T61 with Advanced Dock and PCI-e graphics card?

[JaneL Community SuperMod]

subterFUSE wrote:

I wish there was more I could do to hurt their company, but unfortunately I am just one person.

---

That's over the line.  I think you need to take a little vacation from the forum and cool off.

[subterFUSE]

It's not over the line.  It's basic business sense.  Lenovo is a company trying to make a profit by selling computer equipment.  They're not going to change what they're doing unless they see potential harm to their profitability.  That's what I want to happen, so others don't fall prey to the same problem I did and perhaps a resolution can be found.  It is clear they realized an error in their product documentation as a result of my complaints, and ammended those documents.  That's great for people who have not yet purchased the dock and choose to research deep enough to find that information.  But it doesn't help people who relied upon the incorrect information published earlier.

[carbon_unit]

Not only is it over the line but it is malicious and not in line with the Rules of the forum Which you agreed to when you signed up for this forum. Please be courteous enough to stick to the rules.



Message Edited by carbon_unit on 12-24-2007 09:38 AM

Message Edited by carbon_unit on 12-25-2007 07:11 PM

[Metzenes]

I am still enjoying the use of my Advanced Dock with Matrox video card with 4 1600x1200 screens.  When the system is undocked I use the NVidia driver.  As I mentioned I installed XP from scratch as I prefer raw speed over having lots of widgets installed. 

I just wanted to make it clear that someone is having a good experience with the Lenovo advanced dock.  I have now migrated may of my applications over to the T61P and am using it as my main computer now.

I did have a few hiccups getting the Matrox to work in the first place but now it is working very well on two separate T61P. 
This proves that the basic hardware is compatible.

If it does not work on your machine it must be caused by one of three things.

1.  Either some component or components have a hardware or firmware fault.

2.  There is a software or driver problem.

3.  There is no number 3.

This means that there are only 2 solutions.

The solution to cause 2 is to put a known working configuration on your computer.  This can be done by ghosting an image onto your computer.  I have offered a torrent of this ghost.  It is only a few gigs so it would fit onto a DVD drive.  I myself use a spare harddrive in the Ultrabay and I boot off a bootable USB stick to access ghost.  I could set up a bootable DVD I guess and do an ISO of that to make it a bit easier for someone else to use.

Anyway - if solution 2 is tried and does not work then the cause is cause 1.

The solution to cause 1 is in the hands of the manufacturers.  Either the T61P is faulty or the dock is faulty or the Matrox card is faulty.  If solution 2 did not work you would have to send each one back to the manufacturer for replacement.  First the T61P.  You would have to test solution 2 on the new T61P.  If that did not work you would have to send back the Dock.  You would have to test solution 2 on the new dock.  If that did not work then the fault would be in the Matrox card.  You would have to send the Matrox card back for a replacement.

Now that I have created a build that works perfectly on a system more or less identical to yours, the solution is straight forward. 

As the owner you still have to do your bit.  You have to go through the procedure to isolate the problem.  That is the way it works.

[subterFUSE]

There seem to be a few variations of the Type 2503 Advanced Dock.  Which one do you have?

Mine is the one which says "IBM Thinkpad" on it.  I have already had a replacement dock shipped to me from Lenovo because I thought I might have a bad dock.  The replacement they sent me was slightly different, in that it said only "ThinkPad" on the top where the older dock says "IBM ThinkPad."  I tested my first two graphics cards in that replacement dock, without success.  However, this was done under Windows Vista.  I did not have XP at the time.

I returned the replacement dock to Lenovo because I was unable to confirm if the dock was bad.  They gave me 30 days to test the new dock before they were going to charge me for it, so I returned the new dock to them already.  But it may be possible that the dock is the problem, along with Windows Vista being another problem.  If I had XP at the time, maybe the newer dock would have worked?  I just don't know.

I don't have a Windows XP installation disc.  All I have are the recovery discs from Lenovo, which contain all of the extra Lenovo software pre-loaded.  Perhaps all this junk is causing issues?  How can I get your HD image to test out? You mentioned a torrent. I've never used a torrent before, but I'm willing to try and figure it out.  I have another week or so before my trial period expires on this Matrox graphics card.  If I can't get this working before then, I will need to return the Matrox and get my $800 back.  At that point, I don't know whether it is worth purchasing another graphics card to troubleshoot further.

[RealBlackStuff]

Learn about torrents here

Install a program of your choice, get the link from your 'buddy' in New Zealand, and download it in a jiffy.

Then burn that onto DVD(s) or (with the help of a PC and a SATA-adapter) load it straight on the TP hard disk.

His other offer of mailing a hard disk might not get to you in time before the Matrox offer expires.

[subterFUSE]

I have uTorrent on my computer.  Ready at any time.

[mattscool135]

ok look this may sound dumb but  i have a z60m and it follows hte same procedure as the others when using hte dock and graphics card, i understnd the card can do stuff on external moniters, but can it display on my laptop's lcd aswell?

[Metzenes]

Well mattscool135 - If you are using the dock with a Matrox card with windows XP, I have not been able to get the LCD working as well.  However your Z60m might have quite different video drivers so the answer is ...

... Maybe.

subterFUSE - I think you will have to give me your email address for me to send you the torrent file.  The torrent file is a small file that points your uTorrent client at the torrent on my machine.  .

My dock just has the word Thinkpad at an angle on a small right angle frame where the laptop slots in.

You can put the address up straight away but give me a couple of hours to get the torrent sorted out.

You will need a bootable cd or bootable usb drive or USB floppy with bootable disk - you need to boot to windows 98 dos (DOS 7) to run ghost.

this faq tells you how to do it the hard way

http://ucsu.colorado.edu/~shaher/Bootable_USB.html

this hp utility is supposed to do it more easily from the GUI

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&mode=3&taskId...

or get there from here

http://h18000.www1.hp.com/support/files/serveroptions/us/download/23839.html

this web address tells you how to make a USB drive bootable

the clever file from hp is cp006049.exe

Message Edited by Metzenes on 12-27-2007 10:14 AM

Message Edited by Metzenes on 12-27-2007 11:01 AM

Message Edited by Metzenes on 12-27-2007 11:10 AM

Message Edited by Metzenes on 12-27-2007 11:21 AM

[mattscool135]

well right now i have a z60m with the dock and an ATI X1300 coming in snce that is what lenovo has in the dock on theri site, does anyone know if the X1300 can display on my screen, i need the pixel shader 3.0 to run a game for my son, and i dont feel like spending alot of money on a new pc...(im buying him one next year for christmas ...got that new job..haha..

Thanks

-Matt