Corrupt video on x200 tablet

[joepas87]

I agree with you.  Had I known of this problem, I would not have purchased this machine.  One hears so many positive things about Lenovo's, but then to encounter this - with no support or guidance from Lenovo - is a shame and says something about the company.

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sethcshort wrote:

Agreed that, by dramatically modifying our behavior, we can minimize the problem. However, this still doesn't make the issue acceptable. Seriously, I have to go into the BIOS to make my computer work correctly? That is just not acceptable. How many hundreds or thousands of people are going through this issue? How many of them subscribe to this forum? How many of them know how to edit their BIOS settings?

Months of this issue, and yet no solution. This must be resolved.

Lenovo is the manufacturer of this product. They need to resolve the issue. It's not our responsibility to go around to all the possible participants. If hardware Lenovo's selling isn't compatible with software they're selling, then they need to address that, not the end user.

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[joepas87]

Is another (perhaps simpler) way of saying this that you should only plug the AC adapter in or out while the lid is open?  (I guess an exception is that you can plug the AC in/out while the lid is closed, as long as you do the opposite, out/in before you open the lid.)

Has anyone found this procedure to NOT work on their machine?

_______________________________________________________________________________________

oab wrote:

Hi, The easiest way to avoid this problem is to add a routine. For me this routine is, always open the lid under the same power state as you closed the lid. This way you avoid the problem for now at least. If you close the lid with electricity connected, don't open the lid before you have connected electricity again. If you plan to work on the train or plane, pull out electricity before you close the lid, and you can open it again without having electricity connected. But again, if you close the lid with electricity disconnected, also open the lid with electricity disconnected before you connect electricity again. Summarized is that the pc just have to be under same power state when you close and open the lid. Electricity off, electricity on, or battery off, battery on. Regards

[oab]

I completly agree, Sethcshort. Changing our behaviour is only a temporarily one and should only be for a very limited time. Actually, the screen behaviour I have is actually not the only problem:

- The right click menu on the desktop for the intel specific screen driver is also not properly anymore:
I change between screens often, have saved a desktop setup from my previous screen driver version. One for office, one for home and one for travel (only laptop screen). They have become completly obsolete, can not be used anymore and nothing happens when I click on my setups. I can not change the setups, nor delete the setups, and there is no option for making new ones either! This is a permanent / existing problem for me.

- I can't get external displays to work properly without having to restart the computer after the external display is connected. Then after a restart it works properly. This is also a permanent / existing problem for me.

- I have experienced two cases where my mouse pointer becomes invisible...?!
Not sure if that is releated to this issue or if it is caused by something else, but it wouldn't suprise me if this confounded driver we received from Lenovo have a finger in the pie!

I have worked with computers for almost 20 years now, both hardware and software, but I can't remember having experienced such an issue persisting for so long time without being fixed. (Might be the short term / long term memory effect and every negative experience needs several times a positive experience to forget the negative one...).
Today I use computers as a tool, and expect it to work (isn't that what we pay for?) and the X200 is one of the more expensive ones to get and you definitivly would expect to work. I find it merely ignorant of Lenovo not to address and at least explain what the problem is and when they expect to have a fix for this after all this time. I don't see any fixes or improvments with this "new" problematic driver, so I will roll back to the previous version.

Come on Lenovo - what is going on here!?

[sethcshort]

By the way, I tried the BIOS "fix". Turns out that the Intel VT-d settings were already disabled. So, that fix didn't work. And I just had the standby black screen again this morning after it went on standby automatically when I was away from my desk. It wouldn't resume, despite the fact that the power setup hadn't changed at all. So that's not a fix either.

In other words, no fix available. And no word back from Lenovo on my failed motherboard replacement.

Super frowny face.

[andyP Community SuperMod]

@ All

A technical tip has been released which addresses video corruption. Please take a look and see if it's relevant to your individual situations.

Visual corruption - ThinkPad R400, R500, T400, T400s, T500, W500, X200, X200s, X200 Tablet, X301

[joepas87]

Thanks for the pointer.  The document certainly describes the problem as it manifests itself on my machine.  However, I wonder about whether the "solutions" are reliable.  For example, it says that solutions include making sure you have either only 1 DIMM [Option 2], or 2 DIMMs of equal size [Option 3]  (as apparently the problem occurs if you have 2 DIMMs of not the same size).  My machine is a x200 tablet, model 74509SU, with no hardware mods.  It comes with 2 GB of memory, which I have verified in the BIOS.  I'm assuming it did not come with 2 DIMMs of different sizes that total 2 GB (if someone can tell me if there is an easy way to check barring opening up the machine, please let me know). Assuming all this is correct, then the "[Option 3] solution" doesn't work, at least in my case.

[cecilyen]

Bump. I am still waiting to see when this issue can be resolved. I guessed it is mostly related to Intel's driver problem. Either Lenovo has to push them or any method we can complain to Intel directly?

[Hanschr · Accepted solution]

Wooohooo..... It seems like Lenovo has solved this issue. Look in the text-file describing the latest drivers from 2. march. Im downloading that driver immediately.

Text description Windows 7 32-bit

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-70128

Link: Windows 7 32-bit:

http://download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub/pc/pccbbs/mobiles/7xd552ww.exe

Link Txt-file: 

http://download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub/pc/pccbbs/mobiles/7xd552ww.txt

64-bit:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-70129

http://download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub/pc/pccbbs/mobiles/7xd652ww.exe

http://download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub/pc/pccbbs/mobiles/7xd652ww.txt

[Problem fixes]
- Fixed an issue where the Gamma setting is altered after driver installation.
- Fixed an issue where garbage might be displayed on LCD screen after resuming
  system from standby state.
- Corrected an description of Support models in this README document.  Added
  ThinkPad W500

[joepas87]

Thanks for this.  Do you know whether one must explicitly download these, or does this automatically happen when you update your system (either Windows update or Lenovo update)?  Related: is there a way of checking whether I already have this updated driver?  Thanks in advance.

[Hanschr]

Your welcome. 

Well no matter what it won't harm your system to install the drivers manually again. My experience is that the system update isn't as fast as downloading the driver manually.

Anyway you can check your version by doing this (I have a danish version so I hope the translation is acceptable accurate:

On the desktop: Right click and select "Graphic properties".  Then select "opportunities and support". Then select "about" and you will se the driver version then.