Thinkpads Forum

I have spent more than half a day trying to get working a 2503 Advanced dock with an Nvidia 1030 graphics to no success. I am giving up at this point, but before I sell the whole lot (or smash them into pieces) I thought I will ask around here, even though I know pretty much everyone has abandoned these older machines, who used to use these docks for extra performance.

So the machine I used is a T60 Ati model. Here are my findings:
The machine won't boot up if I insert it into the dock, and the external monitor is plugged into either the 1030 card or the DVI port on the dock. The laptop will boot up, if the external monitor is plugged into the DVI port on the docking station AND the 1030 card is not in the dock. If the 1030 card is inserted in the docking station, I boot up my T60 OUTSIDE of the dock, then I attach it, then I will see the 1030 card as a basic video card in Windows device manager.
So I booted up this way. and installed the Nvidia display drivers. In device manager it showed Nvidia 1030. Perfect I thought.

I powered off the system. Plugged the dvi cable into the Nvidia card again, and tried to boot up. No success just like on my first try. Ok, I plugged the monitor cable back to the docking station and switched the laptop on again. Same, unable to boot. So I booted up the laptop outside of the docking station, then docked it in. Well, guess what? Now that I installed the drivers I can't even see the card at all!!! How is this even possible? Also I remember reading something about problems if you have too much ram in the laptop, so I removed a stick leaving 1 gb in, but apart from the fact that logging in and shutting down took ages, nothing else changed.

I have a Thinkpad W500 in a pretty sorry state, but has windows 10 on it and able to boot up, so I thought I will give this setup a try with that laptop. Same thing, monitor plugged into 1030, the system can't even boot up. Another strange thing here: if the monitor is plugged into the docking station DVI port, the system will boot up with the laptop docked, but the external monitor won't come on, only the built in LCD, also Windows device manager won't see the Nvidia 1030 at all.

I can't see any logic in these behaviours, and honestly I am at the point where I just gonna give up. It's infuriating, I know this setup could somehow work, as there is a video on Youtube where the dude makes this exact T60 + 2503 dock + Nvidia 1030 combination work, but he doesn't say anything about how ho got to that point where everything just works.

Since you verified that problem is not with your laptop
1st guess: the dock is not 100% operational (i bet on that one)
2nd guess: faulty Nvidia card

Obviously what a technician would do:
1. try the configuration with some other graphics card
2. try another dock with the very graphics card in question

If you purchased a "used 100% working" dock and are in Central-Eastern Europe, be warned that some of those came now from German computer services from shelves marked "Garantie-Rückgabe/Ersatzteile/Schrott". The resellers are testing those without much care/attention and sell as "good".

I have purchased mine dock several years ago for ca 3USD. It was "100% working" ... until 1st power outage ocurred. Then I learned that every power outage on this particular dock equals to system hangup (no mater Windows or Unix/Linux, no matter T60 or T61). Obviously no other dock of the type (I have 2 more) is affected by this "qiurk".

ziemeck wrote: ↑

Sun Jun 02, 2019 7:48 am

Since you verified that problem is not with your laptop
1st guess: the dock is not 100% operational (i bet on that one)
2nd guess: faulty Nvidia card

Obviously what a technician would do:
1. try the configuration with some other graphics card
2. try another dock with the very graphics card in question

If you purchased a "used 100% working" dock and are in Central-Eastern Europe, be warned that some of those came now from German computer services from shelves marked "Garantie-Rückgabe/Ersatzteile/Schrott". The resellers are testing those without much care/attention and sell as "good".

I have purchased mine dock several years ago for ca 3USD. It was "100% working" ... until 1st power outage ocurred. Then I learned that every power outage on this particular dock equals to system hangup (no mater Windows or Unix/Linux, no matter T60 or T61). Obviously no other dock of the type (I have 2 more) is affected by this "qiurk".

So it seems like it's not that I have been doing something wrong (which I was suspecting), but the dock might be faulty. That's a huge bummer. I have an other dock on the way (in used condition just like this was when I bought it), will see how this whole setup behaves there. I remember a while ago I had a brand new 2503 dock, I wish I would have kept it as now I could put it in great use.

