T400 Gaming Problem (among others)

Hello,

I have a problem with my t400. I've been using it with windows 7 pro x64 (MSDN) with all of the drivers installed (system update).

These are the specs

with a 5400rpm hd.

The main problem I've been having is when playing COD2 (with the ATI GC, of course), I've been getting about 5 fps during fights at full resolution and low settings. On Half Life 2, I've been getting 20-30 fps normally and 10-20 fps during fights (full resolution, low settings). I'm pretty sure that I should be getting much better performance out of these games but I'm not sure whats going on. I've tried using 3DMark06 and I've gotten similar results as the reviews here say.

Does anyone know what I need to change to get better performance?

PS. I've been getting between 6-7 hours from the 9 cell battery with wifi on, light internet browsing, using integrated graphics and with the screen at half brightness. Is this normal or should I be getting more battery life?

 

Never used a T400 but are you sure you are using dedicated or integrated graphics when playing games? Also sometimes i find i can tell that my CPU is in Max Performance power plan by feeling the heat it's putting out even though the OS displays that i am using the Max Battery power plan, so i have to click the plan again to actually get it to switch to it. Could be that the CPU is defaulting to lowest clocks which are to my understanding about 800MHz, at least that is the lowest my 2.0GHz Pentium M throttle's to... these are just obvious observations sorry i can't help more. You should DEFFINITELY be getting better performance with especially CoD2, hell, i can play CoD2 in 800x600 with all settings except lighting effects maxed out on my T43 with an ATi X300, which is mind you overclocked. I also found what can work when that happens is uncheck startup processes in msconfig.exe one by one until you find the culprit, works for me alot of times and many ThinkPad processes interfere.

 

Yea, its using discrete graphics. I made sure by running CPUZ. The only thing is that it seems that its running both the integrated and the discrete at the same time when I'm putting it in "high performance" mode for switchable graphics. When running it in "battery saving" mode, it is only using the integrated and the discrete does not show up on device manager.

Also, maybe this will give you more information, when I'm using the integrated card, at the cut scenes, the fps goes up to 100 as it should, but with the ATI, it only goes up to 40-60. I have no idea why

 

Try going into your BIOS (F1 on start up) and change your display setting to discrete graphics only. Then test playing games. If games play fine then there is something wrong with the switchable graphics. I'll use that as a starting point.

 

I tried that and using only discrete gives me the same thing.

 

Did you try unchecking processes in "msconfig.exe" to see if it is a software conflict? Could be bad/corrupted drivers, you might be well off reinstalling drivers for both GPU's, again don't take my word for it i've never used a laptop with switchable graphics.

 

i know this may sound stupid but did you make you you power plan is on high?

 

of course. I fooled around with different power settings to make sure I was getting max performance

 

Have you uninstalled, ccleaned, then reinstall the driver yet? That is always the first thing I do when I have graphics issues.

 

I will try that out later tonight and report back

 

Follow up question, when I'm reinstalling my drivers, should I use system update or let windows find it for itself or get the drivers separately from the lenovo windows 7 beta drivers page

 

You remove the drivers in the programs and features tab in control panel, make sure you have a ccleaner or a driver tool of some sort and run it after you remove the software until nothing shows up. Then for good measure(yeah Im OCD/paranoid) run it after the restart. From there you can unpack the software package from lenovo and install it. Personally when I have driver issues that are OEM or from an OEM location (sw folder) I like to download a new copy for sanity's sake. Youll need the ones from lenovo so you can retain the switchable feature while loaded in windows. Otherwise youll have to switch in bios each time.

 

Ok, uninstalled the ATI drivers. Couldnt figure out how to uninstall the switchable graphics so I just left it. CCleaner-ed it and reinstalled the software.

Still the same performance.

Should I try again but uninstalling everything (switchable graphics, integrated and ATI drivers)?

 

I would say uninstalling all video drivers just to be safe. The reason is there may be something failing with the switch feature. At this point Im thinking it may be a hardware issue and you may need to send it in if that doesnt work. That is unless you want to do a full format and see if that fixes things.

 

Well, tried uninstalling/reinstalling the drivers again with no real change. I dont think its a hardware thing because I would be getting different results for the 3DMark06 then what is listed on the reviews here.

This is very frustrating

 

So reading other forum posts leads me to believe that this isint an isolated problem. (unless you t400 owners have no problems with your switchable graphics/windows 7/game performance)

Oh well, I guess I'll wait for the updated drivers (whenever that will be)