T61 with Advanced Dock and PCI-e graphics card?

[agilpwc]

Anyone have any idea if a card like this would work in the Advanced Dock, http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/intensity/

I'm not interested in running multiple monitors, just want to capture video through the HDMI port.

[Digger_EOD]

AGILPWC~

That might work...I would be interested in it if it does, that's for sure!  It is a PCI-e 1x card and the AD has the same slot.  The biggest issue will be whether or not you are using XP or Vista for your OS.  XP = it should work, Vista = forget about it!

[kosai]

Hi guys,

I have been having a similar problem that i've seen described in earlier posts where the system boots and shortly after an MTXPard blue screen appears. It appears that the previous person that had this problem worked on it for many months with no reoslution. Although I don't have the dock I can say that the problem has more to do with the matrox card than anything else.

Basically I went through many steps similar to the person that last had this problem, including formatting/re-installing windows which doesn't work to resolve it. After a long process of troubleshooting I finally came to something that worked. Here's what worked for me:

 1. Download the bios file from the matrox website that's supported for your card.

 2. Run both the "SystemLogoFix" and "SystemLogoColorFix".

 3. Make sure in both to "DISABLE" the feature. 

That's it! After doing this I never had the MTXPard blue screen error again. I get the feeling that by default many matrox cards have this feature enabled. You can also see why formatting and re-installing windows doesn't work since this is a setting in the firmware of the video card itself.

What makes this error all the more puzzling is the fact that I have had this SystemLogoFix enabled for many months and it has run without incident however some unknown reason it just started producing this MTXPard error. The reason isn't aparent why since I didn't change any matrox drivers or update any firmware or install any new hardware for that matter. The only thing I have done with my system around the time of the problem starting with install/uninstall applications as I normally do. If it was genuinely a software conflict then why wouldn't a format/re-installation of windows resolve this?

I'm sure for this reason matrox has not identified this issue because through google I can only find about 2 different forums where people have even addressed this issue.

I have taken the time to register to this site and write this in the hopes that someone else doesn't have to go through hours/days/months of hair pulling to get this issue resolved.

I won't be checking this forum for replies since I don't even use a lenovo but wish you guys luck in your troubleshooting efforts.

Cheers.

davidkhankley@msn.com 

[ptrn]

To those of you who've gotten this to work in Vista, Digger_EOD especially, exactly which drivers do you use?

I bought the Lenovo branded Quadro FX 570, which seems to be exactly the same as the PTY one.

I did the steps as told by Digger_EOD, but the external graphics card won't start. Error code 43.

Now, I've gotten it to work with certain drivers from laptopvideo2go, but with theese drivers, both of the cards run at full speed, and the display on the laptop won't longer dim.

Any other thoughts on how to fix the dimming and speed issues?

I'm running Vista 64-bit on at T61p, 4 GB of memory.

_L

[jordan_moss]

Hey,

I have a W500 4GB RAM, 32GB SSD OS, 320GB HDD running Vista x64 sorted most of my issues out, gave up on swtichable graphics for the moment.

The next challenge getting it to drive 3 external monitors using the Advanced dock.

I dont have a X1300 to test with but I have tried HD2400XT and HD4350 both give same result:

• HD2400XT or HD4350 installed in advanced dock
• Dock the W500
• Press the power button
• Fans start in dock and on graphics card
• Lights come up on laptop hdd/power etc
• Docking station LED changes  "Dont remove"
• Laptop shutdowns, Fans off, LED changes "Undock ok"
• 2 secs later the process repeats

During this nothing is displayed on the screen of the laptop.  The timing of the reboot occurs just when the notebook panel would have displayed the BIOS splash so I am assuming it is some form of init error?

Did anyone else have this issue?

This is my first road block, I suspect the next problem is going to be finding a card that uses same driver as FireGL V5700 as vista needs WDDM and both cards to use same driver, I have a query in with ATI on this.

Thanks in advance,

Jordan

[Digger_EOD]

PRTN~

I am using the Nvidia drivers that came with the 570 card.  Here is a screenshot of the Device Manager and here is a screenshot of the Driver details.  I never received the error code that you are seeing.  I can tell you that I uninstalled ALL display adapters before I installed the Nvidia drivers and software.