Hi zoltan87,
I had to look three times at the date of your post - I have just had similar issues with a 2503 Advanced dock running multiple monitors first with my ol' faithful T60 (ATI - which I have recently donated to a family member), and its new-to-me W500 replacement. Talk about synchronicity! However, my problems were (are) with a Radeon HD 8490, 1gb RAM.
Initially I had 2 videocards, and was tearing my hair out trying to get the first one functional in the 2503. Worked fine from the native ports, but disappointingly and unpredictably irregular when communicating with the monitor. Eventually I swapped cards and the second one worked out of the box - the first was faulty (brand new).
For the T60 I don't remember changing the BIOS parameters Config>Display>Integrated/Discrete/Switchable (OS enabled/disabled), but in my W500 - also upgraded to Win10 and dual-booting with 2 versions of Puppy Linux, I find that I have to pay attention to these selections. I read elsewhere online that rebooting with consecutive changes between "Switchable (OS disabled)" and "Integrated" seems to snap the system out of its confusion. At least, that's how I find it working - and I just spent most of the weekend sorting it out. The only remaining problem I have in the W500 - which I didn't have in the T60 - is when I close the lid to hibernate overnight the machine and monitor don't reconnect properly and I have to go back into the BIOS.
So take a look into the BIOS options - maybe even experiment with selecting the "PCIe external" option (I think?) to have the monitor as your bootup screen, as opposed to the "Thinkpad LCD internal" option, to see how that goes.
Cheers,
W500tragic (formerly T60tragic)

Thanks W500Tragic, it's a surprising coincidence indeed haha, especially given the age of these docks.

Looks like there are quite a few things that I should play around with in the BIOS. When that other.dock arrives and I can find some spare time, I will try all those suggested settings out, and will come back to post my findings here.

Hi again zoltan87,
not getting notifications of replies, so am responding a little late. Since I posted about "reawakening" the PCIe and external monitor between warm-boots by switching BIOS display settings around between "Discrete" and "Switchable" in the W500, I've run into problems with actually working the issue out definitively. In addition to my using the Radeon HD8490, I didn't think to mention that I was using the latest official BIOS and 6GB ram - memory I see causing problems with some combinations of older 2503-compatible Thinkpads and earlier PCIe GPU's. There's this thread I just spotted, after I was unable to replicate success with my new-to-me T61: https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/ThinkPad-T ... 20/page/32. Most interestingly, posters report that a cold boot in the dock isn't always successful (!!) Certainly hasn't been with my T61 setup - which I have left for now as a weekend project. And the T61 BIOS (Middleton's) doesn't have the options for switching displays like the W500. Also - the same settings I have in my W500 using BionicPup64-bit (see below) DOES NOT GUARANTEE REBOOTING INTO WIN10pro64 WILL WORK. At least it hasn't for me yet. Plus, hibernating the setup by closing the lid breaks the world - didn't use to in my old T60 (Middleton's BIOS) but moving items between screens in the W500 is comparatively seamless. Swings and roundabouts. More research needed, later on. Anyways I haven't worked out whatever dark magic is required to consistently reboot with the external monitor (DVI port tested only BTW), although Puppy is playing nicely:

Hi all,
currently writing from my W500, Win 10pro setup with the 2503 Advanced Dock but will test again shortly with my T61 to be back "on topic" with this sub-forum. Yesterday I configured the dock with a new fanless GeForce GT 710 (2GB DDR, PCIe2.0, HDMI+DL-DVI-D). Heaps of space for it, compared to the HD8490 1GB (fanned) I had in it before. I selected it after reading a helpful thread in the ThinkPad forum - um, "What videocard are you running in your Advanced Dock"? Happy to dig out a link for it later, if anyone wants. Anyhoo, plugged in a new-to-me Benq XL2411T via the (EDIT) DVI. *Absolute dream* Yes, it may be overkill for the PCIe x16 slot, but not only do I have dual-monitors working seamlessly and gloriously - but also the intermittent whining of the dock's CPU fan is now virtually silent! At least, it was raspily asthmatic with the Radeon card I had in there before, by comparison. Something mystical to do with memory allocation I bet - as others have suggested on this forum.
Next up to get the 64-bit Puppy Linux distros working in this getup, and loop back to the T61 for more comparisons so I can work out *what* BIOS configurations work best for dock/monitor cold/warm boot success...
HTH

I have some update. My second 2503 dock arrived a few days ago and yesterday I got some time to test my setup again (Thinkpad T60, Nvidia 1030). And surprise surprise, it worket immediately. So it looks like the first dock that I tried was faulty, at least the pci output part of it.

