unusual? T61 screen turns on and off

I have visited several forums and couldn't find something similar. I have a series of video issues with my new T61+NVidia Quadro NVS 140M+Vista. I just reinstalled Vista and all the updates but it didn't solve it.

Often when I reboot or come back from hibernation, after I passed the Vista password gate, screen turns off for a fraction of a second every 2 seconds, with a bip, non stop. I have to delete the monitor driver and reboot.

Other constant problem I suspect is linked: I have a Dell 2405 monitor with 1920*1200. The image in high res is one quarter to one third away from the center. This forces me to choose 1600*1200 which is well centered but becomes automatically the highest possible resolution until I reboot.

I cannot change the driver (it appears as a generic non PnP). It tells me I have the latest one.

Is that something you have already seen? Thanks

 

any idea welcome! Now I cannot get more than 1600x1200 on either Dell 2405 or dell 2407 external monitors

 

Does this just happen after hibernation?

When you first power on does the same thing happen or is everything ok?

 

originally, it happened as I was reinstalling Vista during an automatic restart. Now it happens -sometimes- when I resume from hibernation. Lately I still have the beeps and the mouse pointer being sent back to the center every second (tough to click on shutdown!) but no more screen flickering.

As for the resolution, I don't even get the off-centered screen in high res anymore. Whichever external screen (Dell 2405 or 2407) the maximum resolution is now set at 1600*1200

 

Have you tried uninstalling your video driver and reinstalling them?

 

the nvidia driver? yes; if I remember correctly it seemed to work at first but the problem came back. Or is there another driver to uninstall?

 

It kind of sounds like a driver issue if it only happens after hibernation. I'm not sure what else you can try besides reinstalling Vista (since the issue came up during installation). Perhaps something was missed during the installation process.

You could try completely uninstalling the Nvidia driver if you haven't done so. I got the following from this post by Hackez that shows how to perform a complete uninstall of the Nvidia driver:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=209796

Since you just want to uninstall the normal drivers and get the updated drivers you just need this part:

What You Will Need:


1. Guru3D Driver Sweeper

http://www.guru3d.com/index.php?page=driversweeper

2. CCleaner

http://www.ccleaner.com/download

=====

Process:


1. Uninstall your current drivers:

Windows > Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs > Nvidia > Uninstall

2. Once the uninstall is complete, reboot as prompted. Hit F8 when your computer first starts and enter safe mode.

3. Once in safe mode open Driver Sweeper, select NVIDIA Display and run it.

4. Once Driver Sweeper has finished close it and open CCleaner.

5. Run the file cleaner and registry cleaner.

6. Reboot back into normal mode and install your new drivers.

You can get the updated drivers from Windows Update.

 

thanks webdtc. I did it (it took all night for Windows to start in safe mode) and when I click on Windows update for new drivers, I get an error message
"Error loading C:\Windows\System32\NVCPL.DLL
The specified module could not be found"

 

So I run Windows Update directly (instead of found new hardware) but one more question:
-should I install the Nvidia install suggested by Windows update and dated 16Dec07 or the one suggested by Thinkvantage System update, no date?

 

I installed the one from Windows Update.

 

maybe I made a mistake but I first installed the one from System update. It doesn't appear to be the full package as I still don't have Nvidia. But now it doesn't allow me to install the drivers with Windows Update: I get a failed update error code 80070103, which suggests there is already a newer driver. Unfortunately, System update doesn't give the option to uninstall the last update. Do I have to go back to yesterday's windows configuration? I can do it but it may take another 10 hours to boot in safe mode...

Sorry webdtc for those repeated requests. You are very helpful and I wish I would have solved my problem by now. I understand from your comments that you may have had the same issues?

I also tried to boot from a Linux CD (Slax). Unfortunately, the highest resolution it gives me for the external monitor is 1440x900 (instead of 1900x1200). Is that a bad sign?

 

I'll try again

 

I've never had this issue on my T61p, but I have had something similar, though not as bad as you are describing on a Dell. For that, I just uninstalled drivers and reinstalled.

