T400/500 switchable graphics problems heads-up

Five months after the first T400/500s shipped, Lenovo still hasn't provided a switchable graphics driver that works properly.

Background

Those T400/500 models that ship with a discrete graphics card (ATI HD3470 for the T400, ATI HD3650 for the T500) also have a second integrated graphics card (Intel 4500MHD) allowing you to switch to the less power consuming integrated graphics when on battery.

This is a great concept in theory and probably for many of us was a factor in deciding on the Lenovo T400/500. BUT in practice there are major caveats.

Windows XP

The hot swap between the two graphics cards only works in Vista. In XP because of lack of OS functionality you have to switch between the discrete and integrated graphics in the BIOS setup, not very practical to do whenever you want to use the battery.

Vista switchable graphics driver

For Vista Lenovo provides a switchable graphics driver supporting both the ATI and Intel graphics and also the hot swap between the two. But so far this driver neither works for all major games nor supports the use of external monitors properly. This is because their (complex so requiring additional development resource) current switchable graphics driver is based on a back level ATI driver, 8.52 from Catalyst Center 8.8 that had known problems, e.g. running games with the ATI HD3650 card. See page 8 of this forum thread.

As described there it has been possible to successfully circumvent the problems by downloading the current ATI vanilla drivers from the ATI site, modifying them before installation with the Mobility Modder found here. BUT that means not using switchable graphics -- having the discrete graphics permanently set in BIOS. So we are still waiting for Lenovo to ship a new switchable graphics driver based on an ATI release that supports all games and works properly with external monitors.

Intel integrated graphics

In addition there are problems with the battery consumption of the Intel integrated graphics see here.

Use of memory

In addition for those T400/500s with 4GB memory and a 32-bit operating system the switchable graphics driver takes 0.5GB away from the 3GB that the operating system can utilize, see here. This isn't a bug, it is designed this way, so will remain after Lenovo fixes all the other problems with the driver

 

That was actually the only thing I missed, having chosen a Dell Latitude E6400 over the Lenovo ThinkPad T400 (reason: better customer support in Europe, sources = several colleagues). But I don't need battery life all that much.

One remark: the link you provide at the end, about the battery consumption of the Intel GPU, states "why pay this for something with the build quality of a Dell?". I'd just like to say that this Dell feels rock solid

I do hope Lenovo forks out good drivers, I think no-one should feel sorry for buying a laptop, especially if it wasn't cheap.

 

honestly it is completely unacceptable for lenovo to have done nothing this long. I paid extra to get the ATI card, and now I can't hook up my laptop to an external monitor without it crashing. I will probably end up selling the laptop soon since using an external monitor is extremely important to me and lenovo doesn't seem to care about fixing the situation.

 

zillal,
Thanks for that post, I found it quite useful as my T500 just arrived.

 

how pervasive is this problem? this is the first time I've heard it, and though I don't doubt your statements, wouldn't more people be talking about this?

I really want to purchase the t500 and do a little gaming on it, Left 4 dead, gears of war. are these games affected? I read the other thread and it seemed most of the problems came from people using external monitors.
Does anyone on this forum get the crash with the ati3650 w/o an extra monitor?
I don't plan on getting this comp if the 3650 doesn't work

 

The 3650 works with the latest ATI drivers. It's no big deal using the Mobility Modder -- most laptop manufacturers lag behind in releasing the latest drivers -- so it's quite common to use it to play those games needing the latest drivers on a laptop. (But it's understandable that those not into games that just want their external monitor to work are a bit hesitant to use the Modder.)

What's not working is switchable graphics -- which is one of the selling points of the T400/500. If you are ok with the lower battery capacity from running the 3650 all the time there is no problem.

 

what about turning off the "autodetect switchable graphics" (not sure if this is exact phrase) in vista BIOS and then choosing whichever card you want to use each time at bootup, similar to in xp. will that prevent crashes?

not sure if I double-posted, sorry if i did

 

For Vista you need the modded ATI driver for the discrete setting in BIOS, but you are right you could probably also get the Intel graphics working in Vista when setting the integrated graphics option in BIOS.

Whether the Lenovo provided Vista driver for that setting in BIOS would work or if you would need to get a later driver from Intel I don't know. I was satisfied when I got the discrete graphics working, I can live for the time being with the lower battery capacity. After all hopefully it's not another 5 months before Lenovo provides us with a working switchable graphics driver.