Thanks,

[joakley]

I've done this with many different PCI E video cards in my T61 and it always works fine if you follow these steps.

Multiple Display Adapter Steps. (Lenovo T61)
1:\Install PCI E video card in dock
2:\Press ThinkVantage then F1 to enter Bios
3:\Set default display adapter to PCI E in Config>>Display
4:\Set Default Display screen to the monitor on the PCI E card (VGA/DVI)
5:\Restart, You will see only the PCI E monitor light up
6:\ Install PCi E video card
7:\ Shutdown Reenter BIOS
8:\ Set internal card and laptop display as default display
9:\Go into safe mode, because the PCIE card Hosed your Nvidia Quadro
10:\ Reinistall the Quadro drivers
11:\ Restart

From this point you should be able to easily configure 4 monitors in windows. I minor quirk is when you boot up undocked you will receive a message that one or more drivers has failed during startup. That is because the PCI E card is not present undocked.

Hope this helps,

John

[scothosw]

At my wits end

I have a T61, non widescreen, with INTEL built in graphics.  I purchased a Lenovo X1300LE graphics card about 6 months ago.  I had XP SP2 and after reading many posts I discovered I had to disable the wireless in order to boot up.  I was booting up on built in Graphics and managed to install Radeon driver (which one I can't remember) and had 4 monitors working perfectly.  My hard drive crashed and I had to replace it.  Ever since I have not been able to get the X1300 installed without blue screening.

I remember when I had it working, windows would start loading, then I would hear the jet engine fan kick on on the advanced dock.  With my new build, I can boot fine into windows but when I load the X1300 drivers from lenovo, after reboot it goes to a blue screen loading windows.  I can boot into Safe mode with networking and disable the adapter, then boot back in fine.

I tried loading XP SP3 from scratch with nothing loaded except for INF drivers for intel and network drivers.  I didn't load any other driver.  I then tried to load the X1300LE from Lenovo/IBM and after reboot after installation, immediate blue screen while it's loading windows.

I have tried to set the bios display to the PCI Express but it never works, never get any display at all.  I had the bios set to VGA+DVI.    I'm pretty sure I had primary graphics to built in on VGA cord when I did have it working.  I really don't know what to try next.  This is so frustrating reading all the people that have had problems with this dock.  I even tried reseating the video card with no luck.  If anyone has the X1300LE with intel built in graphics card, I sure would like to know how they got it working.  I know I was an idiot for not writing down the exact steps I had to get it working the first time.  The only other thing I can think of is I had it working on SP2 during install and I'm trying to install it with SP3 as base XP image.  I have another T61 non widescreen that still has SP2, I'll give it a shot to see if that installs, but I doubt it.

BIOS is the latest rev off of Lenovo's website.

Thanks

Scott

[eyeland]

Can someone point me towards a thread dealing with a listing of compatible/non-compatible Pcie gfx cards for the advanced dock?

I had a firegl v3300 working in it untill I burned it

I am specifically considdering this one or this one or this one

As far as I know the pcie port on the dock is limited to the bandwidth of pcie x1 which begs the question of which 4350 will perform better, the ASUS (pcie x16) or the CLUB3D (pcie x1)?

T61 7661-gn3 - 3gb ddr2 - c2d 2ghz - gma x3100 win7 

[endn]

Just went through several testing with several graphic cards with my T60 (T2400 1.83ghz, 2.5GB ram, ATI X1300 internal V-card) and the advanced dock. Tested with XP pro SP3.

1st attempt with XFX ATI HD5450, does not work. I think the BIOS does not support. After install & reboot, the display just does not show up.

2nd attempt with XFX ATI HD 4650, work like a charm .I did a test with Dream fall, a game I could only run smoothly at 1280x768 if using the X1300 internal card. With the XFX HD4650, cranked it up to 1920x1080, with in game highest graphic setting, still smooth.

3rd attempt with  Palit Nvidia Geforce 210, does not work. Same problem with 1st try.

I notice that both the failure cards have HDMI support. The one that work only support DVI & VGA. It mights be that the advanced dock could not support HDMI, and graphic card with HDMI won't work.