T400 switchable graphics difficulties

[brucehe]

Hello,

I am having a tough time getting my daughter's T400 with switchable graphics working with stable graphics.

After getting switchable graphics working about a year ago several months later the screen just went black. I had to pull the battery and use the 10 times on off button push method to get the unit to reboot. It continued to give a black screen on startup of W7. We then installed Ubuntu as a dual boot system and that ran fine.

The next step was to see if we could get W7 back. I installed a fresh copy of W7 and installed the drivers per http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 00#p758299

After setting BIOS to Switchable graphics, OS switchable graphics on, and then installing the Intel driver, power management driver and program and ATI driver the "Switchable Video" choice appears when right clicking the battery icon however it will not switch to discrete graphics. It just gives me a "Power Manager stops working" dialog box.

Could it be the discrete video section of the motherboard is bad? When I change the BIOS to run discrete graphics only I get a blank screen and have to disconnect the CMOS battery to get the machine to boot.

I guess I could run in integrated graphics mode but if I do what is the best setup? Should I set the BIOS to run integrated only?

I did find a post mentioning the gray screen but no responses were found.

Should I give up on the switchable graphics and if so can I make the machine stable with W7. Any assistance is appreciated.

Bruce

[emeraldgirl08]

One problem could be that the thread you linked pertained to Vista Business x64. Here are the latest W7 32-bit and 64-bit drivers for the T400 that may get your switchable graphics working correctly.

Intel chipset driver--> http://support.lenovo.com/us/en/product ... s/DS014952

Lenovo Power Manager Driver--> http://support.lenovo.com/us/en/product ... s/DS101347

Lenovo Power Manager Program--> http://support.lenovo.com/us/en/product ... s/DS014924

Driver for switchable graphics from Lenovo Support--> http://support.lenovo.com/us/en/product ... s/DS018891

[precip9]

Does it work with discrete graphics (not switchable) enabled in the BIOS ? Does device manager then show the ATI chip?

[brucehe]

Thanks, I will try the new links to W7 drivers.

No, when I change the BIOS to "Discrete" it boots to a black screen.

The Device Manager did show the ATI chip after I loaded the ATI driver but with a yellow diamond I think.

Bruce

[brucehe]

The Intel driver and power manager drivers installed fine but the ATI driver hangs. I used a display driver uninstall program (DDU 3D Guru) to remove and try again. It continues to hang.

Any ideas? I know I got it to install once before.

*****EDIT: I had forgot to change the BIOS back to Switchable Graphics as I was trying Integrated. Once I changed it back and uninstalled the ATI driver the ATI driver installed successfully however it still was not showing up at the batter icon.

Thanks,

Bruce

[brchan]

Does the system still hang when you set graphics to discrete in bios and boot windows in safe mode? Something is telling me that the ATI card might be defective.

[brucehe]

Does the system still hang when you set graphics to discrete in bios and boot windows in safe mode? Something is telling me that the ATI card might be defective.

When you set the BIOS to Discrete you cannot start into Safe Mode because the screen goes black. Once it goes black the only way to reboot is remove battery and CMOS battery.

Bruce

[brchan]

OK, so the system won't even show anything at boot. I was not sure whether the black screen happened at windows or at boot.

Since the system shows no screen even at the bios level when discrete mode is selected, the ati gpu is likely dead. Unfortunately, the gpu is soldered onto the motherboard, so you will need to get a replacement board.

[brucehe]

The black screen is at boot up but the machine seems to continue to boot with no display. I am guessing if I plugged it into an external monitor I might see something although not sure which gpu drives that output. When I get a vga cord I think I will try that.

I am also guessing the ati gpu is dead.

Bruce

[brucehe]

Well, another mystery. I updated Windows and installed some software assuming leaving the machine in Integrated Video mode in the BIOS would be fine. I was letting the battery charge with the unit powered down before giving back to my daughter. I then restarted the machine to a black screen. Again I had to remove the battery and unplug the CMOS battery to get to the Thinkpad Flash screen where I went to setup and found the configuration had changed to Switchable Graphics mode.

I put it back to Integrated mode and it ran fine.

Why did the BIOS change by itself?

Edit....Oh, I also ran a Burn in program or two, I wonder they could have change BIOS settings>

Any ideas?

Bruce

[emeraldgirl08]

Did you perhaps forget to press F10 to save the changes you made in BIOS?

[brucehe]

No, I had previously rebooted the machine several times to check for stability and the BIOS setting seem to stay as Integrated.

