X220 IPS problem: screen behaves weird

[arfo]

Hi community & lenovo support team,

I've gone throught the whole forum searching for a similar issue so that I wouldn't need to bother with a new post, but seems like I am the only one. I own a Thinkpad X220 (4291-NB5), which includes the IPS 'HD' display. It works well and I love the system, but one thing seems to be wrong:

It is hard to describe and I hope someone can try it by himself on this forum. When my desktop background is black and no windows are opened (only the taskbar is shown), then the screen seems to switch down the quality, it looks like it is going into a 265 color mode or kinda raises the contrast to extreme levels, so that the colors of the taskbar look very flashy and all icons seem to be 'pixelated'. When I then open a window, the screen needs up to 5 seconds to adjust. Within these 5 seconds, some colors are not clearly shown, menus and window title bars are looking weird. It slowly adjusts until it looks normal again.

This is reproducible with a black desktop background (I needed to switch to a colorful background image to prevent this), but also sometimes noticable when opening the lid after leaving it closed for a while (not in standby) - and that's really annoying!

Anyone else have this problem? I use the latest drivers from the Lenovo website, all utilities are installed, and I haven't changed anything in the Intel graphics settings.

Cheers

[Crmb]

Does it also happend with power adapter plugged ?

[ARH_0700]

I've noticed the same behavior with my screen. It seems to happen if I have a program open that has a dark border, or a dark image. When I transition to my desktop which has a light background, the screen looks too light and washed out for 2-3 seconds until it "adjusts." This is my first IPS display Thinkpad, so I wonder if it's the nature of the display?

[joncordova]

Try disabling Battery Stretch in the Power Manager program.

The behavior you're describing has nothing to do with the IPS quality. Since the quality jumps back and forth, we can hope it's a battery management thing. See what happens if you disable screen dimming in the battery settings, crank all the power settings up to max turbo, and leave it plugged in.

If the issue is still reproducible, it could be a corrupt driver. (Again, it sounds to me like a software thing, because performance is jumping back and forth.) So try reinstalling both the Intel graphics driver and the LCD display driver.

[motomandk]

I don't have an IPS screen, but the normal TFT.  After i updated drivers last time (video driver, BIOS and power management program) i have a similar issue.  After power-up, the screen suddenly gets a lot darker, and it looks like the contrast is turned up, so text is almost unreadable - the white areas float together.  After a minute or 2 the fault disappear again and the screen is back to normal.

If i dont tough the computer for a while it CAN come again.  As far as i know - until now - it only happens when i am on battery, when it is sitting in the dock, i have never seen the problem.

I have had the X220 since may and has never seen this before!

[Crmb · Accepted solution]

Select battery mode (top right), untick last checkbox

[motomandk]

Thank you so much - i really think it removed the problem!

/Henrik

Denmark

[arfo]

You are great! Now I finally can use a black background!
And the screen looks perfectly clear when I open the lid after leaving it closed for a while.

Thank you!

[corelement]

I wanted to retain the setting so what i do is whenever it gets washed out I press the windows button + P and make it projector only so screen goes off then press windows button + P again to bring screen back and colours are normal again.

[alisonkay]

Thanks for that tip. I get the washed out screen a lot. I know that this thread is pretty old now, but does anyone know if there is a permanent fix or what the problem is?