Lenovo ThinkPad W Series :: W500 Display Dim Makes It Hard To Use Outdoors
Jan 6, 2013
In fact, my W500 is over 5 years old but I do not have any complaints on its performance except the WUXGA display is rather dim which makes it hardly useable on open-air. I do not recall that problem at purchase time. When googling around I see different reasons for a dim display
a) cabling - would not consider this beacuase the screen is not flickering and does not show any discrepancies - it's just dim
b) inverter - this is not a real inverter, is it?
c) display panel - it does not seem very difficult to replace
d) motherboard - I am unsure whether I would challenge a replacement
Is there a way to find out which way to start working around? I mean buying a panel if it comes out at the end that I had needed a new motherboard would rather make me blue.
Or should I accept the fact that time has gone and I have to look for an other computer because it does not worth bothering. What do you think?
I've got thinkpad W500 and the PrtSc key is not capturing screen I want to copy. It doesn't require the Fn key because it's labeled on top row ("sysrq" is below it on 2nd row on same button key).
-I also tried pressing Fn + prtsc just to see if that would work. Didn't work. -Then I tried pressing Alt + prtsc... nothing. -I even tried pressing Ctrl + PrtSc.... nothing.
I've looked all over Forum, no one addresses this, or at least not for the W500 (which is different from the other W510 through W540 series laptops. Or other ways to capture a screenshot?
I have a W500, ATI Mobility FireGL V5700, Windows 7.
When I press FN+Home and FN+END to regulate brightness up or down, the brightness symbols turn on and goes up/down, but the screen brightness is not regulated up or down but stays constant somewhere in between.
What can I do to get "brighness" working?
It has never worked, the computer is 2 months old. I have upgraded from Windows 7, 32 bit to 64, but brightness is still not working.
I have a thinkpad W500 and I'm reinstalling Windows 7 after years of running linux (I got tired of my video drivers being unsupported due to the age of the card). However, when I attempt to install system update, I get the message "an error occured while gathering user information" and I cannot continue. How can I get the switchable graphics, power, and keyboard drivers properly installed? I don't really care about the rest of the software, it just that system update is the only way I know of to get it.
I have Thinkpad W500, Windows 7 Professional, 64bit. When I turn on laptop, i forget when (before or after Windows loading) it brings me to the FingerPrint icon. This part is ok because the laptop seems to continue booting without my clicking it which I prefer. (I don't even have my own FingerPrint saved in laptop and I find that strange. I bought this W500 used). After FingerPrint icon disappears, the User or Admin Icon is shown on screen. That picture needs to be clicked for laptop to continue booting up or loading up. No password required, just click the icon. I'd like for laptop to just bootup without doing anything, and go to the desktop page automatically (like all my other thinkpads).
How can I turn off that second Icon or feature? Is it a User or Admin icon? I'm only user of laptop so I don't need feature to use a password or to click the Icon.
I have a W500 running Windows 7 which unexpectedly turns off, usually when asleep but sometimes also while on. The turn off happens as if the power is lost (say, the battery/AC cord are yanked out). After a turn off like that, I sometimes need to reconnect the battery and the AC cord. Did some reading here and elsewhere on the web and came upon the electrostatic suggestion. Was able to get it to turn back on at least a few times by touching the underside of the laptop, but that worked inconsistently.
Since it mostly happens when the unit is asleep, I pretty much ruled out the temperature and software issues.
Decided to check out the memory section pin bending solution. My laptop has to have it's palm rest taken off to access the RAM modules. People kept referring to some RAM door pins but since mine doesn't have a special RAM door, I bent some pins on the bottom of the palm rest and so far, not power loss but too early to tell.
I have just ordered a w540 and I'm wondering if I can add a second hard drive (actually what I want to install is an SSD) to it. In which case I failed to find the appropriate message...
I've recently got an ultrabay adapter and wanted to know if I could run two separate OSs, one from each hard disc.
Effectively, I would like to have one version of windows on the internal HDD for general day to day stuff and one as a programming environment and be able to select which to boot from at start up.
I know I could just use a VM, but some of this stuff (Siemens PCS7) can put quite a strain on the system and I'd rather not have that overhead.
No matter what settings are used in Lenovo settings, my display turns piss yellow after boot up. Then I have to manually change it back to normal. How do I disable that paper display?
Just upgraded from Windows 8.1 preview to Windows 8.1... since then my display doesn't look right at all. Resolution seems to be set to 1920x1080... which I belive is correct.
But text, icons and windows seem bigger than they were before.
Also the display is lacking sharpness around text. Do I need to upgrade some drivers or something?