With this new dock everything worked as expected. After driver installation I just had to apply the "error 43" fix and that was all.

In a few days when I will have some time again, I am going to test a few games and such. Also there is a 3D slicer software that didn't work with the Ati gpu in the T60 due to some Opengl issue, hopefully that will be sorted too.

Congrats, zoltan87!
Shame about your older 2503's CPU/mbo - as bemoaned elsewhere on both ThinkPad and Lenovo fora, mbo upgrades haven't been widely attempted/successful due to the absence of any technical manuals (and the user manual is pretty scant too). I *did* test out my T61 in this 2503+GT 710 dual monitor getup, and it worked better than expected, cpu fan issues non-existent there either. With the W500 plugged into the dock instead I have had no problems with either cold booting, or with shutdown/resumes with lid closing in Win10 or BionicPup64. Together, it suggests a "sweet spot" for resource allocation has been struck, for which regrettably there won't be any support from Lenovo.
Happy Travels
P.S. Sounds like you have some OpenGL 2.0 grief like I had with my T60 at some stage. As far as I could find out there is no way to upgrade your OpenGL from what the CPU supports. You have Middleton's BIOS flashed to your system already (not that that would help much with your graphics)?

@W500tragic Yes I have the modded no whitelist BIOS on my T60. Indeed its a shame about the Ati opengl support, as the mentioned program runs just fine on my T61 with Nvidia in it.

About the dock: as I mentioned it works perfectly now, apart from a dmall annoyance. I can't put the laptop to slepp wile docked, it just hangs there and I have to shut it down by long pressing the power button.

Also the fans were absolutely unbearable, like jet engines or a vacuum cleaner and I am not even joking. I just cut the wires for both of them, hopefully it won't go up in flames sometime in the future.

zoltan87 wrote: ↑

Wed Jun 19, 2019 12:59 pm

I have some update. My second 2503 dock arrived a few days ago and yesterday I got some time to test my setup again (Thinkpad T60, Nvidia 1030). And surprise surprise, it worket immediately. So it looks like the first dock that I tried was faulty, at least the pci output part of it.

With this new dock everything worked as expected. After driver installation I just had to apply the "error 43" fix and that was all.

In a few days when I will have some time again, I am going to test a few games and such. Also there is a 3D slicer software that didn't work with the Ati gpu in the T60 due to some Opengl issue, hopefully that will be sorted too.

Hello,
I have error 43 issue with my T60P, docking station 2503 and GT 1030.
Another cards (such as GT 730 and GT 9600) works with this dock,
I tested GT 1030 on several PC's and it also works fine,

I tried several fix for error 43, could not make it work,
Currently I am using latest Nvidia Drivers for windows 10 32 bit 391.35.
I had Windows 7 x64 installed and I had same error 43 issue.
I would appreciate suggestion how to fix this
Thanks in advance

Hi gio_kiborg,
welcome to the hall (pad?) of incurable romantics for the 2503 Advanced Dock. I couldn't get around to replying earlier, and I don't have any direct explanation for you regarding Error 43.

I did a quick search for your issue and found this https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Moto-M/Cod ... -p/4145109("The Code 43 error is one of several Device Manager error codes. It's generated when Device Manager stops a hardware device because the hardware reported to Windows that it's having some kind of unspecified problem.")
For me, the usual cross-testing approach would apply - testing the card out in a desktop, maybe also testing the graphics cards you found working in your dock in the same desktop computer to confirm whether there is something wrong with your card, perhaps:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevang ... ab7a7293d9

Now I think I discussed elsewhere similar sorts of issues in my T60 + 2503 dock + graphics card - only to find my brand-new card was cactus, as I found out only after testing the other of an identical pair I had bought online. Dunno which card it was, now. However, I am typing from the W500 + fanless GeForce GT 710 (2GB DDR, PCIe2.0, HDMI+DL-DVI-D) in the dock. I've tested it out with 3 monitors and no huge difference in the quiet running of the system, dock fan intact and operational. I hate to say it, but perhaps you have a flaky graphics card?

