T410i LCD - Horrible

[adamt56]

I was so excited to get my new Thinkpad 410 but the LCD screen (WXGA) is horrible. Absolutely horrible!

White areas look like a checker board and images are extremely pixelated. Text suffers as well . . . What a strain on my eyes.

Surely my monitor is defective or is this normal?

[bmw86us]

I just received my T410i a few days ago.  I didn't notice any issues with the LCD as you described.  I will try a couple resolution changes to see if text or images pixelate or if I see a checker board.  (if I don't reply again, assume everything was fine)

What brings me to the forum, however, is the fan noise.  Shortly after startup, the fan cranked up to full speed and stayed there.  It isn't very loud, but it's incredabily high pitched even throughout the ramp up.  I can't (and shouldn't have to) drown it out with music or anything.  It's piercing.

[lead_org Microsoft MVP Contributor]

can you take a picture of the LCD?

[sys3175]

Are you sure that the panel is running at the native resolution?

[sys3175]

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bmw86us wrote:

I just received my T410i a few days ago.  I didn't notice any issues with the LCD as you described.  I will try a couple resolution changes to see if text or images pixelate or if I see a checker board.  (if I don't reply again, assume everything was fine)

What brings me to the forum, however, is the fan noise.  Shortly after startup, the fan cranked up to full speed and stayed there.  It isn't very loud, but it's incredabily high pitched even throughout the ramp up.  I can't (and shouldn't have to) drown it out with music or anything.  It's piercing.

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I would do a couple things, make sure you are running the latest bios, since the fan is bios controlled.

Try tpfancontrol and see if you can manually controll the fan speed.  Assuming that the application is capable of doing so, I would contact tech support assuming that the bios update doesn't correct the issue. 

[bmw86us]

I will try a bios update first, but I'm more worried about the sound than the fact that it remains on.  If the hardware produces a high pitch from low to high rpm, controlling the speed isn't going to fix the noise.

I tried TPfancontrol and I couldn't get it to run.  I extracted all files and read readme, but when I run it says winio.sys failed or is unavailable.  It is clearly available.

I also tried SpeedFan, but it can only read temps and not the fan control.

I don't know why I'm hesitant to call tech support.  I just don't think they can do anything besides waste time.  They would probably just replace the fan, but since it's new, that's not likely to help.

[sys3175]

There could have been a production issue with the fan which is in the machine.  These machines basically run silently and if they are not there may have been a quality control issue with the cooling fan assembly.   However it is also possible that something is malfunctioning which is causing the fan to stay at a higher rpm then it normally would.  Which version of tpfancontrol did you try?  The one from sourceforge or http://www.staff.uni-marburg.de/~schmitzr/donate.html

[ckerr]

Hi, I've seen this on a T500 - the screen seems dull - not vivid, and looks grainy. This is at native res.

I think it's meant to be like that, but doesn't look nice. really lets the rest of the laptop down in looks.

[sys3175]

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ckerr wrote:

Hi, I've seen this on a T500 - the screen seems dull - not vivid, and looks grainy. This is at native res.

I think it's meant to be like that, but doesn't look nice. really lets the rest of the laptop down in looks.

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The screens on the newer models are completely different panels.

My T500 has a very good display.  The only time it looks bad is when running on the integrated intel graphics and I think that is just an issue with the Intel graphics.. they look bad on everything I've ever used them on    The video drivers usually give you the ability to fine tune the contrast and brightness of the display, also look for something like lcd overdrive, if you try to push too much contrast from an LCD, or if you push the overdrive (where it tries to force a higher refresh rate) too far you will end up doing the exact oposite of the desired effect.  I notice that on my Asus VW266H, if I push the LCD overdrive (either in the monitor on in the catalyst drivers) above +10% the color transitions get very grainy.

[bmw86us]

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sys3175 wrote:

There could have been a production issue with the fan which is in the machine.  These machines basically run silently and if they are not there may have been a quality control issue with the cooling fan assembly.   However it is also possible that something is malfunctioning which is causing the fan to stay at a higher rpm then it normally would.  Which version of tpfancontrol did you try?  The one from sourceforge or http://www.staff.uni-marburg.de/~schmitzr/donate.html

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I picked up the one from sourceforge, should I try the other one?

Update: I updated my bios and, while the fan does not simply run constantly, it still produces an annoying high pitch sound when it's running softly and gets louder and higher pitched when the laptop heats up and the fan speeds up.

So, is this definitive proof that I need to send it back for replacement?

Even so, when I get it back, I would like to have TPfancontrol running to optimize noise vs cooling.