T61 with Advanced Dock and PCI-e graphics card?

[atraveler]

re: my earlier posts about this problem ... my T61p has the Quadro NVS 140m chipset.  I want to use a video card in the dock to attach at least 2 external monitors.  It suddenly dawned on me that I was actually able to make this work soon after I got the T61p, about 3 years ago.  Same dock, same Nvidia GeForce 7200gs x16 video card.  Using Win XP in this original configuration.

So, what changed?  Well, for one, I upgraded the bios.  With the "upgraded" bios and a newer add-on video card, the machine generally refuses to boot. and instead gives post error (1 long beep, followed by 2 short beeps).  The OS is never started.  With the older card, the OS boots but does not load the drivers.  And, of course, that's the 2nd part of the problem.  The T61p has recently been upgraded to Windows 7, and it's my understanding that you can't mix drivers in Win 7.  If you have 2 video cards you need to move to a driver that supports both.  Further, I understand that Nvidia says you can't mix Quadro and GeForce cards in the same system in the Win 7 (and Vista) environment.  Nvidia has recently released its 257 driver for Win 7 which now supports a huge array of cards and chipsets, going all the way back to the 6k variety.  I can confirm that with the 257 driver I am able to use both a 6200 pci card and a 9500 gs card together, in another Win 7 system.

So, to net it out ... for my T61p situation I believe I'd need to find a Quadro add-in PCIe card which can use the same driver as the built-in 140m chipset demands, and downgrade my bios to something closer to the original version.

[eyeland]

bump...

is this topic being discussed further somewhere else?

I just started looking into this mod again and I could use a few tips concerning a solution for my T61 + adcanced dock + radeon HD gfx

From this and other threads, it would seem that it is possible to use:

(i) Certain Radeon Cards (like 4350 & 4550) that have a low enough Power consumption (<50W?) to be used "natively" in the dock, or with a Pci riser card in case the card physically to to big for the dock.

(ii) Certain Radeons cards (like 5770) with a bigger power consumption, using an external PSU (and the riser card solution)

It seems then, that the cards that will NOT work, includes:

(a) Most or all Nvdia Cards (like 7800GT) due to a Pci x16-> x1 scaling issue in invidia tech?.

(b) Any card using more power than the dock can supply while lacking the option to connect an external PSU

I need help devicing a theoretical list based on the assumptions above.

At the moment, I am looking at a few cards that sell for "next to nothing", in order to try the mod and get a bit more performance than offered by the intel Gfx in my T61

I am looking at HD4550, HD5450, HD5550, HD4650, HD4670 and HD5670

as they all sell for less than 100$ in DK

I am looking at Sapphire, XFX and Asus, and most of these cards (exept 5670 I think) are passively cooled.

Obviously (I think), the HD5670 or the passively cooled HD4670 provide most value, but the question now, is to figure out which cards will work natively as (i), which ones will work with a PSU (ii), and finally, which ones that will not work at all (b). I think that 5670 and 4670 lack the external PSU option and I am afraid that they will draw too much power for the dock to sustain them?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Note: the primary purpose is not gaming but rather Photoshop, Premiere, Blue-ray and such, whereas I do a bit of occasional EvEonline/wow gaming (and yes, these games DO require much more than an onboard gpu

[Metzenes]

I use a Matrox QID LP PCIe in XP.  This was the card Lenovo recommended.  It works perfectly.  I expect it would work in Vista as well.

[kaniballo]

hello

I got t61 14inch c2d 2ghz, 3gb ram, windows 7 32 bit prof and intel gpu, i already bought 2503 dock.with nvidia 6200le and using it together is horrible - works so slow thar saying that i got 3fps wathing a movie in bestplayer would be a lie...

Maybe i did someting wrong during instalation

Is there any site that gives a list of grafic cards that works ok on this dock with windows 7?

does any of mentioned above cards supports hdmi?

maybe it''s not worth trying spending time wih bsod's and buying of adpter dvi-hdmi will be best to have it work (i mean to use t61 gpu with avaliable resolution)?

[naviot]

Well, I am jumping in at the end page of this thread while searching for a laptop with a multi-monitor option, so someone may have mentioned this already. One thing I know is that changes in Vista vs. XP video driver model is likely contributing to the confusion.

Generally-speaking, when using Vista, you can only "activate" one video driver. All other adapters must be able to work through that one driver.

See the MS doc here, especially the section on the new WDDM:
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/display/multimonVista.mspx#EOB

Please note that the POST device, IOW the video card that gets used while posting up at boot time, will be the one that rules the roost. On laptops, this will almost inevitably be the laptop's integrated device and will likely have had a WDDM-based driver installed.

So, I guess if the T61 has an NVidia GPU, most NVidia cards should work fine in the dock wrt to Vista, since NVidia provides a unified driver that covers multiple models. Of course, if there are other non-WDDM issues, I don't know. Also, I suppose that if your secondary card can play nice with the NVidia WDDM driver, then things will seem to work on the T61.

Hope this helps.

[tripoli]

check this http://www.retropcmania.com/2011/10/thinkpad-adanced-dock-with-radeon-hd.html

and that http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXzCGBQ0dKY&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

[Remeniz]

Im interested in a docking station and have read this thread with great interest.....

I've got a T61 (7665-CH8) running the Middleton BIOS. 128MB Quadro NVS 140M. Windows 7 Ultimate 32 bit.

Basically all I want is a dock on my desk permently hooked up to a pair of monitors. So when i'm at the desk I can use the monitors, without having to connect/disconnect cables, and take the T61 away for mobile use.

I was going to get the Advnced Mini Dock 2504 which has two monitor connections, Ideal for my solution.

Then I saw the the Advanced Dock 2503 with it's own PCI-E GPU solution. I like the idea of this as it takes the load of the T61 GPU.

Has anyone actually got a T61, to my spec,  working sucsessfully with the 2503 dock? 

[TheDude]

I do this with the Mini Dock and a T61p, but have not done so with the Advanced dock.

[metalik]

Hi all.

I wanted to join the club with a T61p, a 2503 Advanced Dock and a (brand new) Sapphire Radeon HD7750 low profile.

First of all I looked on the market for the highest performance PCI-e card BUT with the lowest power requirements. This is how I came to chose a HD7750 model.

The problem is that I cannot boot using the Radeon as Primary Video. The boot fails with a 1-long + 2-short beeps - which is a video card error. At this point - I'm thinking: is it my T61p (which normally, is NOT listed to be supported by the Advanced Dock anyway, probably because it has discrete graphics?).

Booting into Windows XP using the internal FX570M card of the T61p allows me to install drivers of the 7750 but I didn't get to see any extended desktop yet (I'm one monitor short) but I'll do some more tests in the next weeks.

Could it be the T61p BIOS? I remember that I run 2.29 - it's supposed to be the latest. Could it be an electrical compatibility between pci-e 3.0 x16 of the Radeon against the x16 1.1 of the Dock?

I'm going to test my wife's R60 with the Dock in the weekend.

best regards,

[Metzenes]

I am running a T61P with intenal FX570M card in a 2503 Advanced Dock with an ATI RAdeon HD4600 series.  This ran with no problems once I got the boot sorted out.  You can change the primary video boot in the BIOS.  So your set up is more or less identical to mine except for the video card which could be an issue.  You get a bonus point for choosing a Radeon but there may be a problem running the later card.  I believe the 2503 only uses X1 for its PCI-e not X16.  Will your card run with X1?  I think I got mine runnning origonally by booting up the T61P unconnected to the dock and then hot docking it once it had booted up.  Windows then worked out what to do with the hardware.