T400 and External Monitors

[kingweb]

I have posted this before, but never really got a conrete answer.
Now I see that Lenovo came out with a some new docks.

I would really like to have 3 or even 4 external monitors.
Right now I am using 2 external with the advanced mini dock.

I see that one of the new docks has 2 dvi, 2 displayport, and 1 VGA.

The other dock with fewer video outputs says that only 2 at a time can be used. But of course as usual Lenovo is awful at providing full and information about their products. Can I use 3 or 4 video outputs simultaneously with the ThinkPad Mini Dock Plus Series 3?

Is there any other alternative? Maybe the Advanced Dock with the PCI graphics card?
I am running Windows 7 (not sure if that matters).

[idxman01]

It seems even with the new mini dock plus (series 3) it only supports 2 simultaneous monitors out of the 5 ports it offers. Having two good sized monitors or at least one big one and the TP is a must. Having more seems cool, but I'm not sure how much it would help me productivity-wise.

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... 72873.html

Five video ports*:
One VGA analog
Two Single-Link DVI-D
Two DisplayPort
Notes: Any two, of the five, video ports can be used simultaneously. Attaching two monitors disables the ThinkPad display. Single-Link DVI-D port does not support attachment of a DVI-to-VGA monitor adapter.

Also do you mean the new T400s? From what I can tell it's the only TP compatible with the new line of docks. (so far)

Note: ThinkPad Mini Dock Plus Series 3 does not support earlier ThinkPad models. Earlier ThinkPad models include: R60, R61, R400, R500, T60, T61, T400, T500, W500, Z60, Z61.

[kingweb]

Well I got an answer from the lenovo forums on this.
So FYI for anyone interested, here is how to do it:
http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/cont ... 7343AFFB25

[idxman01]

Interesting adapter. Will have to bookmark that for the future. Certainly seems like a flexible and portable option.

From poking around a bit more it does seem that the advanced dock will support 3+LCD and 4 without the LCD if you have the x1300 adapter installed.

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-68889

[kingweb]

Interesting. Actually, I think I saw that page a while back, but the problem is that on Lenovo's website, it says that the PCI graphics card in the Advanced Dock will ONLY work on XP.

Anyway, I just bought this adapter. It is showing that it should ship in 11 days.
I will post the results here once it arrives.

[idxman01]

Ah, they certainly don't make it easy to find the information.

T60, T60p Widescreen (type 6369, 6370, 6371, 6372, 6373, 6374, 8741, 8742, 8743, 8744, 8745) with Windows XP only

Good exercise anyway as I wanted to at least know what was required for 3+ monitors. Will be interested to hear how that works out.

[kingweb]

Well, I finally found a solution to having more than 2 external monitors!

http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/cont ... 7343AFFB25

It arrived today with UPS, and I tested it, and it WORKS!!

I am using a T400 with an Advanced Mini Dock.
3 External 24 inch WUXGA 1920 x 1200 monitors.

1 is connected to VGA thru mini dock
1 is connected to DVI thru mini dock
1 is connected thru this new USB adapter!

The frame rate is not quite as good as a normal VGA or DVI, but it is still very good, especially for office use.
According to Lenovo's website, you can have up to 6 of these without using switchable graphics. (I disabled my switchable graphics in the BIOS).

Furthermore, I am using Windows 7 RC1 64 Bit. The drivers that come with this are for XP 32 and Vist 32/64 ONLY. They will not work with Windows 7. I had to download a beta Windows 7 driver, which is working perfectly for me. I got it from http://www.displaylink.com/ which seems to be the company that creates USB to DVI technology.
If you look in their website on this page: http://www.displaylink.com/shop.html You will see several similar adapters.
However, ONLY the Lenovo one supports WUXGA (1920x1200). All the others only go up to WSXGA+ (1680x1050). So get the Lenovo one if you want higher res.

[kingweb]

Just to add one more thing that I figured out here.
It comes with a DVI to VGA converter. As Imentioned the framerate wasn't quite as good as the other monitors. Also, the brightness was a little lower. No big deal, I just turned up the brightness slightly.
However, the frame rate was a little annoying.
So just for the hell of it, I tried it with the VGA adapter instead, and it is much better. Framerate is a little better, and the brightness is pretty much equal to my other 2 monitors.
So anyone using this thing, I would definately recommend using the VGA adapter that comes with it.