From: Bill Morrow (penzance_at_gate.net)
Date: Fri Jun 21 2002 - 02:20:46 EDT
Messagegreg..
its a puzzlement.. :-)
my first gut reaction after reading your well described problem is BIOS..
i think there is a new bios since that A31p arrived..
second guess is some sort of disagreement between the two video chips...
<------------------------------->
Cordially, :-)
Bill Morrow
WEB page http://thinkpads.com
thinkpads.com Open Forum
http://www.afaonline.com:8080/webboard/$webb.exe/~2/login?
or go to thinkpads.com and link from there
E-Mail: bill at thinkpads dot com
----- Original Message -----
From: Greg Langham
To: 'Justin Maas' ; thinkpad_at_cs.utk.edu
Sent: Thursday, June 20, 2002 11:43 PM
Subject: RE: Thinkpad A31p with docking station
I have one Viewsonic VP201MB and one Dell 2000FP.
My problem still existed when I connected an analog CRT to either of the video cards in question (both cards have both DVI and DB15 connectors).
Thanks,
Greg
-----Original Message-----
From: Justin Maas [mailto:jmaas_at_msn.com]
Sent: Thursday, June 20, 2002 10:31 PM
To: 'Greg Langham'; thinkpad_at_cs.utk.edu
Subject: RE: Thinkpad A31p with docking station
Greetings,
What brand are the 20" DVI Flat Panels youa are trying to use?
Cheers
Justin Maas
MixTec
mailto:jmaas_at_msn.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Greg Langham [mailto:greg_at_ubh.com]
Sent: Thursday, June 20, 2002 7:43 PM
To: thinkpad_at_cs.utk.edu
Subject: Thinkpad A31p with docking station
Hey folks:
I just received a new Thinkpad A31p from Bill Morrow. All I can say is "wow" this thing is great. Good keyboard (better than A2x series), great screen, fast, and doesn't get warm on the bottom. My only minor gripe is the mouse button layout, but I'll get used to it.
I am replacing an A22p that I used on a Thinkpad dock. In the dock is an Appian Hurricane PCI video card with DVI output. The Hurricane is an ATI Radeon VE card. What I did with the A22p was run a 20" DVI flatpanel with the Appian card and another 20" DVI flatpanel on the DVI output of the Thinkpad; it worked great. It is great to run dual 20" flat panels in digital mode at 1600x1200. Lot's of real estate and easy to see!
Unfortunately, the A31p isn't cooperating with this setup. I can get one of the flatpanels to work with the DVI output from the docking station. When I enable the Appian card, the card acts like it works fine and the DVI monitor comes alive. However, once I move a window to that monitor and do something that creates quite a bit of video activity will lock the machine solid (no keyboard, mouse, etc.) The only option is to hold the power button until the machine turns off.
Here's what I have tried to solve this problem:
1. I thought it might be a driver conflict between the ATI driver in the Thinkpad and the ATI driver for the Appian, so after some searching I found an Inno 3D PCI DVI card. This card is an nVidia gForce II based card. This card exhibits the exact same behavior as the Appian (it locks the machine within a couple of minutes of use.)
2. I'm using the latest A31p BIOS (released 5/31/02).
3. I tried another Thinkpad dock - same results.
4. We actually have a couple of identical A31p machines in the office. The owner of the other A31p was gracious enough for me to try that machine. Same results. This pretty much rules out a hardware issue with my machine.
5. I have tried all sorts of video drivers. I have tried that latest IBM drivers for the internal ATI video, different drivers for the Appian and the nVidia card. All with the same results.
6. These machines are running XP, while the A22p was running W2K. So, Bill was gracious enough to send me a W2K product recovery CD. Unfortunately W2K locks up just like XP does.
7. I have tried all sorts of changes to the PCI IRQ settings in the BIOS. However, XP and 2000 both use ACPI and tend to handle interrupts on their own. Within 2000 and XP I have absolutely no control over what IRQ that the PCI video card uses.
8. I tried disabling the on board video and just run the PCI card. This isn't a good long term solution, but it would pretty much let me know if the video chipsets were conflicting. I was able to lock the machine with just the PCI video functioning.
9. Both of the PCI video cards also have an analog output. I thought maybe something about the DVI output was the problem; however, connecting an analog CRT to the PCI video reproduced the same results.
10. I have called IBM and it's been more than a week. They say it is with "level 2" engineering, but they don't have any answers yet.
11. Out of desperation I tried a Margi PC-Card to drive the second monitor. However, its support is weak at 1600x1200 DVI resolution, and it's slow.
Now, here's the really "interesting" part: We also have an SGI 1600SW 17.3" flat panel with a 3D Labs Oxygen VX1-1600 PCI video card. This card and monitor have a proprietary LVDI connection. This card and monitor works fine. I have been running with it for several days without problems. However, I would really like to get the second 20" monitor running instead of the SGI.
At this point, I'm guessing that there is a BIOS glitch with the A31p and the PCI slot on the dock.
Do any of you Thinkpad experts have any other ideas? I know it may seem like a crazy configuration, but it worked great on the A22p and would like to get it working with the A31p.
Greg Langham
United-Bilt Homes, Inc.
479.756.2527 x422
mailto:greg.langham_at_ubh.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.3 : Thu Jan 23 2003 - 09:59:01 EST