HTH

W500tragic wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 31, 2020 2:42 am

Hi gio_kiborg,
welcome to the hall (pad?) of incurable romantics for the 2503 Advanced Dock. I couldn't get around to replying earlier, and I don't have any direct explanation for you regarding Error 43.

I did a quick search for your issue and found this https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Moto-M/Cod ... -p/4145109("The Code 43 error is one of several Device Manager error codes. It's generated when Device Manager stops a hardware device because the hardware reported to Windows that it's having some kind of unspecified problem.")
For me, the usual cross-testing approach would apply - testing the card out in a desktop, maybe also testing the graphics cards you found working in your dock in the same desktop computer to confirm whether there is something wrong with your card, perhaps:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevang ... ab7a7293d9

Now I think I discussed elsewhere similar sorts of issues in my T60 + 2503 dock + graphics card - only to find my brand-new card was cactus, as I found out only after testing the other of an identical pair I had bought online. Dunno which card it was, now. However, I am typing from the W500 + fanless GeForce GT 710 (2GB DDR, PCIe2.0, HDMI+DL-DVI-D) in the dock. I've tested it out with 3 monitors and no huge difference in the quiet running of the system, dock fan intact and operational. I hate to say it, but perhaps you have a flaky graphics card?

HTH

Thanks for the reply,
I tested GT 1030 on several desktops and it works without any issues, I checked it on Windows 10 and Suse Linux, card works fine

Another card GT 730 works with this doc without issues as well,
That;s why I think that it is not a hardware issue, but so far none other "Error 43 Fix" could help,
So zoltan87-s quote about fixing error 43 is interesting for me

Hi gio_kiborg,
well that's good that you have ruled out the potential of a faulty card as the issue. With your mix'n'match efforts you have probably also ruled out any dust or physical mis-matching with the PCIe slot in the dock. Must be really frustrating for you. And I guess you have already worked through the steps outlined on https://www.lifewire.com/43-errors-explained-2619238 that was linked in turn from the Lenovo forum link in my earlier post.
I have run out of ideas I am afraid - I don't know of the fix zoltan87 applied to his setup. From my own experience in using this dock - mainly when shifting between Win10 and different versions of Puppy LInux on this dual-boot configuration (6 GB RAM, SSD replacing the HDD) - I had initially come across some strange startup behaviour (and failures to register the card) that were "sorted" in my T61 by changing some settings in the BIOS - closer I guess in design to your T60P. Have you looked into whether that might be an issue? Something in the BIOS video switching options seemed to work for me - I have no real reason why. I think I document them in this forum as "W500tragic", or before on the Lenovo forums as "T60tragic". I can try to dig it out later when I have a chance. I didn't have the same startup issues in the W500 which I observed has slightly different options in the BIOS , and there must be other differences "under the hood" as to why it behaves differently in the dock compared to the T60 and T61.
It would be a real shame to have to give up on your GT 1030 in the Advanced Dock "just because" of some engineering or component incompatibilities otherwise unknown to us mortal consumers. If the issue ultimately falls on whether you have the best Windows (7 or 10) driver loaded, the only additional test I think you could try to rule out potential hardware/configurational incompatibility that hasn't been documented elsewhere - is to possibly dual-boot in Linux like Suse (which I have no experience with) and run some diagnostics from there.
Sorry I couldn't be more helpful. I really hope you get it solved

gio_kiborg wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 30, 2020 1:11 pm

Hello,
I have error 43 issue with my T60P, docking station 2503 and GT 1030.
Another cards (such as GT 730 and GT 9600) works with this dock,
I tested GT 1030 on several PC's and it also works fine,

I tried several fix for error 43, could not make it work,
Currently I am using latest Nvidia Drivers for windows 10 32 bit 391.35.
I had Windows 7 x64 installed and I had same error 43 issue.
I would appreciate suggestion how to fix this
Thanks in advance

Hi, sorry for the late reply, I remember downloading some stuff for that error 43, it was a script and I just had to run it once, if I remember correctly, then the problem was fixed. I will look into it tomorrow, I have all Thinkpad related stuff backed up on an external HDD. But I remember as soon as I had that fix, it took only seconds to make the 1030 card work.