Btw the ATI driver problems in Vista are far from limited to Lenovo. This 50-page forum thread started in 2007 and still being added to in January 2009 demonstrates the width of the problems.

 

wait, if a t400/500 user doesnt care about switchable graphics or using the integrated intel card, what issues arrise running solely the 3470/3650? I thought the only issue was not being able to switch between the two?

 

... the only issue is that you can't use an external monitor or some advanced games with the current lenovo driver but need to get the latest driver from the ATI web site and modify it with the Mobility Modder before installing it.

 

oh wow, I didn't realize people who weren't utilizing the switchable graphics option were also experiencing issues. so all the super happy t400 users are only using the integrated intel 4500? I don't understand why none of the benchmarks or reviews touched this issue

 

I don't understand it either, that's why I took the time to write this heads up. For sure there are a lot of unhappy folks over in the Lenovo forum -- message number three from somethingclever in this thread provides a sample of the feelings expressed there.

 

aww, I ordered a T400 last week.. I planned to only use the 3470 so I figured all these driver crash threads were only regarding using switchable.

its still in process, wondering if I should cancel it and go with an e6400. wanted the thinkpad though

 

As long as you arn't immediately dependent on the switchable graphics for battery operation it's not really that bad.

Firstly, you are going to keep the T400 for at least three years and I can't see Lenovo not shipping a current driver this or next month.

Secondly, if you need to use an external monitor or hit upon games requiring a current driver before Lenovo manages to ship one, there is really very little effort in getting the latest driver from the ATI site and using the Mobility Modder.

The worst part for those of us who came upon these problems unaware was the disappointment in buying a new laptop and finding Lenovo didn't deliver on the switchable graphics. Knowing about the problem beforehand and knowing how to circumvent it until Lenovo gets its act together will allow keeping the frustration level down.

 

I had problems, and set it to use my discrete card in bios. As soon as this gets sorted out I will turn switchable back on. Its not really that big of a deal, once you figure out what is causing you to crash all the time.

 

ok, I feel a little better now. when you guys force discrete and disable auto-detect, AND use the modded driver- it's all good?

 

Exactly, I havn't heard of one single instance where this hasn't cleared all problems.

But for those of us who bought the T400/500 for its switchable graphics, Lenovo's unresponsiveness is still pretty frustrating.

 

after using ati driver and mobility modder, is it still possible to go into vista bios and switch to intel graphics at bootup?
basically, i am asking if only the "hotswap in os" is broken or are both hotswap and bios swap broken.
this may be a dumb question, i'm not too familiar with switchable graphics

 

There are three graphics settings in BIOS, switchable, discrete and integrated. When discrete or integrated is set in BIOS only the ATI or Intel video card respectively is visible in the device manager, when switchable is set both cards appear in the device manager. These hardware settings (problem free as far as I am aware) correspond to three different drivers, the ATI standard one in discrete mode (but backlevel as supplied by Lenovo), the Intel driver in integrated mode and the Lenovo switchable graphics driver in switchable mode, the last one supporting both video cards and the hot swap between them. (Btw the switchable graphics driver though supporting both ATI and Intel has the look and feel of an ATI driver and is installed from the ATI Catalyst Center.)

There is also a separate setting in BIOS, OS autodetection that has to be turned off if you want to run in discrete or integrated mode only or the switchable mode will be restored at startup. I have seen in the forums that some run with the autodetect turned off also in switchable mode.

So after you have got the discrete graphics mode set up using the latest modded ATI driver you can go on to the integrated graphics mode testing if the Intel driver as supplied by Lenovo works without problems. I havn't tested this and I havn't seen anybody else in the forums that has either. But as its the same driver that is shipped with the models that come with integrated graphics only, I suppose the behaviour will be the same -- with or without bugs.

For myself I am assuming that a Lenovo switchable graphics driver based on a later ATI driver release is not far away. so I will live with the higher battery consumption of running in discrete mode until then.

 

anyone try the Windows 7 beta to see if the switchable drivers work with it?

 

I guess a faulty driver isnt going to get better on a new op sys. Re modding the ATI Catalyst beta for Windows 7 see here. (Btw I score 5.4 WEI w my modded ATI 8.56 driver in Vista in discrete mode on the T500.)