Bruce

[brucehe]

If the BIOS battery was weak could it go to the default video settings? Seems though if this was the case it would also loose the date settings.

Bruce

[brchan]

If the BIOS battery was weak could it go to the default video settings? Seems though if this was the case it would also loose the date settings.

Bruce

If the bios battery is dying, then it would reset all settings, including date and time. The default settings is optimus for the graphics option, at least on my W530.

[brucehe]

Have since rebooted the machine a dozen times and it is fine, BIOS has a Integrated video setting.

Still curious how the BIOS settings got changed. Could a Windows update change it?

Bruce

[brucehe]

Well, I gave the machine back to my daughter to use and within two days it went to a black screen again. I unplugged the CMOS battery to get it back to the setup screen and again found the BIOS had changed, to its default I am guessing, of Switchable Graphics and OS detection of such. The computer works fine as long as it is using the Intel integrated graphics and that is fine by us

Why is the BIOS configuration changing on its own? Can it be sensing the sick ATI gpu and trying to access it? Why does this happen on random startups? Is my only answer to replace the system board? It would be great if we could make it work as is.

Any ideas appreciated.

Bruce

[brucehe]

With all that experience out their someone must have an idea of why the BIOS video settings keep going back to default?

Thanks

Bruce

[theterminator93]

Is the BIOS version up to date? Has the CMOS battery been replaced recently? If either of those is no, then I'd recommend taking steps to convert that to a "yes" to see if the problem goes away.

[brucehe]

Yes, just verified BIOS is current. I also suggested a bad CMOS battery but the BIOS is not loosing date settings just video config. I guess I could replace it as it is probably a few bucks on Ebay.

Thanks,

Bruce

Edit: Ordered a new CMOS battery $11, doubtful but hopeful

[TonyJZX]

I have on of these. ATI something and the Intel GFX.

Its... a funny unit. Windows 7. It seems to be the Lenovo ATI driver trying to fight the Windows Update ATI driver.

I could never get it working right but it never did anything bad either.

My other T400 w. just the Intel GFX is a lot better.

[brucehe]

Replaced the CMOS battery and it worked fine for about a week and then lost it brains again. Boots to a dark screen and switches the BIOS settings back to discrete graphics and OS switchable graphics option. My daughter would really like W7 to run stable to use for her farm business, but this unit is anything but stable.

Not sure what is next, either use with UBUNTU which runs find all the time or replace the system board with an integrated or discrete only video. All ideas appreciated.

Bruce

[brucehe]

I was able to put the t400 in my docking station for my T60 to see what the outputs might look like and to verify that the ATI GPU was dead. In Integrated video mode the VGA output worked fine, however no DVI output (to be expected). I set the BIOS for discrete and the VGA output showed a distorted signal of what was happening during boot up, none readable. There was no output to the DVI input on the monitor. So, this pretty much confirms the ATI GPU is dead. It is still a mystery why the BIOS flips GPU types on its own.

Bruce

[szsz]

I know this topic is old, but I've specifically registered to help fellow googlers, who may still have the same issue even today (like me).

One note of difference: for some reason I did manage to enter the BIOS without removing the CMOS battery every time it mysteriously reset the video setting back to Switchable (and then failing the Windows boot with the black screen, just like brucehe). I did have to remove it initially, but not thereafter. I'm not quite sure why/how that worked now, and why I couldn't boot to the BIOS last year, when I gave up on this machine. But now I was fortunate to not only have the Thinkvantage button alive, but to actually see the boot.

FTR, I dusted this machine yesterday to replace the CPU as a last resort (with the faint hope that maybe the "only" problem is a fried Intel (integrated) GPU in the old one). And indeed, the machine came back from the dead, and the old Win7, booted fine! But the honeymoon didn't last long, and I got garbled video, hangs, log messages about the crashing ATI video driver, and then the consistent black screens after an hour or two, reinforcing the suspicion: the ("discrete") ATI GPU is basically dead.

Then I removed the CMOS battery, booted with defaults, switched to "Integrated", and could then boot, only to lose the setting notoriously on reboots... (Latest BIOS here, too.)

Now I'm on the Intel GPU of the replacement CPU, writing this, but I wonder if the next reboot would want to switch me back to the dead ATI yet again...

BTW, the most likely cause of death was inefficient cooling, likely exacerbated with the added burden of driving an 1920x1200 display for thousands of hours, also watching loads of HW-accelerated YouTube on it. I've even seen brown stains that looked like burn marks around the chip die; maybe just the paste, but even then: the paste was completely dry and rigid, so... (Which is my fault, I was not aware of that maintenance requirement before.)