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HELP! Embedded Controller Program Won't Install

T40/T41/T42/T43 Series
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ravenjim
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HELP! Embedded Controller Program Won't Install

#1 Post by ravenjim » Thu Dec 27, 2007 10:21 pm

I Upgraded my bios from version 2.11 to 3.23 using a usb floppy drive and all went well.

When I tried to upgrade the Embedded Controller Program, from version 2.04 to 3.04 it locks up my t41p at "reading the program file, please stand by.... " and won't go any further. I can get to bios setup and the old ECP version is still there but bios is new.

I read the instructions and when updating both the bios and ECP, you should do the bios first, and I did. The instructions also tell you to upgrade the ECP first in the ECP instructions. Conflicting!

I haven't tried to boot to windows yet.

Anyone have any ideas how to get the ECP to install? Should I have upgraded the ECP first? If so, can I downgrade the bios back to 2.11 and start again?

Thank You, Jim

richk
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#2 Post by richk » Thu Dec 27, 2007 11:32 pm

It sounds like the disk or the drive is failing. Can you try the non-diskette version?

ravenjim
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#3 Post by ravenjim » Thu Dec 27, 2007 11:42 pm

Do you mean the floppy disk failing? I made a new disk and same results. Don't have another floppy drive. How can I use the non diskette version without booting to the hard drive? Can I download the non diskette version and still use the floppy?

Thanks, I'm going crazy here!

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#4 Post by richk » Thu Dec 27, 2007 11:46 pm

I would boot into windows and install from there

ravenjim
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#5 Post by ravenjim » Thu Dec 27, 2007 11:54 pm

Will it boot to windows with the older ECP and newest version bios? Lenovo says neither will work without the other version it requires.

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#6 Post by SMA » Fri Dec 28, 2007 5:07 am

Found this note in the installation instruction:

Note: If you are updating the Embedded Controller Program through the USB external diskette drive, it will take quite a long time to complete reading the Embedded Controller Program file, but it is normal. Continue the update

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#7 Post by andyP » Fri Dec 28, 2007 6:04 am

ravenjim wrote:Will it boot to windows with the older ECP and newest version bios? Lenovo says neither will work without the other version it requires.
It means the update will not work, not that your TP will not work. I would suggest following richk's advice.
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#8 Post by sojourner » Fri Dec 28, 2007 8:40 am

andyP and richk both gave good advise. I updated the BIOS & ECP about 9 months ago. Did the BIOS first *THEN* ECP, just the order you are trying (and according to instructions in ECP doc). Only difference, I did EVERYTHING from within Windows (didn't have a floppy). Everything went fine! Updating ECP from windows should work.

Last comments:
according to ECP instructions
1. be SURE any power on passwords are DISABLED
2. REMOVE any USB diskette DRIVE before trying this (i.e. you should NOT try installing ECP from floppy)!
3. boot into Windows with administrative privileges
4. extract ECP software to HDD
5. run it

VOILA! Everything is updated :D
IBM Thinkpad T41 Home | X31 Travel | X60 fun
2GHz Dothan (X60 C2D, X31 1.7 Banias), 2GB RAM, 320GB HDD, DVD Multi-Burner, IBM 11b/g, Bluetooth II, Docks
multi-boot (98SE, W2K, XP PRO, Win7, Linux Mint 10)

ravenjim
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#9 Post by ravenjim » Fri Dec 28, 2007 11:08 am

Okay, as suggested, I booted into windows and tried the non diskette version to upgrade the ECP. It asked me all the questions about the ac/battery etc. and then when it went to upgrade, all these colorful lines appeared on the screen and I thought, okay, now I'm really screwed.

I let it sit like that for awhile and nothing happened. Turned off the power and booted to bios setup utility and the old version ECP was still there. It still boots to windows fine. Whew!!!

Now what? Should I try other ways to upgrade or let the older version of ECP alone?

Totally befuddled at this point. Lenovo should make this a lot easier for us part timers to do upgrades.

