T510, nVidia, and Distorted Graphics?

[bthornton]

Hey all,

Just got my new T510 with nVidia graphics. It's running Windows 7 Professional (64-bit). I'm noticing graphical distortion on the screen whenever there is some movement of screen items (i.e. playing a Youtube video, minimizing/maximizing windows, and even scrolling a browser window sometimes). The distortion looks like blurring (especially with text)--it's like every other horizontal line of pixels is shifted over a few pixels to the left or right. This the distortion goes away when things stop moving.

Incidentally, I have installed Linux on this laptop and it does NOT have the same issue--so I don't think it's the display. However, I the drivers from nVidia won't install, so I can't exactly update my driver.

Has anyone else noticed this? Is there any solution?

Thanks.

[outouser]

you can download latest nvidia drivers from here http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/

Please tell if that helps.

[znoonz]

Hi,

I have a T510 too with Nvidia graphics (NVS 3100M), and have experienced the same situation - and can replicate it by opening a command prompt window and then drag it quickly sideways to suddenly stop. After this the text in the window will shift pixelwise, for a moment before it becomes perfect again. Anyway, when I investigated this issue, I found it is fixed by choosing the power plan "Maximum performance".

In any of the other power plans, I could replicate the problem, and since I anyway mostly use my laptop on the power supply, I have just set the laptop permanently to this power plan.

Can you confirm my findings with the power plan? :-)

[bthornton]

I have confirmed that setting my power saving to "Maximum Performance" alleviates the graphic distortion. This is not an acceptable solution, however, since I bought my laptop to be portable (I have a desktop for when I want to be plugged in).

I hope this isn't a hardware issue--it would definitely be a deal-breaker for me if I had to sacrifice hours of battery life for this. I'm going to try a different driver and see what happens...

[lead_org Microsoft MVP Contributor]

have you tried updating the bios?

[awjc11]

Try this link  http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/T510-graphics-flutter-when-in-power-saving-...

[znoonz]

Excellent link!

I can confirm that the setting described works perfectly - here is the solution provided from nanovox:

I went to "Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > Power Options" and chose the custom plan (which the lenovo power management program apparently creates) and then I went to "Change advanced power settings" under that plan, and dug down under Display in the tree listing and found what is called "NVIDIA Display Power Saving technology".  I set that to Disabled when on battery (it was set to Enabled) and my problem went away.

Maybe I will edit my settings too now, and try and use another power plan once in a while :-D

[Qui-Oui]

yup same problem for me too - just got my T510 a week ago

[suryabnvk]

Hi, I also configured in the same way what you explained but the problem is minimized to some extent only,

and I am looking out for a permanent solution

[VST510]

Hi, I had same issue. and got fixed when installed new Nvidia graphics (NVS 3100M driver) and updated power management software.

NVIDIA Display Driver for Windows 7 (64-bit) - ThinkPad T410, T410i, T510, T510i, W510 http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-75176

Power Manager for Windows 7 (32-bit, 64-bit), Vista (32-bit, 64-bit) - ThinkPad http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-70601

Thank You,