovo?
Thanks

I did a clean install and after that just downloaded 3 packages from the Lenovo site. And that was! Only the ATI drivers gave the headaches, the rest went really smoothly.

Hope this helps...

Cheers

[aiiee]

OP , THANK YOU! I never would have stumbled upon this myself. Now I can use my X31 as a Boxee Box using VGA out.


And yeah, if you could share which 3 packages I think we'd all appreciate that, thanks.

[aiiee]

After 9 months no solution?

Try the T43 - Powermanager. It ist designed for Windows 7 down to X32 ans also should work on X31.
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-70601

Still bluescreens. As does anything using Silverlight ( Netflix Streaming, Boxee, etc ). Oh wells, at least I got my VGA Out back, which is what I needed most.

edit: doesn't bluescreen if I avoid running silverlight fullscreen in Firefox. All else is OK. So I just use IE and I'm fine...

[Tasurinchi]

Which three packages (downloads) did you need from Lenovo?
Thanks

And yeah, if you could share which 3 packages I think we'd all appreciate that, thanks.

Well... I'd love to do that, but I posted these instructions October last year, and on February I gave my X31 away, so to be honest... I don't know anymore what I did

At that time I was using Win7 RC and I did not know about the existence of Lenovo System Update. My guess is that I downloaded the video drivers, the W-Lan drivers and probably the hot key drivers. But with the exception of the ATI drivers, the rest should be picked up automatically by either Windows Update or Lenovo's System Update.

Sorry I cannot remember it anymore... My RAM is also limited

Cheers

[aiiee]

And yeah, if you could share which 3 packages I think we'd all appreciate that, thanks.

Well... I'd love to do that, but I posted these instructions October last year, and on February I gave my X31 away, so to be honest... I don't know anymore what I did

At that time I was using Win7 RC and I did not know about the existence of Lenovo System Update. My guess is that I downloaded the video drivers, the W-Lan drivers and probably the hot key drivers. But with the exception of the ATI drivers, the rest should be picked up automatically by either Windows Update or Lenovo's System Update.

Sorry I cannot remember it anymore... My RAM is also limited

Cheers[/quote]

Thats OK. Your report has been a *huge* help so far. I'll try the ones you suggested.

[ashleys]

Similar problem on my T30 which also has the ATI 7500.
I also manually installed the XP driver for the ATI 7500 and everything worked fine except the Windows 7 version of Power Manager. BSOD on the ATI dll mentioned proviously. Furthermore, the battery icon in the task bar area would flicker badly.
However, I installed the XP version of the Power Manager (actually called Battery Maximiser), link below,
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-44226
and it works fine. No flickering icon and no BSOD.

[Tasurinchi]

Similar problem on my T30 which also has the ATI 7500

Good to hear that your T30 is working well with Win7, I had a T30 for about 3 years in my previous company and I loved it! Unfortunately I gave it away...

[ParatoOptimal]

I just installed W7 on my X31.
I haven't DL'd anything from Lenovo. I noticed several driver and toolkit packages on their site.
I'm running Window update now. I noticed a few Lenovo power and trackpoint DLs included in Windows update.
Note the trackpoint was working fine and the screen looks OK before the update.
The screen goes black when inactive. Is that sleep mode?

[ParatoOptimal]

The X31 manual lists several 802.11 cards.
Which WiFi and which Bluetooth card is best for use with W7 and Linux?
Thanks

[ParatoOptimal]

Is there a driver or toolkit that's required to make the Fn keys work in Win7?

[Tasurinchi]

Is there a driver or toolkit that's required to make the Fn keys work in Win7?

I've installed Lenovo System Update and the software for the Fn keys was downloaded and installed automatically. If you don't want to install it, try downloading the Hot Key drivers from the Lenovo site: http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-74261

[ParatoOptimal]

Would installing the Lenovo update cause the W7 video drivers to be installed? Those don't work. I'm using the XP drivers. I wouldn't want the update to replace them with the non-working W7 video drivers.

Thanks

I've installed Lenovo System Update and the software for the Fn keys was downloaded and installed automatically. If you don't want to install it, try downloading the Hot Key drivers from the Lenovo site: http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-74261

[Harryc]

Would installing the Lenovo update cause the W7 video drivers to be installed? Those done' work. I'm using the XP drivers. I wouldn't want the update to replace them with the non-working W7 video drivers.

Thanks

No, it would be very unlikely that System Update would get it so wrong as to install the drivers for the wrong OS. My experience has been that (for the most part) it at least installs the correct drivers, although at times it seems that the list of available drivers may be incomplete.

[Tasurinchi]

No, it would be very unlikely that System Update would get it so wrong as to install the drivers for the wrong OS. My experience has been that (for the most part) it at least installs the correct drivers

+1 here... I cannot complain about Lenovo System upgrade, I've used it with my ex X31, my X40 and my current T43p with no issues at all.

[ParatoOptimal]

That's the problem. I don't want the correct W7 drivers. I want the "incorrect" XP drivers installed in W7.

No, it would be very unlikely that System Update would get it so wrong as to install the drivers for the wrong OS. My experience has been that (for the most part) it at least installs the correct drivers, although at times it seems that the list of available drivers may be incomplete.

[ParatoOptimal]

I noticed when Windows Update updated, there were some Lenovo files.
My X31 went to sleep. Pressing the SLEEP button woke her up.
So, maybe I don't need anything to make the Fn keys work.
What should Fn F5 do if there isn't an internal wireless card installed?

[dr_st]

Reviving this old thread to share my recent experience.

Installed Win7 32-bit on my X32, and as everyone ran into the problem of no official Radeon driver. I would be fine with the Standard VGA driver, except Windows wouldn't allow me to go into Sleep (Hibernate worked, though).

Using the tip found here, I manually installed the XP Radeon driver. This gave me sleep mode, but sure enough I ran into the same problem described here - opening Power Manager would BSOD with ati3duag.dll error.

One trick that was suggested is to use the older Battery Maximizer. However, I did not want to go down that road, since I wanted the advanced functions of the more modern Power Manager software.

So what worked for me was installing the latest XP version of Power Manager (1.99j as of today). It works just fine. The only thing I needed, though was to run its installed in XP Compatibilty Mode, otherwise it refused.

It seems, however, that there is not support for setting charge thresholds on the X32. I was sure there was (esp. since the equivalent T42 model does have the function), but apparently I was wrong - even the Tp smapi page indicates lack of support.