Advice on Advanced Dock PCIe video card with Vista?

[MBG0001]

Hi,

I am trying to utilize two monitors, along with the LCD screen on my ThinkPad T61 (6459CTO with the nVidia 140 video), running Vista 64. I already have the Advanced dock, but I've been reading that Vista requires all video cards on the same system to use the same drivers.

Has anyone had any success with a particular card in an Advanced Dock cooperating with their T6x series under Vista? I've read of some cards that work under XP, but downgrading is not an option for me at this time.

Thanks

[RonS]

I have a great deal of experience with this topic, but I haven't re-visited the problem for about eight months. Here's what I know (knew?)

1. T60p. The card of choice is the V5200. Works perfectly with Vista 32/64 and with XP. I'm running one as I type this.

2. T61p. Again, I still use the V5200 card. NVidia drivers power the internal adapter, and ATI drivers power the V5200. With Vista, you can't run in Aero mode but everything else works great.

I built five systems, each with three 30" external displays (2560x1600 resolution). Out of seven Advanced Docks, and only five of them would work with the V5200 card. When they did work, they were perfect. When they didn't work, the didn't work at all. I could never figure out why some of the docking stations would not take a video card. I simply swapped them out.

[MBG0001]

Thanks for the reply. I have Aero turned off, so that is not a limitation.

I thought that Vista required all video cards to use the same drivers? (This is per a TechNet article I read months ago).

I’ve done a bit more searching since I first posted. I find it interesting that there are no reports of anyone getting an nVidia based card to work in the docking station. I’m going to call Lenovo tomorrow, and see if they have any specific cards known to work.