So who makes PCI Express video for advanced dock?

[dysert]

The Thinkpad Advanced dock states it will accomodate a "half-size" PCI Express graphics card. Does anyone make one? If so what is the model number? I have a z60t and would like to support DVI out to my monitor.

[own6volvos]

Lots of places sell them.

For example, here is a super cheap one off ebay. It is a x300 from a oem dell.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ATI-Radeon-x300-64m ... dZViewItem

Lots of the cheaper cards are like this. Finding a higher grade card will provide more of a challenge, but they are out there.

[a31pguy]

http://www.multiplemonitors.org/Pages%2 ... cards.html

Check out this link.

[rajm]

Are all of those "half-size" though?

[a31pguy]

"Half-size" means not a full size card. Old full size cards are very rare. The run the length of a ATX case. Very few cards these days are full size.

What you need to do is find a "low profile" card. In otherwords - no huge honking heatsink and fan (like the ATi X850 PE). Matrox has been making cards for the dock for quite some time. Just make sure the interface is either PCI or PCIe and "low profile" and your set.

It's quite common for stock brokers to have multi-head video cards in the docking stations. So quite a few of the multi-head cards are already low profile. Although for a nice low profile multihead (or multilink) PCIe card be prepared to pay. They are not cheap. Your better off going PCI if your price sensitive, however, your performance will suffer.

[dysert]

I have a Dell 24 inch LCD, FW2405, and the DVI connection works great. The card fits without a problem. The key descriptor on the card is low profile. The Lenovo documentation needs to reflect that attribute, not half-size. Thanks for all the help.

[a31pguy]

Your right. They should specify "low profile" instead of just half-size. But for those of us who remember the Micro Channel Architecture - half-size is the correct term. But not many people remember full length cards anymore! Enjoy!

[rajm]

What is the max resolution I can get via DVI through the dock using the stock graphics card?

[a31pguy]

I'm no expert. Depends. Using a passthrough from the video card on the thinkpad you can get the same 1680x1050 (well on my ATi x600 at least). Some have reported that the Intel Graphics chipset won't do DVI. With a video card in the PCIe slot - it depends on the card you select. If you use a dual link DVI card - can get you to 2048 x 1536 for about $375 or less. But the better cards have higher refresh rates and truer color.

[laughingtonto]

What is the max resolution I can get via DVI through the dock using the stock graphics card?

So, I have a Z60M with the X600 mobility. The max DVI resolution for this chip (per the ATI website) is 1600x1200.

[laughingtonto]

If the dock does take low profile (rather than short length cards), here are two interesting possibilities I found on NewEgg. One is nvidia geforce 7300-based and the other is ATI 1300-based. Pictures are included in these two links:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814150128
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814121551

I note that the nvidia-based card does have 256MB of ram though I haven't checked to see if its dual-link.

-Todd

[smek]

Does anyone know of a better video card for this than the x700/6600, not including the workstation cards.

[kru-inc]

So far, I've unsuccessfully tried:

ASUS Extreme AX300SE-X/TD >
no matter what I did, the system could not 'see' the card.

eVGA e-GeForce 6200 TC >
the system 'sees' the card, drivers install, but card won't function. Docked boot results in no display at all.

I've tried the various BIOS settings with no success. What am I missing? Do I need a different type of card?