T500 dual DVI screens

I am in the market for a T500 and want to to run the notebook with two LCD screens attached via DVI?

The DisplayPort technology confuses me... Can I get an adapter from DisplayPort to dual DVI? (I saw similiar ones from HDMI to 2xDVI)

Or is the only option a docking station? If so which docking station would support dual DVI?

Thank you,
Philip Fourie

 

I think this thread summarizes your options.

The problem is the advanced dock that can take a separate graphics card is getting old. For instance it has the old T6x ultrabay so you cant use ultrabay adapters intended for the T500.

So we have been waiting for Lenovo to announce a new advanced dock. In the meantime I am using the advanced minidock but that is limited to one DVI and one VGA monitor.

 

Not the answer I wanted to hear but thank you that helped.

 

I was able to get T500 - Windows XP - displaying via X1300 dual dvi in Advanced Dock on 2 external monitors each at 1600x1200 resolution.





Kudos to Jordan_Moss on http://forums.lenovo.com/lnv/board/message?board.id=W_ThinkPads&message.id=3422 for suggesting to set the video card in the bios to Switchable.




Here is my setup:



T500 in Advanced Dock with Lenovo x1300 video card, with the dual dvi splitter plugged into the x1300 and going to .

2 Lenovo L201p monitors.



Running Windows XP SP 2.

Display settings in Bios configured as follows

-- Boot display: PCI - Express

-- Video card: Switchable -- ( < ---THIS was the key setting in getting it to work)

--OS Detection for switchable: Disabled.





Even though I'm running Windows XP, I still set video card to switchable in bios and it seems to work fine.

I initially changed it back to Discrete as mentioned above, but after powering off the laptop , it then went back in the reboot cycle with no video where it fails to post. So I changed the bios setting again to Switchable and left it like that and it seems to work fine.



This is with the laptop in Advanced dock, with laptop lid closed- so no display on the internal LCD- just using the 2 external monitors.



When you first boot Win XP , you will only get display on one of the external monitors. So login to Windows , and go to Display properties , - right click WIndows desktop - properties- display settings- select the monitor #2 -click Extend Desktop to this Display. You will then have Windows desktop on both monitors. Don't use ATI Catalyst to set it up -because it will only detect one monitor.





To install the x1300 drivers

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/MIGR-68588.html

you might have to undock the laptop , boot into Windows , redock the laptop with Windows running and then run the install for the driver. The driver still didn't seem to install , but Windows said new hardware found VGA adapter - I let it search automatically for driver -locally and internet - and it Windows eventually found the X1300 driver and installed it



Before all of this:

Originally I had one external monitor on the Advanced dock VGA and one on the Advanced dock DVI, but the external monitor on the VGA was noticeably less sharp - a little blurry next to the external monitor on DVI . Using a VGA to DVI-I cable on the VGA port helped this quite a bit , but now that I have both external monitors on DVI-D via the x1300 gives best display quality.



Final note: the fan on x1300 runs on high all the time and is pretty loud, but at least the display is nice and sharp :>)....