T400 / T500 and newer T series ThinkPad Laptops

[#1]

Hi Daniel,

welcome to the forums.

The disappointing answer to your question is that the newest "beta" or test Lenovo drivers described  here are still based on Catalyst Center 8.12 (8.56 driver). Based on Lenovo's track record for bringing out their switchable graphics driver on new releases of the standard ATI drivers it might be mid-year before they ship a driver based on Catalyst Center 9.1 or later (8.57 or later driver.)

No, the modded ATI driver won't destroy your system. At worst you will get in trouble not finding an easy path back to the Lenovo driver once they ship a version meeting your requirements. The key to not running into problems is a good understanding of the the three display modes set in BIOS: integrated, discrete and switchable graphics. I would recommend anybody hesitating to use the Modder to first play around with these three modes observing what drivers they load, what hardware is recognised in the device manager etc. (The Lenovo driver supports all three modes, the modded ATI driver will only install, run and uninstall in one of the three, the discrete mode.)

[#2]

After some days of untroubled work after System update (including bios update) the amdkmdap crash is back again. Very annoying!!

[#3]

Hello,

Thanks for your answer. Sorry if I didn't understand your "mid-year" sentence (I'm from Germany), but this means lenovo will really update their drivers for Catalyst 9.1 in about july/august (mid-year)? Or is this just guessed that they will update it?

Regards,

Daniel

[#4]

Hi Daniel,

yes you understood me right, Lenovo will at some point, probably by this summer, update their switchable graphics driver again to a later ATI driver level. They just upgraded to Catalyst Center 8.12 which ATI shipped in December, before then they were still on Catalyst Center 8.8 (8.52 driver) from August.

Yes, Lenovo will continue to update their drivers, its just they are going to continue being late with the updates because each time the rewrite of the ATI driver for the switchable graphics architecture is a significant development effort. 

[#5]

I'd also speculate that given where the economy is headed, and the current financial situation and restructuring efforts at Lenovo, the next driver release is still a looooooooooooonnnnnnnnnngggggggggg ways off.  Also, given that Lenovo left the completely defective and unusable 8.52 drivers on the market for at least six months, I somehow don't think that they'll be in much of a rush to fix the slightly less defective 8.56 drivers.

[#6]

Andy,

you need to take into account that the switchable graphics driver is actually an ATI driver that AMD/ATI then makes available to Lenovo and others. So I am sure there is a contract between Lenovo and ATI how often ATI is supposed to deliver an updated switchable graphics driver to Lenovo and that contract isn't dependent on either the economy or Lenovo's situation.

I think what happened is that ATI and Lenovo underestimated how often the switchable graphics driver needed updating when they signed the original contract.

But with a contract in place i would expect the next driver shipped with about the same interval as the current one, ie based on ATI's release in April (Catalyst Center 9.4) and shipped 2-3 months later ie June/July.

[#7]

Hi johnpenn!

Welcome to the forum! To understand your issue better, we have to know more. Which graphics drivers are you using? Have you updated to the new drivers from here? Which operating system are you using?

[#8]

Hi Swan,

Are you sure that you are using the new driver? It's not yet available through Lenovo System Update.

Mit nette Grüess i'd Schwiiz

[#9]

Hi gan!

Any updates from your side? Did you get in touch with Lenovo support?

[#10]

Hi all,

It's time again for a status report.  Personally, the new driver is working well for me. Besides the mentioned quirks, there is only one new issue from my side: screen flickering during normal use on (and only on) the external monitor.

I think that those who have problems should make sure to install the drivers (MIGR-71851) which Mark_Lenovo has referenced.

Also, if you have problems, be explicit about the software and notebook you use. Mention at least:

• Operating system (Vista 32, Vista 64, Service Packs??? Updates?)
• Version of graphics drivers?
• Lenovo System updates applied? 
• Steps to reproduce the issue or circumstances making it likely for the issue to occur
• Are you that you are using the correct drivers?
• Notebook model

The wish list for fixes from Lenovo (aka "todo-list" ) also changed a little bit:

• Fix the documented quirks.
• Fix the high CPU load issue related to some processes of the Intel graphics driver package going wild. There has been a report that with the new drivers, the Intel graphic drivers is still causing a high CPU load (report: here). So, the next switchable graphics driver release should also update the Intel graphics driver.
• Make the driver install routine more intelligent as pointed out before to make sure that the right drivers are used.
• Release drivers more often.
• Update AMD/ATI driver to current driver for OpenGL 3.0 support and optimal gaming experience
• Address gan's lock-up issue.
• Adress screen flickering issues: gan, bri0831, and I have screen flickering. This happens when changing the monitor configuration, also in connection with KVMs, but also during normal use (in my case) which is very annoying
• After standby, when docking and resuming from standby, the external monitor is sometimes not recognized (Andy_7575)
• After sleep or reboot, the VGA-connected monitor is not activated while it was before (orbitech)
• After resume from hibernation running docked on ATI, the LCD stayed black until Fn+F7 was pressed several times.

Update:

• Fixed some spelling and formatting errors
• Added "LCD stayed black" issue

Message Edited by Izmi on 03-15-2009 01:34 AM