Problems with w520 and DisplayPort monitor

[damonlynch]

Is anyone else noticing Any of the following problems using a monitor connected to the w520 using DisplayPort and  Lenovo Windows 7? -

1. When the monitor's power saving is activated by the operating system, and is then woken up, the resolution is badly mangled. It's as if the screen is very heavily zooomed in. The only way I know to fix it is to start the Nvidia control panel by right clicking on the desktop, and selecting resize from "adjust desktop size and position"
2. Worse still, after fixing the "zoomed in" problem, the color bit depth appears to be drastically reduced, so that smooth gradations of color (for instance from light to dark) are replaced by blocky transitions that look terrible.

I'm noticing this problem on an 24" HP LP2475w running at 1900x1200, 32 bit. This is a professional quality wide gamut monitor. I never had these problems when it was previously connected to a T400s.

Nvidia driver version is 8.17.12.7593, downloaded from the Lenovo support site. Windows is running the latest Microsoft and Lenovo updates. The BIOS is the latest version, 1.34.

Does anyone have any ideas?

[ThorsHammer]

Does it resolve itself when you restart the system?

[damonlynch]

Yes

[ZipZap]

Hi, Damon,

     Not to say that this is or is not a driver issue, but you can get much more up-to-date drivers directly from the NVidia website. I have a recent one installed, and it works like a charm.

Latest NVidia drivers for W520

    Another thought, have you tried setting the BIOS for discrete graphics only? Let's take the the Intel integrated graphics out of the equations, just as a test.

    On the hardware side, have you tried switching DisplayPorts, swapping the cable? I know you don't have the opportunity to swap the monitor, but you might want to reset it to its factory settings.

                                                        ZZ

[damonlynch]

Thank you for the replies everyone. I have installed the drivers as suggested, but unfortunately the problem persists.

I neglected to mention that I'm already running the BIOS in discrete mode only, because I use Linux heavily and optimus doesn't currently work under Linux. I have never seen the problem when using Linux.

I can add a few more details, which I neglected to mention last time. When the problem occurs, and the computer is being shut down, the posterization problem persists even with the generic Windows is shutting down screen. I don't know enough about Windows to know whether the Nvidia driver is being used to output that or not.

I'm confident it's not the monitor or the cable. In fact, I'm certain it's not because I just switched the BIOS to Nvidia optimus to see if it would be any better than that mode. to test it, I attached two external monitors (one VGA and one DisplayPort), and had the laptop lid open. As soon as I booted the machine, the problem reemerged once the login screen appeared: the DisplayPort monitor was heavily zoomed in, and the colors were posterized. I reset the screen size using the Nvidia control panel ( which does not fix the posterization problem), rebooted again, and this time the DisplayPort monitor was fine, but the laptop screen was heavily zoomed in.  Another problem occurring simultaneously after this second boot with Optimus enabled is that the display resolution on the laptop is fixed at 800x600 instead of 1920x1080. Intriguingly however, the laptop screen's color reproduction is not posterized.

I have no idea if the problem is with the driver or bios.

[ZipZap]

Have you tried booting the factory Windows 7 image i.e the fresh o/s as delivered originally?

[damonlynch]

I'm sorry but I'm a little unclear about what you mean. I am using the factory Windows 7 o/s, but unsurprisingly I have installed all the Microsoft and Lenovo updates. I'm not in a position to be able to reinstall the factory version of windows without any updates.

[PanEuropean]

Damon:

I think that the most practical solution to the problem you are encountering would be for you to connect your HP LP2575w monitor to your W520 using the DVI-I connection on the monitor, not the DisplayPort connector.  This is how I connect my 24 inch monitor to my W520, it works flawlessly.

To do this you will need to buy a dock for the W520.  Although the dock is not cheap (I think it is a couple of hundred bucks), it brings a lot of other conveniences with it - a fixed power supply, two DVI connectors at the back, half a dozen USB connectors, etc.  The biggest benefit of the dock is that you can just drop the laptop into place, and everything is then connected to it.

Michael

[ThorsHammer]

Actually, the easiest thing to do is to discontinue using sleep.  But I agree, a dock is a good solution.  I need to put mine on ebay.

[PanEuropean]

Hi Thor:

I don't think Damon's problem is a direct result of sleep - in his original post, he referred to "the monitor's power saving [feature]", rather than sleep.  I'm guessing that this is probably something internal to the display panel itself that turns off the display panel if the computer has not been used for a period of time.

It's hard to tell - from the information provided - if this is something that is controlled by the OS, or controlled by the display panel itself.  In either case, though, I doubt that Damon would want to disable this feature, because it is likely something that prolongs the life of the display panel.  I have my computer set up in a similar manner - when it is connected to an external display panel, the display panel turns off (fades to black) if the computer has not been used in the past 20 minutes.  This makes sense for me because I leave the computer turned on H24.

Michael