R400/T400/T500/W500: Switchable graphics issues with Win 7

[RYBCZAN]

so, where can i switch my graph in t400? i have looking everywhere, in power manager too and in ati ccc

[maxpl]

thank god i found this thread, i thought i was alone.

ive thought my gpu had failed but seeing as a ton of people have this issue i'm assuming its a software thing.

havent read the whole thread yet but let me explain my case:

been using my t400 for 1.5 years now, got it september 2008.  have had no problems til about two months ago when i randomly started getting the "driver has stopped respoding and has recovered" notification.  have used the same drivers for everything and am using w7 x64.

now i think this all started after i made a BIOS update, but i'm not sure thats the cause at all.  i just recall making a BIOS update a few weeks back and thats around the time i started getting the error.

[ashenkin]

For those of you that are really upset: the only way I've ever been able to get a real response from Lenovo is by filing a complaint at the Better Business Bureau (www.bbb.org).  I think that a promised feature that is non-functioning could be a legitimate complaint.  Good luck - I'm hoping to benefit by lenovo's releasing an updated driver sooner rather than later.

[maxpl]

so what are everyone's solution to this right now?

i'm using the switchable graphics driver with os detection off in BIOS and discrete as my main gpu;  this is the only setup that works for me right now.

i'm gonna see if integrated graphics with os detection off woks as well, but i'm gonna give my current setup a run for a week or two to see how it performs long term.

and i just filed a complaint for the North Caroline HQ.  if you guys do so, file at the same location .

[Izmi]

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Izmi wrote:

Another two weeks passed. Is there an update on the driver situation?

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In the meantime, AMD has released another driver (10.5)

[Katastropoulos]

I am also waiting for current drivers for long time for Windows 7 64 bit.

I cannot use switchable graphics because of the standby bug. When I put my

laptop into standby and reactive it (T400) it seems that both graphics cards are running

and draining my battery and not letting my laptop running cool.

This is ridiculous, it seems to affect all switchable graphics Lenovo Thinkpads from
the T, R and W series, shame on you, Lenovo, this will be my last Laptop from you,

my girlfriend has a 3 years old T60 and we will try another brand after her 4 years of lenovo warranty are over.

Lenovo makes good laptops, but their displays and their driver support suck badly.

I am currently using my T400 with the integrated Intel graphics card for everyday use and for gaming
or doing some 3D-Modelling I have to restart my computer and switch to the dedicated ATI card

in my Thinkpad BIOS, this is ashaming for such a company.

I cannot do modelling with my intel card because the current intel drivers only support OpenGL 1.2.

With these drivers I cannot even start Google Earth in OpenGL mode!

To me it seems that Lenovo is not able to get ATI and Intel together for a new driver set and that Lenovo's

Power manager seems to be problematic with the switchable graphics.

Greetings from a frustrated Thinkpad T400 owner.

[zoltanthegypsy]

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Katastropoulos wrote:

I am also waiting for current drivers for long time for Windows 7 64 bit.

I cannot use switchable graphics because of the standby bug. When I put my

laptop into standby and reactive it (T400) it seems that both graphics cards are running

and draining my battery and not letting my laptop running cool.

...

I am currently using my T400 with the integrated Intel graphics card for everyday use and for gaming
or doing some 3D-Modelling I have to restart my computer and switch to the dedicated ATI card

in my Thinkpad BIOS, this is ashaming for such a company.

Greetings from a frustrated Thinkpad T400 owner. 

---

 Katastropoulos,

I'm another frustrated T400 owner   I don't need to go to standby to trigger the problem.  My machine boots up with both graphics devices powered on.

I usually just use integrated graphics.  In my case, using the power manager right-click option and switching to discrete graphics, then back to integrated sorts things and seems to power off the integrated side.

It's still a pain, but easier and more convenient than rebooting and going to BIOS.  Does this work for you?

It's beyond me why this hasn't been fixed yet.

Z.

[ashenkin]

how do you check to see which graphics chips are drawing power?

and, does anyone else get screwed up graphics when switched to energy-saving mode?  See the page below for a pic of my firefox toolbar as an example of what happens.  Ugh.

http://www.4freeimagehost.com/show.php?i=6b146c7800a6.jpg

[mcc]

Get TPFanControl (http://www.staff.uni-marburg.de/~schmitzr/donate.html).

If you can see the GPU temp the discrete graphics is drawing power. Sorry, I haven't had corruption on the Intel graphics.

