T60, Advanced dock, dual analog monitors, Nvidia and ATI PCI

[motrid]

I am having a heck of a time trying to get two external vga monitors to work using the Advanced Dock and my t60 equipped with the ATI x1400 video.

I have tried and ATI Radeon x550, x600 and an NVidea card. The Nvidea locked up my thinkpad, I was able to get the x600 to work if I started the machine in the dock. However I am unable to hot dock or undock. When I hot dock the external monitors don't work. If I boot in the docking station and I try to undock I get the message "You cannot eject your computer because one of the devices in the docking station, Display adapter, cannot be stopped right now. Try closing all applications and ejecting the computer again later. .

Any help would be greatly appreciated. So far I have a $400 paperweight!

Thanks

Motrid

[RonS]

You cannot hot dock or undock if there's a video card installed in the Advanced Dock. A video card installed on the PCI-Express bus must be present during boot, and you cannot "pull the rug out" from under the operating system once the card is recognized by the system.

This isn't just a Thinkpad limitation. I've never seen a computer anywhere what you let you pull out a video adapter on a PCI, AGP or PCI-Express slot.

[motrid]

Looks like my bad... I thought the idea behind the 2 stage undocking was to shut down the docking station peripherals to allow undocking.

Is there a satisfactory alternative solution to drive two VGA monitors while docked, and allow hot dock, un-dock?

I appreciate your help,

Thanks

Motrid

[DAH]

Well let's see here.

1) As was posted above any video card you wish to use must be present for boot.

2) Any video card present for boot, must remain part of the system, there is no way to remove it from the system short of powering down your computer.

So you either power cycle your computer and remove it from the dock when power off.

Or remote terminal into your laptop from another system with two monitors attached to it. Then end the session when you wish to just use the laptop.

[motrid]

DAYou cannot eject your computer because one of the devices in the docking station, Display adapter, cannot be stopped right now. Try closing all applications and ejecting the computer again later. H,

Thanks for the alternative, but I don't think it will be much faster than powering down. My problem is that I must take my notebook to meetings that often start with little notice. I may just have to settle for a wide screen monitor.

I did find this of interest... http://support.microsoft.com/kb/251491

Thanks

motrid

[RUSH2112]

Look around on Newegg, I think theres something you can get that will turn one vga port into two.

[erozsolt]

Matrox Dual- and TripeHead2Go is exactly what you need, but why didn't you ask questions before you purchase things for $400?
http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/gxm/p ... o/home.php

[motrid]

Darn good question. I actually called Lenovo support and was escalated twice to get the answer that I needed the Advanced dock and the PCI Express card.

I wish I would have found this site first, live and learn.

Believe me, I feel really dumb!

motrid