Morse wrote:

Rick wrote:

snip


Anyone seen this problem before on an IBM lap top? Any troubleshooting
suggestions appreciated.

Rick

I don't know about IBM laptops, but on HP Omnibook 6000/6100 laptops there's
an eeprom on the mainboard which sometimes has to be flashed (*not* the
system BIOS) when the display is replaced, as manufacturers often source
their LCDs from different manufacturers and specs of replacement displays
may change during product life. When I bought a replacement mainboard for
mine I had to use the HP display update utility (HP don't give it out, I
had to get it from a 3rd party website) to get it to work correctly with
the display as it wasn't configured for it.

This could be completely irrelevant to your situation but perhaps worth
looking into.

Morse

It might be relevant. Thanks.

Before ordering any main board I called IBM directly to get part
numbers, since their model/type matrix made no sense when looking this
one up in the IBM Hardware Reference Manual. (HRM) The model number on
this machine was only mentioned once in the HRM, as a completely
different configuration than what I have (Less memory, different size
drive, less video memory... Hell it told me I had an A22m, not an A21m.)

IBM told me I had two main board options: One with 8MB video memory -
same as my original - or one with 16MB video memory. IBM tech support
swore up and down that both these main boards were compatible with an
A21m model 2628-PRU.

Since nothing is working right, last night I crossed checked the main
board numbers IBM supplied against the HRM. The 8MB VGA main board cross
referenced to several models of A21m with XGA displays. (Not mine, but
at least they were also A21m's.) The main board with 16MB VGA cross
referenced to only one model: an A21p with a UXGA display...

Someone else suggested that although both the 8MB and 16MB VGA versions
use the same video chipset (ATI Rage Mobility) the 16MB version of the
main board is expecting to run at a different (higher) resolution than
my lap top display and that's what is producing the weird results.

Right now I have no idea if IBM has a similar fix as you had to use. I
do know that they used at least two different XGA displays from
different manufacturers in the model line so IBM might have a reason to
have a similar utility. Sounds like I need to "dumb down" the VGA system
from running at maximum resolution when booting to match the display
parameters.

Rick