R400/T400/T500/W500: Switchable graphics issues with Win 7

[hmilysjl]

Hi,

I have met the same issue several weeks, while recently it seems be resolved.

You can resolve it by following:

1. open the ATI CCC.
2. Select advance
3. select “Power Play”
4. Shutdown this function.

Tips: My TP is T400, and the OS is win7 Ultimate 32bit.

Just have a try. You will find the way to success.

Good luck!

[jazmiller]

---

hmilysjl wrote:

Hi,

I have met the same issue several weeks, while recently it seems be resolved.

You can resolve it by following:

1. open the ATI CCC.
2. Select advance
3. select “Power Play”
4. Shutdown this function.

Tips: My TP is T400, and the OS is win7 Ultimate 32bit.

Just have a try. You will find the way to success.

Good luck!

---

I'll be interested in trying this.  I am a high-res T400 with Win7 Ultimate x64 (OEM install), 8 GB ram.  Latest drivers reported in System Update.  My display freezes with a tray warning that the driver recovered several times per session - no bsod's yet, thankfully, and it will do this in single-display mode.  Never seems to do it when switched to intel graphics, only when in discrete mode.  So I'll give the setting change recommended above a shot to see if this works.

[hmilysjl]

Yes, it only occur in the Ati graphics mode, not in the intel graphics,

and maybe there are some bugs in the Ati driver, so when the "power play" on, the dispaly will hang for some seconds.

I think the key to solve this issue is disable the "Power play".

If it does not work, Pls check you Bios setting, and Turn Off the VT.

BTW,My bios ver. is 3.09-1.03.

[AleHop]

Last week I upgraded from Windows Vista Ultimate 32 bits to Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bits and I added 2 more Gb RAM from Lenovo to make it 4 Gb in total. Everythiing's fine and W7 is a much better option but it's disappointing that battery drains much quicker now. I thought it could be because of the 2 Gb of extra RAM but everybody has told me it cannot be that. Most people told me it was the W7 switchable graphics driver and they're probably right.

Another disappointment about graphics was the poor performance of the integrated graphics (intel GMA) compared to Vista 32 bits, specially for 3D graphics. If I run the Windows Experience Index I get:

Processor: Calculations per second -> 6.2

Memory (RAM): Memory operations per second -> 5.9

Graphics: Desktop performance for Windows Aero -> 4.1

Gaming graphics: 3D business and gaming graphics performance -> 3.4

Primary hard disk: Disk data transfer rate -> 5.6

Both figures were quite higher, and always above 4.5, on Windows Vista Ultimate 32 bits while the others seem to be quite similar.

I haven't found major issues like crashes or "pixel noise" but poorer performance together with higher consumption is quite disappointing and worrying for a laptop user like me. I can't talk much about ATI 5700 FireGL adapter as I use it only for specific programs but it looks fine and very similar to the Windows Vista 32 bits version.

Lenovo Thinkpad W500 4062-2XG (+2Gb RAM from Lenovo)

No external monitors. No conflicting software.

Latest BIOS and drivers.

[Izmi]

I cannot help but wonder what the switch to Nvidia graphics mean for the ATI-based switchable graphics solution.

Vista users are basically stuck with a 9 month old driver which has plenty of known issues as we know. Could it be that Lenovo just hopes that their user base switches to 7?

7 users loose more than hour battery life since the new graphics drivers have a problem. The last driver update was in the last decade. Is there still any commitment to provide support for sold models? Or doesn't that add up?

[andrew_4_life]

So I was just browsing the internet and all of a sudden my screen froze up, artifacts showed up momentarily before it blinked off and then 2 seconds later blinked back on. I got the error message saying the driver stopped responding but successfully recovered. I checked the Event logs and this is what I see:

Warning    21/01/2010 11:29:23 PM    Display    4101    None

- Display driver amdkmdap stopped responding and has successfully recovered.

Error    21/01/2010 11:29:22 PM    amdkmdag    43029    DAL

-Display is not active

The only times I've ever had errors were when overclocking my desktop videocard, or gaming and the video card overheated.

But I was just surfing the net with internet explorer, Opera, and Windows Live Messenger open.

Anyone know why this is happening?

I'm running Windows 7 64 bit on a T400 with switchable graphics. (discrete graphics was on at the time this happened). And my laptop is less than a month old so it's not like it's cluttered and has other drivers to conflict with.

 EDIT: I found more error from before and in fact there are hundreds of these errors and they happen daily apparently.

Error    21/01/2010 9:45:46 PM    amdkmdag    52236    CPLIB

-CPLIB :: General - Invalid Parameter

Error    21/01/2010 9:45:46 PM    amdkmdag    43029    DAL

-Display is not active

[andrew_4_life]

Any fix?

It happened again, and it's kind of annoying...

[thetaphi]

About the power consumption:

I do not see this behaviour on my T500 with Win7 Ultimate 64bit anymore. Maybe it was fixed by the latest PowerManager and BIOS updates? I installed everything from the web site (PowerManager+Driver, BIOS 3.12) and it is not a problem anymore.

I also do not see both graphics adapters in Device Manager after waking up from sleep mode/hibernate, i see ATI+Intel when in ATI mode (which is correct) and only the Intel one in Intel mode (which is also correct).

I had pixel problems (randomly disturbed fonts, random pixeln, corrupted icons) at the beginning in intel mode which was caused by a non-compatible 4 GB RAM module in addition to the 2 GB preinstalled, which was replaced by the retailer and now everything is stable.

[Patrick87]

Will there finally be a stable driver for switchable graphics under Windows 7?

I only find one on the beta-page which is obviously buggy concerning what i read in this thread. I hoped I could eventually update to Win 7 within the next weeks, but without a working graphics driver this is no real option.

Are there any official statements from lenovo when a stable driver will be released? How can it be lenovo officially sells T400 systems with switchable graphics and Windows 7 although there is no working driver yet?

Edit: By the way, will there be an update for the Vista switchable graphics drivers? These also don't work as supposed (at least for me - I'm having issues with applications using OpenGL along with the Intel graphics).

[Sayuuk]

I also have the latest version of the power manager and BIOS installed and I still have the aforementioned problems...