T41 BIOS change

[Carltp]

Hi friends,

Well, got the blue screen and one of the solutions was to "disable bios memory options such as caching or shadowing".

So being knew to BIOS adjustment I dutifully read up on how to do this except when I go to setup utility thru "Access IBM" button it doesn't offer any of the options I've read about and can't even begin because the advanced settings category mentioned in tutorials is absent. In fact it doesn't seem like you can do much of anything in this BIOS , like the fan adjustments etc. I've heard about

So what gives? Sure hope there's some kind of hidden BIOS but it's worrisome I can't find any mention of this in forum archives.

[Cigarguy]

None if the items you mentioned can be changed in BIOS. This is a laptop BIOS not an overclocker friendly MB. You sure you are reading the right guide?

[Carltp]

Thanks Cigarguy. Delayed answering here in hopes of finding time to research and thus give your answer more justice but to no avail. Could you or at least one of the many people who have read this please elaborate? Like, what do you mean by over clocking motherboards?

I'm a simple guy. The blue screen tells me to disable bios memory options and when i google that I get articles like this
http://www.wikihow.com/Disable-BIOS-Memory-Options

* Why does my bios not look at all like the one in this article or a couple others I read and/or what machines do have a bios like that?

* If not possible to do this process in t41 bios as you say then why does the blue screen tell me to try it?

* In general, like I say, I have (admittedly distractedly) read in past about people doing things to their bios like updating bios settings, changing fan settings (like on t430's with noisy fans) and other changes. However, when I finally get around to looking at my bios It appears none of this is possible. So is there something fundamentally more primitive or unalterable about t4x series bios?

In other words, how does bios differ across the computer spectrum? Don't need a treatise here. Just a rough overly broad answer would be great.

All I've ever owned is a couple of t41's but getting ready to move to a t530 maybe. Still love these oldsters and hope to keep running. Would really appreciate a leg up here.

[ajkula66]

Blue screen has no idea what your T41's BIOS is about. It's a generic message.

What you see is what you get when it comes to T4x and their (Phoenix-based) based BIOS. There are no "hidden" settings.

[rkawakami]

To follow up on George's post and to answer your questions...

Not all computer BIOSs are created equal or look the same. There are several manufacturers of computer BIOSs. Phoenix happens to be the one used in Thinkpads. Their menus and options can be dictated by what hardware is in the computer and by what the computer manufacturer wants in their systems. Options like your previously mentioned memory caching or shadowing are typically included in motherboards meant for desktop systems. That's what Cigarguy was alluding to when he said "overclocking friendly motherboards". Those types of BIOS/boards have settings in them to finely control the timing system so that you can speed up your CPU and memory. Doing that can make your system perform faster but it can also make it unstable and prone to crashing (i.e., hangs or blue screens). These things are not available from Thinkpads BIOS.

Fan control for Thinkpads is typically done with a utility program that "talks" to the BIOS from within Windows (or Linux) and is not something that's included in the BIOS.

As far as the blue screen you received, there's usually some codes that are displayed which can point you in the right direction; numeric error code and/or filename. Take the "advice" given in those screens with a grain of salt. Something like memory caching and shadowing may have been good advice 15 to 20 years ago but not so much anymore (IMO). Generally, you can get a blue screen due to a hardware failure (bad memory, bad sector on the hard drive, glitch in the motherboard) or from software (a defective or the wrong driver for some hardware). Your best troubleshooting approach would be to figure out of there was some recent change you made (hardware and/or software), reverse it and see if that gets rid of the blue screen. I would also run some diagnostic programs on your system's memory and hard drive to see if there are any detectable errors. memtest86+ does a good job with the memory. Figure out the maker of your hard drive and see if they offer a diagnostic tool. For Seagate drives there's SeaTools; Hitachi/IBM has DFT (Drive Fitness Test) or you might be able to run some generic diagnostic tool. A few years ago you could download PC Doctor for DOS from Lenovo's Support site. That utility had tests for the memory, hard drive, motherboard, keyboard and other hardware components of the system. Due to licensing restrictions that program was withdrawn from public distribution.

[Johan]

A few years ago you could download PC Doctor for DOS from Lenovo's Support site. That utility had tests for the memory, hard drive, motherboard, keyboard and other hardware components of the system. Due to licensing restrictions that program was withdrawn from public distribution.

