T400 Display driver stopped working...

Randomly (a couple times a week) my T400 screen flickers and i get a notification "display driver amdkmdap has stopped working and has recovered". i thought it was weird but it recovered so it wasn't a big deal. BUT, twice tonight I got the same message but instead of recovering it went to a blue screen and then restarted...

what can i do to fix this? i have the most recent driver...in case it matters i do have my T400 hooked up to a 26" monitor...

thanks for the help

 

Thos definately sounds like a drivers problem...
I had the same problem at first (January) when I got my laptop. (yes, mine's nVIDIA, but... when a display driver stops working, the problem tells you... driver. driver. )

If someone could point you to newer ATi graphics drivers?

 

yea is anyone else having this problem? cause we probably all have the same driver...but if i'm the only one with a problem, then i'm a little concerned...

 

no ideas?? i've already done a clean install...should i reinstall the ati driver again?

 

Posting to say you're not alone, this happens to me too. My setup is a T400 hooked up to the Advanced Mini Docking Station with a Dell 2405FPW 24" hooked up to the DVI port. It seems to only do it when I have things active on the secondary display.

The first time it happened, I had foobar2000 open, sorting through all of my music as I was readding it after getting this thing. Not sure what was going on, I sat idly by until my computer hardlocked with a BSOD.

The second time, I wasn't even here, and came back to a random BSOD.

The third time, I was watching a video on the Dell, when it started dropping frames like crazy, until the "display driver frozen" error thing popped up.

I've found that if I manage to hit the "undock" button the docking station in time, it doesn't BSOD and starts working again (with the Dell disabled), so this definitely seems to be problem with the driver and dual monitors. After undock, I have to switch back to the Intel graphics, then again to the ATI graphics for it to start working again.

It's really annoying, especially since I can't get dual monitors working on the Intel card, just the ATI card.

 

yea this is definitely a problem for people who run dual monitors. i run a vga connection to my monitor and you run DVI, so i guess it doesn't matter if its an analog or digital connection...hopefully the driver gets updated soon since i don't know any other way to fix this

 

I am having the same problem, since I received the T400 about a week ago, I have seen it 3 times, once it restarted my computer....

Does anyone have a solution?

 

I'm pretty sure our only solution is to wait for a new driver. Unfortunately, I have no idea how long that could take. It doesn't seem to be that widespread of an issue either

 

yea maybe its not a widespread issue because most people aren't running dual monitors?

i just wanted to make sure its a driver issue and not something even more serious like a graphic card or motherboard defect...its getting really annoying since it did it again tonight...

 

I have the same problem with my T400. I'm running dual monitors.

 

I just got my t400 and I've been having BSOD after I undocked. I DID NOT run dual monitors. Installing the new ATI drivers off ATI's website to see if it helps.

 

If I have any free time this weekend, I'll mess around with installing the latest ATI drivers off of ATI's website and see if that affects the switchable graphics at all.

This issue is becoming worse and worse by the day. Last night I just had a word document open on my second monitor as I have switched to watching videos on my laptop's display instead, and it still did the whole display driver is not working thing. I'm not always fast enough hitting the undock button to disconnect the second monitor either and still get the occasional BSOD.

 

yea let us know if there are any new drivers that can fix this issue...its sad that a new thinkpad can't run dual monitors without any issues

 

I tried installing the Catalyst 8.9 software, and only the Control Panel portion of it installed.

I tried force installing the drivers for both the Radeon HD 3450, and the Radeon HD 3400 Series from the extracted driver package that came with 8.9, but whenever I tried to switch to the ATI graphics after that, it would error out with a yellow exclamation mark in device manager, saying something about how the driver was already in memory and that it can't load it without restarting.

So I reverted back to the Lenovo driver. Interestingly enough though, the Catalyst 8.9 software works with the Lenovo driver (which is from either the 8.7 or 8.8 part).

I guess we better just hope that Lenovo will come out with a new driver soon, especially since the 8.9 driver only came out September 17th.