Thanks for all the responses, I know most of you have probably upgraded to newer laptops and these issues don't affect you, but it's truly appreciated.

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#10 Post by sojourner » Fri Dec 28, 2007 3:00 pm

Well ravenjim, you've got me stumped. I have two TP41's, upgraded both without a hitch. Being new to the TP community I certainly have a lot to learn and appreciate this forum. Hopefully someone else will jump in here who knows what to do!

My opinion:
Considering what you've described above (all these colorful lines appeared on the screen) it seems there is a software conflict! Can't help but wonder if some software should be disabled temporarily to complete the ECP update. Of course, this also makes me wonder if you ARE logging in with ADMINISTRATION privliges :??:

If it were me (again, if it were ME) I'd try again but first use msconfig (Winkey R, or Start, run, msconfig, ENTER). Tic 'Diagnostic Startup', reboot. Run ECP setup program, pray, hopefully no varied wierd color screen this time!

If successfull, thank God, reset msconfig to Normal Startup, reboot, clap hands and cheer :banana:
IBM Thinkpad T41 Home | X31 Travel | X60 fun
2GHz Dothan (X60 C2D, X31 1.7 Banias), 2GB RAM, 320GB HDD, DVD Multi-Burner, IBM 11b/g, Bluetooth II, Docks
multi-boot (98SE, W2K, XP PRO, Win7, Linux Mint 10)

ravenjim
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#11 Post by ravenjim » Fri Dec 28, 2007 3:26 pm

All

This is what I have found from Lenovo tech. They claim that if you have any non IBM ram on the machine it will lock it up when flashing the ECP.

sojourner,do you know if your 1.5gb ram is genuine IBM? If not, this would squash their theory, because of your success with flashing.

I bought this laptop on ebay and have no idea if my 2gb is genuine IBM or not. I'm going to have to open it up and find out.
If it isn't, I think I'll let the old version there because it works fine running this way. I bought a new Atheros card off ebay and they claim you need to update the bios, but doesn't mention the ECP.

Hopefully it works ok.

Thanks, Jim

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#12 Post by sojourner » Fri Dec 28, 2007 3:46 pm

Jim, I can only go by memory so ... when they were bought they had 512MB RAM. *YES* they are IBM (with FRU etc.) I believe BIOS, ECP upgrades were done prior to memory upgrade, so perhaps tech was telling the truth. It is hard to imaging ECP failing because you do not have IBM RAM though. Does the ECP install look for IBM RAM ???

Well, while on that topic, when you upgraded your memory did you do a memory stress test? (I did to ensure good memory integrity!)

If ECP does not look for IBM RAM perhaps bad memory is causing the problem??
IBM Thinkpad T41 Home | X31 Travel | X60 fun
2GHz Dothan (X60 C2D, X31 1.7 Banias), 2GB RAM, 320GB HDD, DVD Multi-Burner, IBM 11b/g, Bluetooth II, Docks
multi-boot (98SE, W2K, XP PRO, Win7, Linux Mint 10)

ravenjim
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#13 Post by ravenjim » Fri Dec 28, 2007 3:58 pm

sojourne,

"Does the ECP install look for IBM RAM ??? " I have no clue if it does.

"Well, while on that topic, when you upgraded your memory did you do a memory stress test? (I did to ensure good memory integrity!) " It came with ram installed, so I don't know if it was stress tested.

When I get my wireless card installed, I'll see if mine is genuine IBM.

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#14 Post by sojourner » Fri Dec 28, 2007 4:17 pm

ravenjim, did you try installing ECP using Diagnostic Startup? (just curious, it is very easy to do)

Also, it is easy to access the RAM chip: just remove the screws on the bottom of the TP which have a keyboard icon next to them. After that the KB comes out fairy easy, after you know the trick! The RAM chip is under there. There is also another RAM slot which is easily accessable under your lappie. It is a flap (trap door) with one screw.