I just upgraded to the brand new ATI 10.5 drivers. They don't fix the problem with the GPU being powered on after standby but it does add switchable graphics control to the Catalyst Control Center. There's even an option to automatically switch to the Intel graphics on battery.

Steps to do this:

1. Download the latest 10.5 release for the desktop Radeon 3xxx series from the ATI website. I have a W500 and this driver properly recognizes my GPU as a Mobility FireGL V5700.

2. Patch the driver using this tool and the instructions posted there (http://www.hardwareheaven.com/modtool.php)

3. Uninstall your existing ATI and Intel graphics drivers. Reboot.

4. Install the driver you patched in step 2. Reboot. No need to install the Intel drivers separately, the ATI driver surprisingly comes with it. My device manager entry for the "Mobile Intel(R) 4 Series Express Chipset Family" states that the Intel driver was supplied by ATI.

5. Done! You'll enjoy greater performance in games and more features than what's provided with the official (read: ancient) Lenovo driver.

Edit: I've just realized that although the Catalyst Control Center has been updated the driver is still older. I'm working on a fix- if I force it to install from the INF it gives "A service installation section in the INF is invalid".

Edit 2: I fixed this issue. My V5700 now has a driver date of 5/4/2010 in the device manager. This fix is a little trickier. I had an issue near the end- read through the instructions first! This is what I did after doing the above steps:

1. Download the mobility driver (this release is newer, I didn't realize it exists- you MIGHT be able to simply install this package alone without going through the above).

32-bit: https://a248.e.akamai.net/f/674/9206/0/www2.ati.com/drivers/mobile/10-5_mobility_vista_win7_32_dd_cc...

64-bit: https://a248.e.akamai.net/f/674/9206/0/www2.ati.com/drivers/mobile/10-5_mobility_vista_win7_64_dd_cc...

2. Extract but do not install the driver.

3. Go to the device manager. Go to the properties menu for your discrete GPU and click Update Driver in the Driver tab.

4. Click "Browse my computer for driver software".

5. "Let me pick from a list..."

6. Have Disk

7. Navigate to the INF files. On my machine this was located at C:\ATI\Support\10-5_mobility_vista_win7_64_dd_ccc\Packages\Drivers\Display\W76A_INF. I have Windows 7 x64 and C7100002.inf worked for me. I changed the name of the 3650 option in the INF to "ATI MOBILITY FireGL V5700" since I have a W500- this is optional.

8. Select the INF file and hit OK. There will be two options for the same card. Since I edited the name in the INF it was clear to me that the option I wanted was the 2nd one, this may vary.

9. Hit next- allow an unsigned driver to be installed if prompted.

Warning: On my machine the screen turned black and never came back partway through the installation. After waiting for several minutes to ensure that the driver had installed completely I did a hard shutdown and booted the machine again. Because of this potential issue ensure that all programs are closed or you may experience data loss. Although improbable I AM NOT LIABLE IF YOU HAVE DATA LOSS OR DAMAGE BY DOING THIS.

My brightness was stuck at a low level on the first boot with the new driver but switching to the Intel graphics and back resloved that issue.

Hope this helps!

[Katastropoulos]

Hi,

thanks for the tipps and for the links to the mobility drivers.

What I did was the following on my T400:

Download the latest Intel graphics drivers for Windows 7 64 here:

Then I removed the intel drivers via the device manager and told the setup to remove all files. Then I uninstalled the ati radeon drivers.

All this was done with graphics mode in BIOS set to integrated graphics!

Then I rebooted my Windows 7 64 bit in safe mode by pressing F8 on startup and selecting safe mode.

This is important because otherwise the intel drivers will not install giving the message that they are not supporting the current switchable hardware. In safe mode, I installed the Intel drivers, rebooted and the Intel driver worked fine :-)

After that I rebooted, changed my BIOS to switchable graphics, started windows 7, installed the ati radeon mobility

drivers 10.5. The screen went black while installing and kept black. So I was forced to hard reset my machine after some minutes I gave the system to finalize the driver installation. After reboot switchable graphics did not work.

I have to manually select integrated or discrete graphics in my BIOS to boot with my ATI card or my Intel card.

 This way I can work with the latest ATI drivers or the latest Intel drivers, switchable graphics is not yet working :-(

And I have the problem that when I boot with the Intel card enabled , the catalyst control center pops up a message that it cannot find a suitable hardware, which is true because in this case the ATI card is disabled.

But I can live with that until someone comes up with a good solution to get switchable graphics working with the latest Intel and ATI drivers.