Z61m Video Resolution Problem and System Restore Problem?

[dejola]

I've had my Z61m for about a month now and I like it a lot. But I am troubled by a problem I'm having with video resolution and another problem with system restore.

First the video problem.
I noticed about two weeks ago that some, not all, images were being displayed with very poor (low) resolution. Strangely, my pictures in Picasa are unaffected. It's mainly images on web sites. They are either grainy and look like they were made with a rubber stamp or look like watercolor paintings that someone poured water over and caused the colors to run (blurry).

I tried several times to use system restore to restore the Thinkpad to an earlier (boldface) date. The computer went through the process and restartedonly to inform me that my computer couldn't be restored to (whatever the date), and that nothing had been changed. Tried several different dates with the same result.

On October 25th I called tech support and described these problems. They sent me a DHL shipping box and the next day the computer went off to them. I got it back Nov 2nd with a cryptic one page document that referred to something called a planar card. I called tech support. They explained that that means they changed the system board. I said, "Okay, thanks."

But now the same problems have reappeared. I don't know if it was my imagination or not, but I could swear I smelled a faint odor of overheated plastic when I first booted the computer when I got it back from the repair facility. The odor quickly dissipated and is no longer present.

Anybody have any similar experiences?

The only other problem I've had relates to the drivers for the built-in wireless. I was dropping connections and called tech support. They said there is a known issue that they're working to remedy and suggested I let Windows control my wireless connections until they have an upgrade ready for downloading.

Thanks.

John

[own6volvos]

Any chance for a picture of the screen doing this stuff? Maybe it is software if it isn't occurring in certain programs? Also, that smell may have been excess thermal compound burning off if it was heavily gouped on.

[dejola]

I am pleased to report this morning that the mystery has been solved thanks to a fellow named Beauregard T. Shagnasty on the 24hoursupporthelpdesk newsgroup. Mr. Shagnasty suggested that the problem might be caused by a web accelerator. I had recently downloaded and installed the Google Web Accelerator.

This morning I effectively turned off th web accelerator by deleting its entry in my startup group. I rebooted my ThinkpadZ61m and found the problem was gone.

According to Mr. Shagnasty, web accelerators speed things up in part by, in his words, giving you a half glass of water instead of a full one. In other words when displaying a web site the accelerators speed things up by holding back some stuff that it thinks you can do without. In my case it was the video resolution.

Who'd a thunk it?

Thanks for reading about my problem, and thanks to own6volvos for pitching in.

I hope this information is helpful to others.

[rajm]

lol Shagnasty, now that is an awesome name! Good info on the accelerator.