If you'd like, PM me with your email address and I can send some IBM 'install/removal' videos (SWF). They are on IBM's web site too if you want to hunt them down. I'll be around for the next hour, after that not till tomorrow night.
IBM Thinkpad T41 Home | X31 Travel | X60 fun
2GHz Dothan (X60 C2D, X31 1.7 Banias), 2GB RAM, 320GB HDD, DVD Multi-Burner, IBM 11b/g, Bluetooth II, Docks
multi-boot (98SE, W2K, XP PRO, Win7, Linux Mint 10)

ravenjim
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#15 Post by ravenjim » Sat Dec 29, 2007 5:05 pm

I opened up the TP to install my new wireless Atheros card (which did solve all my drop out problems) and checked the ram sticks. Not genuine IBM stuff, so I'll not be flashing the ECP as of now. If and when I get a hold of a 512 genuine stick, I'll try it then.

The TP is working fine so I'll leave it alone.

Thanks again for all the help.

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#16 Post by Robbyrobot » Thu Jan 24, 2008 1:49 pm

When I tried to upgrade the Embedded Controller Program, from version 2.04 to 3.04 it locks up my t41p at "reading the program file, please stand by.... " and won't go any further. I can get to bios setup and the old ECP version is still there but bios is new.
How interesting... and now I've updated a T41 (2373-SA1) from BIOS 3.00c to 3.23 - no problems with an external floppy on a port replicator II. And then tried to update the embedded controller 3.00a to 3.04, similarly with an external floppy on the port replicator - and have precisely the same problem as you report. Since I have no Ultrathin Bay floppy and there is no floppy connection on this machine, I'm stumped for the moment. Also no HDD, folks, so no way can I boot Windows or anything else from the HDD. Interesting that only the embedded controller is so finicky... :roll:

ravenjim
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#17 Post by ravenjim » Thu Jan 24, 2008 3:18 pm

Check your memory to see if it is IBM compatible. This is what Lenova techs said would cause the embedded program to lock. I am running with newer bios and older embedded program and all is fine.

Please let us know if you are able to resolve this problem another way.

Thanks and good luck,
Jim

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#18 Post by Robbyrobot » Sat Jan 26, 2008 8:24 am

Check your memory to see if it is IBM compatible. This is what Lenova techs said would cause the embedded program to lock.
Sounds like a lame excuse to me, since memory is memory and if it works, it works regardless of whether an IBM label is on it or not. This particular memory ran for no less than eight cycles on memtest86+ without errors.

My guess is that the port replicator, and in your case the USB link are the culprits, and that a floppy in the Ultrabay thin would work just fine. The only question in my mind is why only the embedded controller (EC) causes problems, and not the BIOS update.

At any rate, the board is now on its way to a friendly Thinkpadder who has professional equipment to reflow the GPU ball grid array. As soon as I get it back, I'll be trying some other things to update the EC (assuming the board is fixed), and will certainly mention any success I have.

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#19 Post by Robbyrobot » Thu Jan 31, 2008 11:25 am

Sorry, but no such luck :(

The board was relfowed in a professional vapor furnace - and now nothing works but the fan (constantly), and the board can't even be normally switched off (have to pull the plug). Love to have someone with an X-ray system to look at the BGA, but I don't know anyone with such equipment. So as a result I have no functioning T4x boards and am meanwhile pretty turned off on the T4x series anyway. Sleek, nice design, powerful - and delicate to an extreme.

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Re: HELP! Embedded Controller Program Won't Install

#20 Post by plazma247 » Mon Sep 26, 2011 9:15 pm

Ok after this took me over 3 hours to fully work out, I thought it was best I save others from the ball ache, I know its an old post, but this may help someone else out there :)

As well all know for what ever reason IBM decided not to release a Windows Disk Less Update for the 3.04

After creating lots of coasters attempting to get it going by exporting the floppy image and converting it to CD I stumbled onto this post (thinking for the first time ever magic iso had failed me).. my cds booted and like im sure many others got stuck at : reading the embedded controller program file.