As Ray says, the very usable ThinkPad diagnostics program "PC Doctor" is no longer available from Lenovo's site, although it used to be freely available for many years (first from IBM, since from Lenovo). A hint may nevertheless be found in this post.

The options in the (latest) T42p BIOS can be seen here --> BIOS simulator - ThinkPad T42/p with fingerprint reader... I would guess that this is the same BIOS in your T41 (provided you have the latest BIOS!). You are able to "go into" all selection of this web-application (and it will not alter your BIOS)... try it out! Use "Esc" to go back to the mail menu.

NB: I would never attempt to update neither the BIOS, nor the Embedded Controller on a system (ThinkPad) which is not entirely stable.

Good luck with getting your T41 back alive again!

Johan

[Carltp]

Thank you so much rKawakami and Johan for your excellent help. Kind of over stressed on this stuff what with other stuff breaking too so had to take a break. rKawaKami, really appreciate the illuminating info on bios. Am looking forward to getting a hold of a desktop so can see more of what that is about, see what you are desribing first hand so to speak and maybe voluntarily crash my system!

Wondering what this utility program is that one can use to talk to bios from within windows. Does seem like fan runs more then it used too but not sure and anyway whole subject is a digression from the main. Maybe another day

Did follow your advice to try Memtest86 and chkdsk, both new to me. Memtest says all clean after 4 passes. The disk check is a little confusing. The one time it came up by itself after restarting right after a bsod it said something about correcting orphaned files but when I ran chksk myself several times apart from bsod it reports everything aokay

Tried switching in some memory sticks from another T41 but still got bsod. This failure only seems to happen after several hours of running but bottom of puter not that warm. If start up again soon will quickly fail again but if wait till next morning will run again for quite awhile.

Toshiba doesn't seem to offer a diagnostic tool for their drives like others do but ideally need to follow up on this and see if other manufacturer's tools will work

Does any of this give you any ideas? If I could really find and afford such help, do computer techs have other tools (maybe physical?) that allow accurate analysis of hard drives?

Johan,-- thats a great idea and link concerning PC Doctor and will follow up more. Guess I'd like to ask both of you this I'm sure stupid question.--I have Pc Doctor on another T41 though never had to use. Transferred it by flash drive to this puter. But won't install as an actual working program and wondering why not? Is it cause I haven't transferred installer along with it? but how do I do that or is any way to make it work?

Sincere apologies for too much query and worried am going to loose whole letter here with blue screen so better run. Not even proof reading. Best.

[Cigarguy]

Sounds to me you are experiencing crashes due to overheating. Memtest is a great program but don't stress the CPU very much so it may not crash when running Memtest. Also I run Memtest for at least 4 hours if I'm not sure of memory stability, most of the time longer than 4 hours (overnight).

Goto Lenovo's website, then support, download the maintenance manual which will have step by step instructions on how to take everything apart. Reapply thermal paste (such as Arctic Silver 5 or Arctic MX4), blow out the dust bunnies, give everything a good clean and reassemble. After about 4-5 years the thermal paste will dry up and will no longer assist with system cooling. Google how to clean and apply thermal paste, aka TIM (thermal interface material). Then download and install HWMonitor which will show you CPU temp amongst other useful info. If your CPU temp is hitting 85+ deg C then expect random crashes.

Even if this is not the problem, it's still beneficial to do this. Besides a hour or two of your time and learning a bunch about your machine you've lost nothing.

Then if it's still crashing, the next thing to suspect is a bad driver or corrupt Windows install. This can be tested by downloading and running a Live Linux CD (recommend Knoppix Linux). If the live Linux runs fine then you've narrow down the problem further.

[Carltp]

Hi Cigarguy. Appreciate it. I'm pretty new at all this obviously
I have aquired manual and did reapply paste and clean everything recently, but your info on HWmonitor was superbly new and tried last night. Only running around 41-44 degree c though. Also downloaded "HD tune" but not used yet. Very amazing one can measure temps this way! Wish one could run in non administator mode tho, as dangerous to stay i admin too long.

Seems that my description of symptoms was not accurate or has changed. Just had a bsod after only 2 hours running today but then started right back up in last good config and has been running 1/2 hour now.

I hate the nervousness when composing tho.