I use a high resolution monitor; therefore, I use display scaling. But for many programs I prefer to turn it off since the display quality is better. For 32-bit programs there is no problem with this: open program properties, then, Compatibility => Disable display scaling on high DPI settings. However, when I try to do this for a 64-bit program, I find that the corresponding check box is disabled.
I am quite bugged by the Caps Lock onscreen display, since I cannot find a way to only turn off the capslock display without turning off all displays.
This display drops my FPS from about 70 to 40 when I'm playing video games which is bugging me a lot. But I would like to keep my other displays like soundlevel and screen brightness.
And yes, I know that it is possible to keep the capslock display for only 3 seconds when turning it on too, but I want it to be not displayed at all. I have a green light on my keyboard which is good for me.
So is it possible to completely turn off the capslock display without turning off the other displays?
Trying to find a way/hotkey to turn off the built-in display whilst I'm connected to another external monitor with the Thinkpad S1 Yoga model. How to do it?
I could even remap any of the default hotkeys, how to do that as well, as the defaults are not too useful for me...
Yesterday I have noticed a problem with the display in my X220 (type 4290-W1B). There is a small, white spot (about 1 mm diameter), clearly visible on the screen. It doesn't look like a normal bad pixel, but like a problem with the background light, or something. It is not visible when black color is displayed. The laptop was bought about 3 months ago and everything was OK until yesterday.
I have attached some pictures of this dot, but it is difficult to capture it with the camera (it is much more visible in real). I have marked the spot (it is in the middle of the circle). The pics are in high resolution so you can zoom in.
What should I do now? I have heard , that the Lenovo bad pixel policy is 3 bad pixel per display...
My new W540 (11/10/2014) Lenovo Solution Center under the Check-up tab alerts me that the FaceTime HD Camera (Display) Driver is Not Installed. Such as it is, the camera, a 720P HD, works just fine. A search of resources does not uncover any comment or Driver on this issue. So, since there is no problem as near as I can determine, should I just ignore the lack of Driver issue, and if so, what is the procedure to stop the Solution Center from alerting me to this error? But if on the other hand I should install the Driver, where is that to be found?
MTM 20BG-CTOWW
I'm using the W540 in the Ultra Dock with video on a second monitor, an Apple monitor, using a Thunderbolt cable. There is no Thunderbolt port in the Dock, so I use the W540 port which surprised me that it works.
FWIW, it is taking me a lot of time learning the location of programs and utilities having moved from my old W510 Win 7(64) setup to the W540 Win(64) 8.1 setup.
W540 20GBCTO, Ultra Dock, W520, 4270CTO, W510, 4318CTO; (2)T500, 2081CTO; Y560, 064657U, Y530, 405166U; T61p, 6465CTO, A31p, and L2461x Multi-touch Monitor, Mini Dock Plus Series 3
I have a X230 (model 2357G) with a type 4338 dock. I'm currently running dual 1920x108 monitors via the dual DVI ports in the dock. But I wonder if the dual Displayports in the dock can handle something with a higher resolution like dual 3840x2160 monitors ?
I have a Lenovo ThinkPad W540 running Windows 8 (64 bit) connected to a ThinkPad Pro docking station and hooked up to a 24" widescreen monitor.
All was working perfectly for the past couple of days (since I got it) until today when the monitor will go blank, display a 'no signal' message, the laptop screen will flicker then after approx 15 seconds all is back to normal excepting the following message is displayed:-
I've tried clicking Yes and No with no permanent lasting improvement!!
For various reasons, I had to perform a complete reinstall of Windows 8.1 on my W530. Now, after updating the system with the Lenovo System Update app, all the icons on the desktop (laptop screen, not external) are considerably larger than before the resintall. This includes the task bar, etc.. as a matter of fact, it appears that I've lost a lot of real estate within apps as well, and everything generally appears to be 'fat'.
I have the screen resolution set to 1920 x 1080.
I am using the Intel HD Graphics 4000 driver dated 5/16/2014.
Interestingly enough, upon first boot from the rebuild (before the System Update updates) the screen was exactly as it was before. I did try to downgrade the driver to the built-in MSFT driver.. but that didn't accomplish anything.
