Using SVGA External Monitors with Thinkpad and Warp

Symptoms

Using an IBM Thinkpad 360CE laptop computer to run OS/2 V3 (Warp) with an external SVGA display needs additional drivers.

The OS/2 2.1 drivers supplied on the Video features diskette with this Thinkpad do not work with Warp (this is noted in the README.OS2 file on V1.33 of the disk, but not on earlier versions). If these drivers are used with Warp, they cause a Trap 000D.

According to the IBM PC Company Web page, the correct driver to use is the "WD90C24" driver supplied with Warp. While this will work, it only seems to support a display resolution of 640x480 on the external screen.

An updated display driver is available from IBM which allows the external monitor to be used at 800x600 and 1024x768 resolutions.

Hardware

IBM Thinkpad laptop computers - definitely the 360CE (the machine I've tried it on) but probably also the 355s, 360s, 750s, 755C, 755CS, 755CE, 755CSE, 755CD, 755CX, 755CV and 755CDV as (I think) they all use the WD90C24/31 video cards.

NOTE: this is not all Thinkpads. Check your model number carefully! In particular, those Thinkpads with advanced function display adapters need different drivers (available from the IBM PC Company's ThinkPad Support Disk Web Page).

Problem

The IBM Thinkpad 360CE uses a WD90C24 display adapter to allow it to drive its internal LCD display in VGA mode and an external SVGA monitor in SVGA mode. Other similar models in the Thinkpad range (see above) use this display adapter or the very similar WD90C31. To allow use of this video adapter in SVGA mode, the "IBM Thinkpad Video Features Diskette" (supplied with the computer or created using the "Create Utility Diskettes" application) is used to install appropriate video drivers for Windows and OS/2 2.1. The OS/2 drivers on the features diskette V1.33 or earlier cannot be used with Warp because they were written only to work with OS/2 2.1 and they cause a Trap 000D on startup!

The only satisfactory resolution of this problem appears to be the installation of new video drivers.

Procedure

1. Obtain the file 755WDVID.EXE from IBM's Thinkpad Forum on Compuserve (GO THINKPAD) or from the IBM PC Company if available. Note that this file creates a Video Drivers disk, not a "Thinkpad Video Features" disk. It also apparently available from the IBM PC Co under a slightly different file name:

   ftp://ftp.pcco.ibm.com/pub/mobiles/755WD101.EXE

   but I haven't tested this one.

2. Create a temporary directory on your hard disk and execute the 755WDVID.EXE file while in this directory. This file is a self extracting archive and will create a number of files in your current directory.
3. Following the instructions supplied in the README.TXT file now found in the current directory, create a display driver diskette using the LOADDSKF utility (also created in the current directory).
4. Follow the instructions in the README.TXT file on the newly created diskette to install the driver.
5. The temporary directory used to execute the 755WDVID.EXE program and the 755WDVID.EXE file itself can be removed as they are no longer needed.

Notes

As of the 11th January 1995, I have only used this updated driver briefly, but it seems to work well for both OS/2 and Windows under OS/2 programs. However, I accept no liability if you install the driver on your machine and it destroys something! (Remember you can use the ALT-F1 procedure to reset your display back to VGA should this happen).