Switchable Graphics Stuck

[comptiger5000]

My switchable graphics on my W500 (Server 2008 x64) suddenly stopped working yesterday. The machine had been docked (Advanced dock) and on ATI graphics. I rebooted, and it came up on the Intel card, and it wouldn't switch to ATI. I have since uninstalled and reinstalled the drivers. Still didn't help. I have the switchable graphics option in the power manager menu, but if I select "High Performance", nothing happens. The ATI card doesn't show in device manager, and the driver install process only mentions the Intel card.

If I force it to discrete graphics in BIOS, then the ATI card works. I also tried updating my BIOS from 1.19 to 1.20 to resolve the problem, no difference.

Any ideas as to what may have happened?


UPDATE: I reinstalled the thinkvantage power manager, and that didn't help either.

[Wendy]

Are you switching with it undocked? It won't switch when its in the dock.

I had a problem a month or so when I got an update through thinkvantage update that hosed the graphics...it failed during the update and the graphics stopped working. Hope that is not your issue. I had to reformat the pc.

[comptiger5000]

I already made the mistake of updating to that defective update once. I could still switch, but had CPU usage problems with the Intel drivers. I reverted everything back to the old drivers (lots of work), and it was working fine again.

I have been trying to switch while docked, so I guess I'll undock and give it a shot. Kind of a strange feature.


UPDATE: I just undocked and tried it, still nothing. I'll try uninstalling and reinstalling the drivers while undocked tomorrow, and I'll see what happens.

[Wendy]

Good luck. I've been reasonably stable after my initial set up after that fiasco. My safety net is that I bought a second hard drive and the multibay adapter and have my original hard drive that came with the unit. Granted set up is a pain and time consuming but if it came to having to reset up, it makes it easier I also store my important files on a server so a failure isn't the end of the world.

Computers: its a love/hate relationship

[comptiger5000]

Yeah. I've found that the amount of respect a person has for a piece of computer equipment follows somewhat of an inverted bell curve. It's high when they first buy it, and gradually goes down. Once they eventually retire the equipment from regular use, it begins to go back up.

I think I'll try screwing with it a bit while undocked at this point, see if that helps.

[comptiger5000]

And this just keeps getting better:

In an attempt to get the drivers for the dedicated card to install, I set the bios to Discrete graphics, instead of switchable. Once the machine reset, the screen was blank. I now get absolutely nothing on the internal display, or on an external monitor. No HD activity, so the machine isn't booting or anything. Completely bricked. I tried pulling the battery and unplugging power, and even after holding the power button for about a minute, it didn't help at all. It would appear that my dedicated graphics card has completely failed.

UPDATE: It now seems that I can get it to boot with discrete graphics selected, but only as far as BIOS. To even get that far, I have to go through the ESD recovery procedure.

Another Update: Okay, so that only worked once. Now it's bricked again.

Another Update: Tech support was very helpful and understanding. They agree that it is likely a bad GPU (I hope the new T and W series aren't another T4x nightmare). They'll be sending an EZserv box on Monday. I'll report back once the machine is repaired.

[sethstorm]

And this just keeps getting better:

Another Update: Tech support was very helpful and understanding. They agree that it is likely a bad GPU (I hope the new T and W series aren't another T4x nightmare). They'll be sending an EZserv box on Monday. I'll report back once the machine is repaired.

It sounds like the stuff of the A series and their troubles.

[comptiger5000]

Fortunately, this seems to be a one-off occurrence so far. Also, they have been very quick so far. They sent out a box Monday, I had it Tuesday, sent it back Tuesday. They got the machine this morning (Wednesday), and are showing that it is fixed and was shipped back tonight. Should have a tracking number by morning, and hopefully will have the machine back tomorrow.