T60p Adv Mini-dock DVI graphics / mouse / keyboard problem

[antelope]

I recently bought my T60p secondhand through this forum along with two advanced mini-docks (2504). The laptop seems to run fine when it is undocked including when a USB mouse is attached (wired). The trouble is when I have it docked. When docked it is connected to a Dell FP2001 1600x1200 via DVI. I am using a wired Logitech USB optical mouse. I have tried wired Dell keyboards with both USB and PS connections.

When docked and running the DVI display the following problems exist:

1. The keyboard strokes are slightly delayed and not neccessarily delayed at the same delay interval (indicating a processing error?);

2. The mouse movement is delayed and crude. Mouse movement control is particularily bad when running AutoCAD LT which is somewhat graphics-intensive although my T42 handled it just fine (DVI worked fine on T42 w/ modded drivers). Mouse works fine when T60p is used as a laptop without the DVI screen.
(1. and 2. happen whether the mouse and keyboard are plugged into the dock or directly into the laptop)

3. Icons and pop-up windows in Outlook and other programs are slow to come up. These processes(graphics) should be instantaneous but are slow on a system with little overhead currently. They work fine when in straight laptop mode.

FYI: Hard drive is partitioned to C: 60 GB for system and program files and G: 100 GB for data files. I've updated the graphics drivers to the current set.

I've searched the TP site and the Lenovo site but have only seen complaints of this problem and not found any solutions yet. Thanks for any help.

[Zender]

Extend your screen to the laptop display too (so that both external display and internal laptop's display are active), it might help.

[antelope]

Zender - Presentation Director won't let me run the DVI at 1600 x 1200 and run the laptop screen at the same time.

I'd also like not to run the laptop screen if I don't need to do so. I normally leave the laptop closed when working docked.

[Zender]

Well... it was the only solution I found over a long time. I use ATI Catalyst Control Center, because it's much faster in switching the resolutions on dock/undock or manual profile selection, and you can configure any two combinations of displays (internal, DVI, VGA).
I didn't want the internal display enabled so that the fan doesn't have to spin up so often, but got used to the extra screen space and wouldn't really like to give it up by now.
My thread. More similar.

[antelope]

Thanks Zender. I'll try CCC and see if I can configure it that way. If I could have Outlook running on the laptop screen while I do other tasks on the big screen I'm sure I could get used to it! The CCC process looks more involved than I have time to decipher now so I'll need to do it later and report back on the results.

EDIT / FOLLOW-UP: I changed the display settings in CCC which allowed the Dell to run at 1600x1200 via the DVI and enabled the laptop screen. No more delay issues with the mouse or keyboard and the issues with programs responding slowly (pop-ups in Outlook for instance) seems to have disappeared as well.

[basketb]

If Presentation Director doesn't let you run the DVI at 1600 x 1200 and run the laptop screen at the same time, then there is something wrong with Presentation Director. I'd suggest to uninstall it and install the latest version.

[antelope]

I re-installed Presentation Director to the current version via Lenovo and was able to get the extended screen to work with DVI.

Note to others: Need to go through the NEW routine to have DVI show up as an option. It does not come up as one of the preset options on the menu. This took me a bit to figure out and I may have had a current enough version of PD to begin with.

PD also offers the option to arrange screens above/below oneanother, something CCC does not. (not true - see below - but you need drag them around versus having a menu item with above/below or the like to click on. this is what threw me off . . . .)

[basketb]

...
PD also offers the option to arrange screens above/below oneanother, something CCC does not.

CCC does too. You can drag around the screens in the display manager view as you like.

[Zender]

Well actually, dragging them around has an advantage in being able to position them exactly as you have it on your desktop - to the left, and little down for me - makes moving mouse around displays easier. It's also thing which made me leave PD.