But, your issue could possibly be something else. I'm sorry it doesn't seem to be working. Your last resort might be to try reinstalling the entire system again. If you go through a clean install with no issues but still get the screen issue it might be a hardware problem.

 

1) I installed XP on another drive and so far graphics work perfectly fine with both Dell (I have only one minor problem: when i shutdown I get up to 20 application errors or memory could not be "written"messages). Nvidia works perfectly well and allows me to change all advanced parameters, something I never got in Vista. No screen flickering either. And the speed... maybe 10 times faster on average than Vista...
To summarise, it is not a hardware problem, at least not one that XP can pick up... ;-)

2) I still haven't achieved to get the NVidia driver back to work properly in Vista. Restores don't work either. I am not sure I can do a clean install because all I have is the recovery partition on the original HDD. So I guess all I can do is a new full reinstall. But the previous one generated its first error message quite early in the process... a bit frustrating... I will try to install the minimum and check if the resident version of Nvidia works then.

 

It's good it works in XP. Hopefully it is just a case of bad drivers/software.

 

finally back online after 2 days of reinstall, to share my disapointing experience and ask for more advice...

I was too optimstic: while the monitor worked fine with XP, and Nvidia offered all features unlike in Vista, XP doesn't work properly and I don't figure out why. After I installed all the Windows and Lenovo updates, I just cannot use it: Explorer freezes and I get 20-30 error messages when shutting down. In addition, I couldn't get the system to restore earlier points.

Because I need to be operational asap for my work, I desperately turned back to Vista and reinstalled it on the original HDD. Flickering started almost immediately during the factory reinstall! Fortunately it disappeared, so far, by the end of the install, but then off-center external monitor happened again, way after the Nvidia updates were installed.

What strikes me is that
-when I reboot, the automatic resolution of the external monitor is set at 1600x1200, and if things go well it changes automatically to the correct 1920x1200 shortly after.
-the limited Nvidia control panel doesn't allow choosing a higher res than 1600x1200, even when it is accepted (though off-centered) in the windows display properties.

My main question is why Nvidia control panel (latest updates dated Feb or March) cannot show me the high res of my Dell and if there is a way to force it?
Should I just keep the old factory drivers and refuse any nvidia update, whether from Windows update or Thinkvantage?

 

It's most likely to be software: I reinstalled the factory Vista and installed XP in dual boot. Now, not only XP works fine (at least for graphics) but the new Vista install shows all the same video problems, starting during the install, with no improvement after the latest Microsoft and Lenovo updates of the NVIDIA.

The screen flickers with sounds similar to plugging/unplugging a USB component, the high definition of the external monitors disappears after a while, with one external monitor showing off-centered image. When coming back from hibernation, screen is often black. Anything you recognise? I am desperate

 

This may help with your external monitor:
When the image shows up, use the auto settings (auto calibration or what ever it is called) capability of your monitor. It either has dedicated button for that or you can find it in the menu. It will center the screen for you. Helped with similar issues on my PC.

 

thanks Ivant. I will try that. So far I used "reset factory settings" which sometimes brings it close enough to the center to be able to use the horizontal positioning (which is limited to about 10% move). I will try next time, but the worth thing is when the highest possible resolution gets suddenly set to 1600 instead of 1920. And I observe that the NVIDIA control center never offers more than 1600, even when the Vista display offers 1920. (An issue that I don't have with XP)

 

mkitten,

I hope you have found the way to resolve the issue. I have a T61 with Navidia 140M video card and a 24" Soyo Topaz monitor. When I connect the external monitor with my laptop, I got the same issue as you did - most of the time, the maximum resolution is set to 1600x1200. However, for very times, the resolution is set to the native resolution 1920x1200.

I tried Windoes XP, and it worked fine. Actually, I have to close the lid of my laptop in order to use external monitor. Otherwise, when I press FN+f7, the laptop just refresh itself, and could not transfer the screen to external monior. But it worked find in Windows XP.

So, I believe this is software bug either from Vista or from Navidia. Just hope somebody can find the way to fix it.