X60 - Screen flickers and screen shutoff - problem with power management or hardware failure? [ Edited ]

[dsp]

Hello everyone,

this is one of the longest unsolved threads in Lenovo Forum. To keep a summary of the posts for new victims (as suggested by PDG in page 23, edited by me):

Bottom line:  

1. This is a video driver problem
2. If you have XP and can, roll back to 4450 (I currently run with 4860 in XP without problems)
3. If you have Vista you are basically screwed.  No one has posted any link to a functioning V32 driver.
4. You can find a link to a backlevel XP driver on p.21 or thereabouts.
5. {Windows 7, Linux} may or may not help. (no problems for me with Ubuntu 8,9 currently)
   
6. LENOVO WILL NOT HELP.  Don't waste your time.  Lenovo will say its a hardware problem because that's all they know and charge you big bux to do basically nothing when you ship them your PC.

This is the original entry:

Hi,
I always stay at the current level of available drivers with System Update.

In the last days the screen starts to flicker / jiggle once in several minutes until suddenly the whole screen turns black and can't be reactivated. I then put the X60 into standby and it wake up right after. The screen is then turned on again...

Its a 1706-AA7...

I rolled back the graphics driver to an earlier version, didn't help. Does it look like some faulty power management? Or a potential HW issue?

dsp

UPDATE: this time the screen was totally light blue... same workaround: standby -> wakeup
UPDATE2: I removed the driver completely and installed it manually from the driver matrix page. It took a couple of reboots. In between resolution was down to 640x480 with 4 bit. Not its working again without flickering...

Was this a wrong driver pushed via System Update?

Message Edited by dsp on 04-07-2008 07:01 AM

[dsp]

Bottom line:  

1. This is a video driver problem
2. If you have XP and can, roll back to 4450 (I currently run with 4860 in XP without problems)
3. If you have Vista you are basically screwed.  No one has posted any link to a functioning V32 driver.
4. You can find a link to a backlevel XP driver on p.21 or thereabouts.
5. {Windows 7, Linux} may or may not help. (no problems for me with Ubuntu 8,9 currently)
   
6. LENOVO WILL NOT HELP.  Don't waste your time.  Lenovo will say its a hardware problem because that's all they know and charge you big bux to do basically nothing when you ship them your PC.

This is the original entry:

[Dug]

I just started to see this too on my X60 - I can't recall for sure if I saw this before or after the

System Update that I ran this weekend, but I'm pretty sure I saw it before that.

Anyone have any ideas as to whether its really a software/driver issue instead of a

hardware issue?  From looking at this:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=137293

it sounds like it may be a hardware issue.

[dsp]

Looks like the flickering is coming back slowly but steadily :-(
If its getting too much, I will check with the Lenovo Support.

dsp

[dsp]

I sent my system to support and got a replacement T60, where my HDD from my X60 is now working...

Now - either this T6ß0 has exactly the same problem, or I don't think its an HW issue anymore. I much more guess its a driver issue... I try to find backlevel drivers, which is not so easy. I would like to rollback the powermanagement driver (because there is a difference between running on battery and running on AC). Also I want to rollback the video driver and see if it makes a difference.

Do you know ehere to find backlevel drivers?

Anyone else experiencing those issues?

dsp

[dsp]

... as expected based onmy last post. My X60 came back with no errors found. I called Lenovo support again to ask for backlevel drivers. Unfortunately no help - no backlevel drivers available.

And an unsatisfying comment: "If there was a problem, we would know..." Ah yes. Sure....

:-(

dsp

[Dug]

Rolling back my driver appears to have fixed it.
I'm now on version 6.14.10.4860 - date 8/9/2007.
Any chance you can just rollback yours to this level?

[dsp]

Hello Dug,
so you are familiar with this behaviour of the X60?

I now did a rollback and are now on thevery initial release for this machine:
14.12.2005
v6.14.10.4450

Lets see if it fixes it. If so, it seems to indicate a bug in the most current driver Version 6.14.10.4926

dsp

[Dug]

Yes I've seen this too but it appears to have stopped once I backed out the latest driver.

[jpsawyer]

Hi,

I am experiencing the same problem.  Screen flickers and occassionally locks up entirely. This all started happening after updating bios to 2.16 via system update for the x60, and not after a video card update.

Bios 2.16
Thinkpad x60
Video card version 6.14.10.4926

Device manager shows two instances of the video driver however, it that wrong?  I could disable/remove one of them...

Any resolution ideas?

Thanks.

[dsp]

Hi,
no - 2 video adapters are correct! You should not remove them. Read the Intel FAQ here.
Strange - could it be that it also updated your video driver the same time? When I rolled back the video driver to a very old version, I never experienced the flicker again. No colorful blanks anymore.

The Intel downloadpage offers a backlevel driver for the chipset;

*  Microsoft Windows* XP  
*                                                     
*  Driver Revision: Production Version 14.32.3
*  Package: 43262
*
*  Graphics: 6.14.10.4906
*  HDMI Audio: 5.10.0.1030  

But I don't know whether I should try. This release doesn't appear in the Thinkpad video driver history. Hopefully the bug will be acknowledged and they work for a fix. Where should bugs be reported, when they are not taken serious by the first level support?

dsp



Message Edited by dsp on 05-06-2008 01:19 PM