W500 Clean Install Question

Hey guys, another question for the awesome community here.

I've been working on the laptops provided by my school and I'm trying to get a clean install image working. However, I've encountered a slight snag. I installed the switchable graphics driver from the driver matrix found here and when I try to hot switch the graphics via the power manager, the option to do so does not show up. Any ideas? (Also, the graphics card under the device manager shows the little yellow triangle with an exclamation mark inside it)

 

(Assuming the OS is Vista!): Sounds like you have a faulty switchable gpu install (the switchable gpu driver includes with it both the intel integrated gpu driver and the ati dedicated gpu driver). sometimes the web-based thinkvantage system update mangles an update, leaving corruption. if that happens with switchable graphics, it does not work. the solution is a manual uninstall of the ati gpu driver followed by a manual install of the switchable gpu driver. read closely http://download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub/pc/pccbbs/mobiles/7vd541ww.txt. first save the manual switchable gpu driver from http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/MIGR-70417.html. then restart and go into bios setup and choose the dedicated gpu and no switchable gpu option. continue to OS and remove the faulty ati driver before installing manually the downloaded switchable gpu driver. check it is now a good install for the dedicated ati gpu. if OK, go back into the bios at another startup and choose integrated gpu and no switchable gpu option. continue and the integrated gpu should now also be detected and then installed. check if OK. if so, then restart once again and go into bios and finally turn back on switchable gpu options (2). then test.

 

Thanks antskip, I will give this a try.

 

Okay, we tried this with no luck. Uninstalled all video drivers and booted to discrete. Installed discrete drivers (ATI). Booted to integrated and installed the drivers (Intel). Booted to switchable and no luck.

 

is the manually installed ati driver working properly? and also intel? (each on non-switch). ie is the only problem switching between functional gpu's (gpu and its driver)?

 

Hey,

I had the same problem and it was so frustrating. I finally figured it out though. You need to have SP1 installed before the switchable graphics works/shows up. It was really annoying because you usually install all your drivers BEFORE your windows updates to make sure things are working. Once you get SP1 you should be ok. Good luck.

 

In my case, I had all OS updates installed, and still couldn't get switchable gpu to work - I still had to manually remove the gpu drivers and install them them manually to get switchable gpu option to work - but I hope in this case you are right!

 

Never had any trouble with mine but then again my Vista had SP1 installed from the get go on a clean install.

With the BIOS settings already set to Switchable and OS detection ON, all I did was install the Intel drivers first, and then the switchable graphics driver from Lenovo. Worked perfectly.

 

doesn't the intel gpu driver come as part of the switchable gpu driver? for me the problem (confirmed by lenovo tech support) was that my web-based update mangled things - with the only solution, a manual install of switchable gpu driver (after cleaning out the mangle). worked for me.

 

Nope, they are separate. The switchable graphics driver won't work properly unless the intel ones are installed first. The other problem is that when you do a clean install, you think that the Intel GPU is already installed, since it does not show up with an exclamation point but instead as a perfectly installed device. This is misleading, it needs to have the actual Intel drivers installed and not just the Vista VGA driver installed.

That's my experience so far. One thing's for sure though, the switchable GPU driver is definitely a tad bit buggy, so what works for some may not work for others.