A couple of downsides to the 2503 dock though: sleep doesn't work anymore, system completely hungs up. Same with hybernation. Happened multiple times that I walked away, just to come back to a locked up system. Had to hard reboot, losing all my open work on it. You also can't eject the laptop from the dock while it's running, you have to completely switch it off. At the moment I am using my T60 with it, but also heard that with the T61 with more than 3 GB ram you will have even more problems.

So it works, but it's not a smooth sail that's for sure. The external gpu is the killer feature, and in the case of T60 I am able to run all the programs that wouldn't work on the internal Ati gpu in the laptop (missing OpenGL support).

Otherwise the Advanced Mini dock is superior in every regard, silent, hot eject supported, no sleep problems. That dock is how the 2503 dock should work, but for some reason (probably driver issues of the 1030 Nvidia card) it's just not the case.

zoltan87 wrote: ↑

Thu Apr 02, 2020 8:31 pm

Hi, sorry for the late reply, I remember downloading some stuff for that error 43, it was a script and I just had to run it once, if I remember correctly, then the problem was fixed. I will look into it tomorrow, I have all Thinkpad related stuff backed up on an external HDD. But I remember as soon as I had that fix, it took only seconds to make the 1030 card work.

A couple of downsides to the 2503 dock though: sleep doesn't work anymore, system completely hungs up. Same with hybernation. Happened multiple times that I walked away, just to come back to a locked up system. Had to hard reboot, losing all my open work on it. You also can't eject the laptop from the dock while it's running, you have to completely switch it off. At the moment I am using my T60 with it, but also heard that with the T61 with more than 3 GB ram you will have even more problems.

So it works, but it's not a smooth sail that's for sure. The external gpu is the killer feature, and in the case of T60 I am able to run all the programs that wouldn't work on the internal Ati gpu in the laptop (missing OpenGL support).

Otherwise the Advanced Mini dock is superior in every regard, silent, hot eject supported, no sleep problems. That dock is how the 2503 dock should work, but for some reason (probably driver issues of the 1030 Nvidia card) it's just not the case.

Thank you very much for the reply, I will be gratefull if you manage to find the script.

I noticed that it hungs when it docked, but I turned off sleep function when its on AC, I mainly want it for extra graphics performance, so gt 1030 is best choise, it fits in a bay and is plenty powerfull for Core 2 duo CPU, + supports all modern GPU accelleration techniques (for the web and video)

I watched some youtube videos, where they connected more powerfull GPU-s with PCI- extenders and external PSU's, but does not makes too much sense, since bandwidth is very limited.

Yes, its not as refined as modern solutions, but IBM/Lenovo did it ore than decade ago.

gio_kiborg wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 03, 2020 3:32 am

Thank you very much for the reply, I will be gratefull if you manage to find the script.

I noticed that it hungs when it docked, but I turned off sleep function when its on AC, I mainly want it for extra graphics performance, so gt 1030 is best choise, it fits in a bay and is plenty powerfull for Core 2 duo CPU, + supports all modern GPU accelleration techniques (for the web and video)

I watched some youtube videos, where they connected more powerfull GPU-s with PCI- extenders and external PSU's, but does not makes too much sense, since bandwidth is very limited.

Yes, its not as refined as modern solutions, but IBM/Lenovo did it ore than decade ago.

I managed to find the fixing script and the instructions for it, could you send me a private message with an email address, so I can send them there.

zoltan87 wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 03, 2020 3:34 pm

gio_kiborg wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 03, 2020 3:32 am

Thank you very much for the reply, I will be gratefull if you manage to find the script.

I noticed that it hungs when it docked, but I turned off sleep function when its on AC, I mainly want it for extra graphics performance, so gt 1030 is best choise, it fits in a bay and is plenty powerfull for Core 2 duo CPU, + supports all modern GPU accelleration techniques (for the web and video)

I watched some youtube videos, where they connected more powerfull GPU-s with PCI- extenders and external PSU's, but does not makes too much sense, since bandwidth is very limited.

Yes, its not as refined as modern solutions, but IBM/Lenovo did it ore than decade ago.

I managed to find the fixing script and the instructions for it, could you send me a private message with an email address, so I can send them there.

Thanks a lot!
It fixed the issue!