The iso provided here for 3.04 also failed to work for me, at this point I was starting to lose my cool, and then I noticed if you scroll down the page on IBM ECP update you can get the older versions and it was there I noticed 3.03 had a disk less install (windows flash), I don't have a floppy drive and the CD iso method had bore no happiness.

Link for official download page for disk based 3.04 and older versions (disk less)
http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/downloa ... MIGR-50273

So i tried the disk less 3.03 upgrade and would you adam and eve it, loaded first time no issue under windows...

Grrr Still no 3.04 but one step closer, it was at this point i decided to pick apart the 3.03 disk less installer and well well well, looks like it just used a floppy image, so i took out the 3.04 disk image I created earlier with virtual disk and replaced 3.03 update with my 3.04, stuck it all into a self running rar (exe) file and what ja know, the bugger works, stone the crows.

So here it is the disk less update (windows based) for 3.04 embu1r71.exe that IBM never actually made :)

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=W3WS7FBV
http://www.fileserve.com/file/JYeUyG4/embu1r71.exe
http://www.filesonic.com/file/2208757381/embu1r71.exe

And anyone who tells you that you have to do the ECP update before the bios is wrong, i went from the 1 but lowest rev bios and the 1 but lowest rev ecp, upgraded the bios first to latest and then got stuck on the ecp, that was until I found this solution.

WHY OH WHY IBM never made a disk less install for this and instead offer everyone a disk only upgrade for 3.04 is frankly beyond me, cus as I have proved it wasn't hard when I had the right tools and a little know how.

This release supports the following systems:
- ThinkPad R50, R50p
- ThinkPad R51 (M/T 1829, 1830, 1831 and 1836)(*1)
- ThinkPad T40, T40p, T41, T41p, T42, T42p

Note: (*1) Machine Type 2883, 2887, 2888, 2889, 2894 and 2895 of ThinkPad R51 family are not supported.

Obviously if you brick your system running this don't come crying to me, you run take the file and run it at your own risk, basically once the installer runs, follow the instructions and and for the love of god don't turn the system off until it completes. If you worried about a virus, go and get the 3.03 disk less and confirm for yourself the CRC for the exes in that self expanding rar is still the same, the only other file is the just the disk image. If your really worried make your own, but believe me its clean here is a scan result from virus total (0 out of 43 hits) : http://tinyurl.com/5tvcg28

Now my laptops rocking on 1.7GHz SL7EP Dothan instead of the previous piss poor 1.3 Banias :) woot, anyone upgrading the CPU i needed a later bios before it would boot the 1.7 chip, also if you get another cpu check here:

Right time for bed :) peace out yall.

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Re: HELP! Embedded Controller Program Won't Install

#21 Post by RealBlackStuff » Tue Sep 27, 2011 9:33 pm

After the above long winded story, I am just wondering what these are?
Pick your choice, floppy or ISO. Both of them work for everybody else. So why not for you???
Embedded Controller Program (Non-Diskette) - ThinkPad R50, R50p, R51 (1829, 1830, 1831, 1836), T40, T40p, T41, T41p, T42, T42p
Embedded Controller Program (Diskette) - ThinkPad R50/p, R51 (1829, 1830, 1831, 1836), T40/p, T41/p, T42/p
I have long ago invested a few measly dollars in a USB floppy drive.
Works in any Thinkpad from T4x onwards.
Only had one problem once, if I remember correctly with an obstinate T40p.
Lovely day for a Guinness! (The Real Black Stuff)
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PS: the old Boardroom website is still available on the Wayback Machine
.

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Re: HELP! Embedded Controller Program Won't Install

#22 Post by plazma247 » Wed Sep 28, 2011 2:15 am

Yeah mine was a TP 40 and ive no usb floppy to hand and the CD ISO method wouldnt work, so a winflash was the only way i managed to get it to flash the ECP

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