I've attached a screen shot for those bored enough to care : Link to image
I have just switched to Windows 7 Pro and it is already driving me crazy. I use a Lenovo X200 with my Ultrabase. I connect the notebook to an external display via DisplayPort. The Intel GM45 Graphics Driver crashes about twice a minute when the Notebook is docked and connected to the external screen. Than all screens become black and afterwards a message pops up, that says "Intel Graphics Accelerator for XP (R) stopped responding and has recovered". Sometimes the notebook crashes and reboots. That gets really annoying and I haven't found a solution. Bios Version is 3.20. I loaded the latest Intel Graphics Driver from the Lenovo Webpage (8.15.10.2302) with Windows 7 SP1 (all updates installed). When I use a standard windows driver and not the Intel driver the external display flickers black every minute once. The newest Intel driver (from the Intel Website) does not work, since it says that it is not released for my notebook.
After the latest set of updates, my touchpad took to displaying a stationary gray circle/swirl half the time when I tried to move the cursor. Seemed to happen less if I moved very slowly. I turned off scrolling (again), and it's mostly gone away. Is this related to scrolling?
When I connect my external monitor (ASUS PA248) to my W520, the audio disappears. When I disconnect it, the audio returns. This seems a bizarre link between audio and video, but there it is. Note that the PA248 does NOT have built-in speakers.
I intend to use it primarily for some fairly intensive gaming (Fallout 3, etc), media (music, movies), and general work stuff (web surfing, word processing, etc)
I have had an IBM for the last four years and it has served me quite well. My experience with IBM tech support was always good, and the one time I had to get it fixed it was returned promptly, no questions asked.
However there is an HP ProBook that looks quite appealing. It costs $1865 It ships with Windows XP (important to me) It has a 2.53 GHz Core 2 Duo Processor It has a 512 MB ATI video card 3GB of DDR2 Ram It has a 320 GB 5400rpm HD It has a 17.3" widescreen 1600x900 display And here's the kicker: a Blu-Ray drive
The Lenovo is a Thinkpad W500. It is generally quite similar in specs, and a bit cheaper, but it has a 15.4 inch screen (albiet a higher resolution one) and lacks the Blu-Ray drive..............
Okay so i probaly have the weirdest problem ever with this laptop, so the issue started when the display stopped working properly and would only work at a certain angle or when u would apply slight pressure on a certain part of the screen, faulty monitor correct?wrong. When i uninstalled the intel gpu drivers and reverted back to the standard microsoft display adapter all these problems disappeared, screen would work at all angles and the display would have no issues, so that sums out the possibility of the monitor being faulty. The display starts having these issues everytime the intel display drivers are installed, it just blows my mind how this is even a thing. The screen flickers twice and turns off after windows is done booting when the intel drivers are installed and works perfectly without them.
I've got 2 separate but really annoying issues with my W540 20BH:
- display brightness keys not working: when waking up from Hibernation mode, sometimer (really, randomly!) the display brightness keys (Fn+F5/F6) don't work.... either if the display brightness is stuck on max, min or an intermediate level...Is there a way to shut down and restart the process which commands the Fn keys?
- audio channel commutation gets stuck. Normal behaviour of the audio configuration is: 1) speaker volume disabled, mic disabled 2) when plugging in a 4-pin headset, headset's volume is on, headset's mic is switched on; speaker volume is still disables. 3) when unplugging the headset, speakers' volume is still 0
After each boot, the audio channel is at 0, but doesn't commute to the headset when plugged in! I have to open Configuration Panel, realtek properties. With this window open, unplug and re-plug the headset. Now, the volume has its normal behaviour.
Any better way to configure audio channels and evenments, which is able to bypass realtek's manager?
Yesterday, after just a month of ownership, the display panel on my ThinkPad Yoga S1 became defective. All of a sudden, when I undocked it (after shutting down normally), the only thing that appeared on the display was a whitish image containing a dark grey vertical band (left), which happens to be the Lenovo splash screen background! The laptop runs perfectly fine when docked because it attaches to an external monitor. I tried fiddling with the Yoga's display panel, rotating through its various configurations and, after a while, a partial windows screen did appear although it flickered and, even still, nothing displayed properly in that left most vertical strip! Undocked, the laptop was and is completely unusable...
I was all set to buy an M4400 last week until I started reading about all the bios/driver/software issues people have had with them. Is the W500 a better choice for someone looking for stability out of the box?
I have recently purchased a W540 and connected to my Dell u3011 30" monitor. I used the Dual Link DVI-D cable that came with the monitor and plugged it into my Ultra Dock. The maximum resolution i can get is 1920x1080? When i change over to a Display port cable i can achieve the full 2560 x 1600 resolution? Is there something i need to do in addition to achieve the full 2560x1600 resolution with the DVI-D dual link cable? I want to be able to connect 2 laptops to the one monitor and only have 1 display port input so i need to be able to use the DVI cable on the 2nd machine while still achieving 2560x1600 resolution.