 

Pre mod, I scored a 5.2, so thats cool... (I havnt modded yet.)

I was thinking on switchable, I got a 5.3, but not sure...

 

For T400/500s with 32-bit Vista and 4GB memory installed the switchable graphics driver actually makes 0.5GB less memory usable by Vista, 2.5GB instead of 3GB. This is not a bug, the driver is designed this way.

In Vista, Control Panel - System shows the amount of memory discovered, in my case 4.00GB. The performance tab of the task manager (Ctrl-Alt-Del), shows the memory actually used by the system, in my case if I remember right 2517MB when using switchable graphics.

By installing and initializing the separate ATI and Intel drivers in both the integrated and discrete modes the amount of usable memory increases to 3031MB and 3065MB respectively if 4GB is installed, see here. To get the switchable driver to release the 0.5GB it's necessary to install and run the separate drivers in BOTH integrated and discrete mode.

So I think when Lenovo fixes the current problems shipping a switchable graphics driver based on a current ATI driver, I will now choose to remain in discrete mode. If I need the improved battery capacity I can always do it the XP way and boot in integrated mode. It's simply not worth 0.5GB less memory just for the convenience of the hot swap between the two environments.

 

FWIW, I think it was a waste of money for me to order the switchable graphics. I would have been more than satisfied with the intel only graphics...live and learn. Visually I dont see a difference. I guess maybe if I was a gamer or something....anyhow, it was a waste of $$ for me.

 

In your case, yes, it would have been a waste of money (although it would help resale value if you do sell your laptop in the future) to get switchable graphics. The ATI 3650 is pretty much necessary only if you play games or use it for workstation applications that are graphics-intensive. For other purposes, the Intel graphics is generally sufficient.

 

The industry trend is towards 3D applications requiring a proper graphics card. This is recognised by IBM, Lenovo's biggest customer of the T-series Thinkpad, the majority of employees have one. So it's no coincidence that a reasonable graphics card at this point in time is introduced in the standard T Thinkpad -- the workstation versions have had the differently optimized Cad/Cam graphics cards (eg ATI FireGL) for years.

Just one example of the trend is IBMs interest in virtual worlds for use by their corporate customers (and their own) for instance for conferencing.

 

I was having the same quandry. I've been a dedicated ThinkPad fan for a long while. Decided to give the E6400 a shot (ordered one last week) since Dell's 30-day return policy available, and reassuring. That new port replicator for the E series Latitudes helped my decision too -- dual monitor ports is pretty sweet. And truth be told, I like the looks of the E6400 over the T400. We'll soon see if it lives up to its great reviews though!

 

yeah I went with the t400 (order was placed, somehow lost, then replaced by lenovo, pushing everything back 1 week).

I wish you good luck and hope for the same!

 

The switchable graphics driver is actually an ATI driver, see here. Because it is only available for laptops but not desktops, there are no drivers available for download on the ATI web site.

Lenovo can't be absolved from blame though, allowing ATI to run 5 releases backlevel (when they ship catalyst center 9.1 this month) on their switchable graphics driver based on a known buggy release of the standard driver for the ATI HD3650 card used in the T500.

 

Well, the blame game is always a difficult one. Since the switchable graphics is sold by AMD as a solution to their customers - like Lenovo and not end users like us -, it is Lenovo's job to negotiate the right terms and conditions. Apparently, Lenovo hasn't done the homework. And they don't take the blame for the pain the cause at our end.

PS zillal: check you pm.

 

Well, ATI shipped Catalyst Center 9.1 with the ATI 8.57 display driver. So now the Lenovo switchable graphics driver based on the ATI 8.52 display driver is 5 releases back level.

I have tested that also the new 8.57 driver after being modded works without problem on the T500 in discrete graphics mode.

 

There is finally a beta package out, available thru Lenovo local support to fix the switchable graphics driver problems, see here.

 

Lenovo yesterday published this document confirming the problems discussed here and providing an initial driver fix.

Note that if you earlier installed a modded ATI driver you MUST first uninstall it while having the BIOS set to discrete graphics (and OS not set to autodetect) before in BIOS going to switchable graphics and installing this (or any other Lenovo provided) driver.

 

On April 28 -- 8 months after the availabilty of the T400/500 Lenovo finally shipped a working switchable graphics driver. For my experiences with it see here.