Glad to hear that. This setup definitely adds a good few years to the usable life of the T60.

Hello,

I thought this might be the best place to ask. Thanks to everyone’s posts I got my 2503+1030gt+T400 up and running and have been enjoying using with win7 pro for some gaming. I am using only 2gb ram and did try 3gb but would not boot. Was wondering where i may find out which compatible laptops can use the most ram with the dock and card. I saw some posts about changing parameters within the system to allow more ram to be used on T400 but it’s way over my ability to do, so trying to see if maybe look for a different thinkpad that will let me use more ram with same setup.

Thanks!

Did you try booting the T400 and extra RAM Only - NO dock?
T400 will take up to 8GB DDR3 RAM, and it is far less expensive than the older DDR2 RAM for T60 and T61. Try two 4GB DDR3 modules.
T60, T61, T400 and T500 will all fit in the Advanced Dock. I'm not sure about older T40 series, but those will be too slow for you and they can't take more than 2GB or RAM.

The advanced dock can get finicky with some external graphics cards. There are notes on it in ThinkWiki.

Keep trying, farfignoogin -
I am currently typing from my W500 (Win10pro, 6GB RAM, IntelCore2 Duo CPU T9600 @ 2.80GHz) on my Advanced dock fitted with a NVIDIA GeForce GT 710, feeding a Benq XL2411T monitor for dual-screen goodness. I find it hard to drag myself away from this rig - brings a smile to my face every time I use it.
From what you have mentioned regarding RAM upgrade attempts, sounds like you have a dodgy stick that is preventing P.O.S.T. Perhaps it is not properly inserted. Remember to perhaps wipe the connectors with alcohol/kimwipe - no greasy fingers. Also the slots themselves might have some dust-bunny debris - use a dust-puffer or air can spray (no spittley-humid blowing from your mouth), or a light vaccuum - though I recall others warning of static electricity problems with sensitive components, historically.
Do you get a beep when you attempt to first boot - first disconnected from the dock, as cadillacmike68 suggested? Sounds like you'll have to work methodically through a process of elimination to solve your issue,
HTH

Thanks for the info! I had 4gb ram and was able to boot off the dock, but it would not boot up when docked. iirc it just would only come on to a black screen. I have to say I am on the lower end of tech savvy so a big learning curve when I’m trying to do any of this stuff. Only because of the great help from you guys and the people on youtube that I can do any of it. But I am loving trying and will continue...still working on upgrading cpu and hdd to ssd. A little scary, but once I feel I have brushed up enough I’ll be doing it.

I have to say...I love the “beast” in my cupboard! I am using the 2503 about every day and call me crazy but there is something about hearing that fan rev up that I love! When I slide out the shelf a to turn that baby on, it’s a freakin’ monster! It’s like a flat desktop!! What’s not to love!?!

Keep trying, but follow this golden rule: Change only ONE thing at a time. Otherwise you will not know what is causing the problem.

I came across a youtube that was talking about ram limitation due to memory address availability in regards to assigning PCIe devices (totally quoting that, not sure what it means), and could be remedied with a DSDT override. I looked into trying to do that but it is way over my head! But I will keep experimenting with ram and cleaning it up to see if can get anything over 2gb working. Thanks all!

You're using a T60 -correct?

The Max useable RAM is 3GB but it can accommodate 4GB in 2 x 2GB modules, but winblows will still only use 3GB.
Try using one 2GB module - no dock.
Then two 2GB modules still no dock
Then two 2GB modules with the dock but WITHOUT the nvidia card in the dock
Then put the nvidia card in.
etc...

Do you see how this progresses? Change one item at a time When something goes wrong go back and think of another alternative track i.e. revert to one 2GB module and progress with that, then up it to 3 GB, etc...

Thanks! Will try out and see how goes.

Have you tried with with Nandos eGPU setup ? The only GPU that worked for me without any magic tricks was MSI GT710. All other GPUs I had to use Nandos eGPU setup to pack PCIe memory allocation. I had GT1030 and it works in advanced dock with T61.

I am so sorry. I think I'm drunk. Apparantly you are using T60 ? I have one here somewhere and can test it for you.

Using T400 with gt1030. Have only been able to use with 2gb ram. It won’t boot with anything more, so far.