It's a "Kernal stack inpage error" with a stop code of 00000007a. After cycling thru a couple of other screens it ends on a screen (black, white letters) that says at bottom stuff like "PXE-p53: No boot filename received" and "PXE:Operating system not found"

Regarding the memory test. Why does one do it for so long? I.e, why wouldn't it be just as effective to simply switch out some memory sticks?

If bottom of laptop feels just lukeish or even cool is that an accurate indication that temps are not too high to be a danger?

Like your idea about the linux. Just recently learning about Linux. Had a little trouble because these T41's put up no PAE flag so new distros don't work but found a LUBuntu 14.04 that works though have only run it live a little and not tried installing it yet. Have you installed your Knoppix version successfully on T4x?

Anyway though, tell me if I'm right about your troubleshooting rational. Crashing is caused by one of 3 faults. THe MB, a physical defect in HDD or a software corruption on the hd. Since the cd takes the HD out of the equation totally (I guess?) then if the machine still crashes on cd then it's the MB.

Unfortuanately, if it doesn't crash you still don't know if problem is software or hardware. Accurate? Or has one still learned something?

[rkawakami]

After Googling BSOD stop code of 00000007a it seems to point to a disk drive problem. That is somewhat confirmed since you are also seeing "No boot filename received" and "Operating system not found". Both of those error messages indicate that the laptop does not "see" a bootable hard drive when it is supposed to. My recommendation at this point would be to clone (copy) your hard drive onto another one and hope for the best. I use Ghost 2003 for my copying operations but I hear Clonezilla does quite well, along with Acronis True Image. Or, if you do not have anything of value on your existing drive, then re-build Windows onto another drive. If you don't have a factory restore disk set, just post a "Wanted" request in the Marketplace and include your system's 7 digit model type (i.e., 2373-xxx). And if you do go with another drive, I would encourage you to test it before committing any files on it. My current drive of choice of these older systems are Seagate Momentus.

It sounds like you have a Toshiba drive. If so, then you could try the program called ZIPfjdt_700.zip from here: http://storage.toshiba.com/storage-serv ... -utilities Be aware that any drive diagnostic or drive copy utility can cause more problems than what you experiencing now. All of the basic disk check utilities that I know of are "non-destructive" in that they do not write any information to the disk; they only confirm that each sector is readable. However, since the disk drive heads will be moved over the entire surface of the platter(s), any physical defect that exists could cause damage to the heads or loss of data. It's probably a very small chance of it happening but I feel that I am obligated to mention it.

Yes, booting from a "live" CD will take the HD out of the equation. If the laptop runs without any problems from the live CD, longer than what you would have thought your hard drive is capable of doing, then I would say that this further points to the HD as being the source of the problem. If you still get crashes / hangs then the motherboard and/or memory would be suspect.

Memory testing takes a large amount of time as there are several different "patterns" used to make sure that writing and reading data from each bit is without any errors. I usually tell people to run memtest86+ at least three complete passes so that, a) the system is given a chance to heat up past its "normal" temperature and b) because some of the test patterns used by memtest86+ are random data sequences. High temperature is normally the worst case for DRAM so you should allow some time for the system to get warm. Allowing the diagnostic to use a couple of different data sequences means you are giving the program more chances to detect any subtle failure modes. As long as you think that the system will not overheat, it's okay to let the testing run overnight. The BIOS does a very simple check of memory when it boots the system. It's possible for a detective memory module to allow booting the computer, loading the OS and even running some programs before an error is encountered and Windows throws a fit. Only with detailed testing can you determine if the module is totally error-free. Swapping modules out and then assuming that, if the system boots equals "a fully functional memory module", is false logic.

For your attempt at transferring PC Doctor from one T41 to another, I'd say that it's not easily done. What I'm assuming you are copying is the Windows executable (.exe) version of PC Doctor. It would have been added to the disk at the factory using the normal installation program; installs libraries, updates the Registry, etc. It should also automatically appear on your drive when using a recovery disk; I believe that the T4x series had included the PC Doctor for Windows. The version of PC Doctor I used in the past is a DOS version. That program was available for download as an .ISO file and you would burn that to a CD; use a program such as CDBurnerXP. That CD would then be used to boot the system and the diagnostic routines run from there. Unfortunately, Lenovo did not renew the license with PC Doctor a couple of years ago and as a result, all distribution of this diagnostic suite was suspended (see my signature line).