 

has anyone found a solution to this problem? i was just reminded of this problem since my T400 just froze and restarted...i only have itunes running on my second monitor, i don't know why lenovo would release a driver that can't run a second monitor properly...

 

Been happening to me when using the ATI card playing games.

This same error use to happen on my desktop computer when i tried to overclock the card. Heat issue, it doesnt seem that my fan spins up very high on my comp when i am playing games, maybe they need to re-write the driver to spin the fan up sooner

 

same thing happens to me often while I'm playing games but it only started occurring after i played with the ati drivers. It was fine before i installed mobility modded drivers and reverted back to the default drivers.

From the previous posts, alot of the people had clean installs, could this be a problem for people who reinstalled the factory ati drivers? This could mean there's a problem with the drivers lenovo provided itself and not with people who left the pre-installed drivers alone.

 

For me i have also been getting randomly when i try to turn my comp on "Fan Error" then it shuts down

and the fan when working sometimes makes a scratchy noise
i am going to call lenovo tomorrow and see if they can send an advanced replacement because i can't be out of a comp

 

this happened to me before i reformatted...i hoped that by reformatting i would solve the issue, but it's still the same...

 

I am having this same problem. It's not only while docked, but I think it is usually when I'm connected to multiple monitors, sometimes my HDTV or other times an external VGA monitor. It is nice that Vista can recover from the driver crash sometimes, but blue screens are unacceptable. If Lenovo doesn't release a driver update soon, I may have to disable the switchable graphics and look into an updated driver from another source. It's a shame to loose the switchable graphics functionality though.

 

Been getting this error a couple times with a brand new T400 whenever it's connected to a secondary VGA monitor. No BSOD's yet, just both screens flickering, then an error message. This is with a clean install of Vista 64-bit with all the important Lenovo drivers/fixes off their site.

So far, switching to the Intel display drivers seems to have made the errors go away and I'm still able to keep my dual display.

 

Guys, I also have this problem. I am collecting information over at Lenovo Forums. Thread name: "Tx00/W500: amdkmdap crashes after resuming from standby when external monitor active".
I've referenced this thread there.

 

I've been having the same problem here.
- The display freezes, then goes blank for a fraction of a second and then recovers.
- This happens semi regularly with both the intel and ati card.
- Does tend to occur more often with frequent use of the sleep function.
- I have not tried it with a secondary monitor yet.
- When on the windows desktop, the problem is almost unnoticable. When playing games, the problem is worse, resulting in the game freezing up for a minute or so.
- I haven't experienced a blue screen from this problem.
- I tried to install the version 9 radeon driver but I will not install. Reverted back to the Lenovo supplied driver.
- Izmi, your Lenovo thread topic should probably be broader since this problem occurs any time using either display driver without a secondary display attached.

I agree that we probably need to wait for Lenovo to release a new driver. What I don't understand is that this driver seems to be a proprietary lenovo driver. Does this mean that the switchable graphics feature was developed and is manufactured by lenovo? I'm confused as to why we have to remain 6 months behind the latest ATI drivers just because Lenovo has integrated the drivers one proprietary package. Surely the Nvidia switchable graphics found on the macs and newer laptops has a better support arrangement???

any comments...

 

The switchable graphics driver is an ATI driver separate from the regular ATI driver, see this thread for more details.

 

Guys this is a known issue that has existed since the laptop's launch. There have been numerous driver updates that apparently address the problem but nothing has fixed it yet. There are some who have had success downloading the latest ATI desktop drivers and using Mobility Modder tool. If you go this route though you WILL NOT be able to use switchable graphics.

All of my attempts at correcting it have failed so I'm waiting for a driver update and until then, dealing with the issues. I get crashes when using an external display through the VGA output as well as when playing Fallout 3 without an external display. Oddly enough, the number of crashes seems to be minimized/not an issue when playing F3 on the external display with the T400's display off.