T400 Screen Turns off and won't coem back on

[RTAdams89]

About 4 times in the last month and a half, I've shut the lid of my T400 (so the screen turns off) and upon reopening it later, the screen stays black. Moving the mouse, pressing keys, and toggling the display with Fn+F2 does nothing. The only thing I can do is turn it off by holding down the power button and then turn it back on. The screen then works just fine. I've looked at the event log (on Win 7) and see a critical error that tells me the computer was shut down unexpectedly, but there are no other errors near that time. I'm using the latest graphics drivers from the Lenovo site for Windows 7. Any ideas?

[cheesehead76]

I see the same issue intermittently with my T500 running Win7 Ent x64. I just hit Fn+F4 to put the machine back in sleep mode, and then resume again. It works every time. But yes, the behavior is annoying.

[RTAdams89]

Huh, I assume you had something on your laptop before Windows 7? If so, did you have this problem before Windows 7?

[Colonel O'Neill]

I've had this issue very rarely and almost always when the computer responds extremely slowly (i.e. LAGGGGGGG!). I also do the Fn+F4 trick although at times it fails to respond to that.

[Kylan]

I've got a T400 w/ Windows 7 (32 bit) and am having the same problem. When I don't use the computer for a while it shuts off and I can't get anything to turn it back on. The optical drive opens... but that's the only thing I can get it to do. It's happened to me 4 times today and is driving me crazy. I've got all the Win updates installed. Function key does nothing...

Help, please.

[Athlex]

I am seeing the same thing with my T400 (type 2764 with dedicated graphics, LED WXGA+ panel, and WinXP). Fortunately Fn-F4 standby works and it will come back after it wakes up. Fingers crossed, this is just a driver/BIOS thing that has a fix in the works...

[Kylan]

It's absolutely killing me... I basically have to kill the computer multiple times each day...

Question: Where can I get the ATI driver for my machine for Win 7 (32 bit)? I found this (http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-70417), but it's for Vista. That won't work will it?

2764CTO
Intel Core 2 Duo processor T9600 (2.8GHz 1066MHz 6MBL2)
14.1 WXGA TFT High Nit, w/ LED Backlight, Camera
ATI Mobility Radeon 3470 with 256MB

[Athlex]

Kylan,
I've been experimenting with my 2764-CTO and I've found that often when the screen doesn't come back I can close it and reopen it once or twice and it will "wake up" and the screen image will return. I'm thinking this might be due to a touchy ACPI lid switch rather than the graphics hardware/driver.
I haven't figured out where the lid switch is just yet to check, but I notice it will disable the screen when the lid is less than about a 40° angle. The screen not resuming is a bit inconsistent so I'll do some more experimenting and see if I can get something that I can reproduce consistently. I think this might also explain why Fn-F4 doesn't work sometimes. If the laptop thinks the lid is closed, it might also disable the keyboard until it thinks the lid is open again...

I also didn't see a Win7-specific ATI driver, but the Vista one will likely work fine. You can also try the latest greatest driver from ATI and use Mobility Modder to install it on your T400. You'll likely lose power management abilities, etc. for the chip so this would be a last-ditch thing to try.
Mobility Modder SW:
http://www.driverheaven.net/modtool.php

[Kylan]

Athlex,

Thanks sincerely for your response! I've tried to close and open the lid once, but don't recall if I did multiple times to see if that would make it revive. If it works I'll let everyone know.

Happy New Year!

[jasonth]

I'm running a 2764CTO with the switchable graphics - Win7 64bit with the driver version listed in the T400's Win 7 driver matrixas the latest video driver.

A quick check confirmed it is the same as your link.

I don't have this issue, but I can imagine it's exceptionally frustrating for you. I would recommend updating as many drivers as you can, BIOS, etc. These switchable graphics rely on many systems to work perfectly - which is a PITA when one seemingly unimportant system doesn't sync and screws up the whole works.

[Kylan]

Yep, and the bad news is that the lid open/close trick didn't solve things.

I'm more than willing to do driver updates, though I'm not sure which ones since not many appear for Win7 (32). I'd prefer to not install the ThinkVantage stuff because it slows things down so much.

Thoughts?

[Athlex]

IIRC, the on-the-fly switching between dedicated and integrated graphics in Vista/Win7 is handled by the Thinkvantage power manager software. Is it possible that's required for normal function of the display and screen? Unfortunately I can't test since my machine is running XP and can't switch except via the BIOS and a hard reboot...
From what I've seen, (Access Connections aside) the Thinkvantage software is pretty unobtrusive besides adding a bunch of extra processes to the task manager list.

[jeffdgr8]

I am having this problem with my T400 while running switchable graphics under Windows 7 64-bit. I have the latest driver installed from http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... 73641.html (which for some reason is still not linked to from the T400 driver page http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... 72858.html). Every time the screen turns off (after the specified period according to the power scheme, for me 1 hour) it does not turn back on when you move the mouse, open the lid, press keys on the keyboard, etc. Sometimes the screen is completely off, other times the backlight comes on, but the screen is still black. If I sleep the system (alt-F4) and wake it, the screen turns back on. But this is really annoying to have to do this every time I come back to my idle system. I was having more trouble earlier before BIOS and power manager updates with the graphics not always switching, etc. But now this is the only problem left with getting switchable graphics working under Windows 7. I don't understand how Lenovo has been selling T400 notebooks with Windows 7 on them for several months now and yet they still haven't released a working driver for switchable graphics!

[futurejp]

It's unfortunate nobody's found a solution, I have the same problem. Win7 Pro 32 on my T400, my computer hangs sometimes just after I attempt to sleep (screen goes dark but computer doesn't enter sleep mode) or just after I try to wake from sleep. I've also noticed that when on High Performance graphics, I can't change the screen brightness, but when I switch to Energy Saving I can. Weird.

[radiotech1]

I have a T500 running Win7 and have the exact same problem. I have inserted my spare hard drive which is running Windows XP and the problem goes away. It is definitely not a hardware problem and is a problem with the video drivers for the switchable graphics. If I change the video driver to a generic video driver in Win7 I do not have the problem, but then I don't have all the functions of the switchable graphics. ATI provides the video chip in my T500, so hopefully they will come up with an upgraded video driver that resolves this problem.

[Kylan]

Thinking this was just something rare/weird, and that Thinkpads were wonderful, I bought 2 more T400's for my company. Guess what... same problem. I won't be dumb enough to make the same error a 4th time, though. Unless someone figures this out...

[makaveli559m]

Hi I have the same issue with my X60 I have to put it on stand by than turn it for the screen to turn back on I even turned off the option to turn off the screen.

[Kylan]

It was such a big issue for me I bought a non-ThinkPad replacement. What a shame. The ThinkPad was loaded... 8 GB RAM (and note, this was in early 2010), etc. But updates wouldn't help and at some point I just had to have something that worked.

[Kylan]

The open/close lid thing never would do it for me.