Latency/freezing on IBM Thinkpad T43

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jbischke · #1 Post by **jbischke** » Sat Aug 13, 2005 5:52 pm

I recently got a new IBM Thinkpad T43. I'm having a problem with the computer that I'm noticing intermittently. Here are a couple of the symptoms:

1. The mouse tends to have a lot of latency. When I take cursor from one side of the screen to the other it tends to hesitate.

2. When I'm listening to iTunes in the background (regardless of whether it's streaming or downloaded content) there will often be choppiness.

These two problems tend to go hand in hand. In other words, when I'm noticing the latency with the mouse I'm also getting choppiness with iTunes.

I've noticed this in the past on wireless connections but I've switched over to a wired connection and I still have the problem so I'm guessing that it isn't network-related.

Normally I would think that it would be a process tying up the CPU that is causing this. However, I've had Task Manager open and there aren't any CPU spikes associated with this.

I could update drivers but I'm not sure which ones to start with for this problem. Any suggestion or any other advice for starting to deal with this problem?

Thanks,

Jon

pphilipko · #2 Post by **pphilipko** » Sat Aug 13, 2005 6:28 pm

You have just experienced the beginnings of a hard drive failure. Back up all your information now and ask for a replacement drive.

jbischke · #3 Post by **jbischke** » Sat Aug 13, 2005 7:05 pm

Thanks for the tip. The backup is in progress.

However, I'm wondering if there's any way to diagnose this further before I go through the process of getting a new drive. I don't want to go through that unless absolutely necessary. Are there any utilities that I can use to confirm this?

#4 Post by **K. Eng** » Sat Aug 13, 2005 7:41 pm

You can run the PC Doctor utility that should be installed in Windows and run the HDD test. This should alert you to any problems with the disk.

jbischke · #5 Post by **jbischke** » Sun Aug 14, 2005 2:18 am

I ran the PC-Doctor check and it said the drive was fine. I'll run the long test (2-4 hours) before I go to bed and report on the results in the morning.

I also ran some other checks (CPU, memory, motherboard, etc.) and everything was a-ok.

Any other suggestions here?

paul_1011 · #6 Post by **paul_1011** » Sun Aug 14, 2005 10:47 am

I have exactly the same issue. I have yet to run PC doctor to determine if it is a problem with the disk.

Initially I thought the problem started when I upgraded from 512mb to 1.5GB Ram. I might take the new memory out to determine if that is the cause of the problem before running PC doctor.

Its very annoying actually, I do hope that a solution can be found!

jbischke · #7 Post by **jbischke** » Mon Aug 15, 2005 9:01 am

The hard drive analysis came out OK so unless there's something there that PC Doctor isn't picking up I think we can rule out a hardware issue.

I ran Spybot and Ad-Aware and cleaned everything up that those programs found.

One thing that I have noticed is that when I shut the machine down there is one program running that I need to shut down manually. The only description for that program is "W". I'm wondering if this might be contributing to the problem. Any idea what "W" is? (It's the same problem as is being described here: http://miataru.computing.net/windowsxp/ ... 87673.html)

#8 Post by **GomJabbar** » Mon Aug 15, 2005 11:31 am

jbischke wrote:The hard drive analysis came out OK so unless there's something there that PC Doctor isn't picking up I think we can rule out a hardware issue.

I ran Spybot and Ad-Aware and cleaned everything up that those programs found.

One thing that I have noticed is that when I shut the machine down there is one program running that I need to shut down manually. The only description for that program is "W". I'm wondering if this might be contributing to the problem. Any idea what "W" is? (It's the same problem as is being described here: http://miataru.computing.net/windowsxp/ ... 87673.html)

I tried your link above, but I got a file not found message. I may be wrong, but that "W" looks suspicious to me. I did a little searching with Google, and on Semantec's site, but I was getting too many hits.

My advice, should you decide to accept it, would be to make sure Spybot and Ad-Aware are up-to-date, boot up in Safe Mode, and run the programs from there. I 'think' you have to run Spybot at least, under each user you have set up. Also, you didn't mention that you were running any antivirus software. You should consider installing some, and running it from Safe Mode. In addition, some antivirus vendors offer to scan your computer online for free. Finally If you haven't run Windows Update within the last week, there were some security updates that came out on the 9th, and one of them checks for certain malicious software.

jbischke · #9 Post by **jbischke** » Mon Aug 15, 2005 12:02 pm

I'm running Norton AV and the coast seems clear there. I've run Spybot, Ad-Aware and Hijack This (although not in safe mode so I may want to do that).

Also, here's that link again:

http://miataru.computing.net/windowsxp/ ... 87673.html

That should work.

Last time I shut my machine down I didn't get the "W" message but did get a message that "CCApp" couldn't shut down. This looks harmless though:

http://www.liutilities.com/products/win ... ary/ccapp/

jbischke · #10 Post by **jbischke** » Wed Aug 17, 2005 1:23 pm

So I've been testing this the last couple of days and I seem to have nailed down the problem. Right now I'm only noticing the latency (and choppiness in iTunes) during two times: when I open up a new file and when I check e-mail. My hunch is that it's related to my anti-virus program given that Norton runs both when new files get opened and when e-mail gets checked. I temporarily disabled Norton AV and the problem went away.

Anyway, I'm wondering if this seems to make sense and if there's anything I can do to prevent this (given that disable AV isn't really an option long-term). I'm also thinking that this "CCApp" thing might be the problem since that's a Norton-related process. Would the next best step be to uninstall and reinstall the AV software? Anything else I should consider doing?

Thanks!

#11 Post by **GomJabbar** » Wed Aug 17, 2005 1:36 pm

jbischke wrote:Would the next best step be to uninstall and reinstall the AV software? Anything else I should consider doing?

You could try uninstall and reinstall. That might solve your problem. Norton also has an online assistant that scans your system to check your AV software for problems. From the Help & Support menu in Norton, choose Help and Support while online. After clicking through a couple of windows you get to the online assistant.

You can also go to: Start > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Event Viewer. Check for any events occurring at the time of your latency. It might give you a clue.

syhead · #12 Post by **syhead** » Wed Aug 17, 2005 2:30 pm

last resort: re-instal everything...
first try restoring to original factory contents...
if you still have the problem.. I would try instaling a clean copy of Windows.

#13 Post by **K. Eng** » Wed Aug 17, 2005 2:36 pm

What version of Norton are you running? I've found that Norton Corporate seems to be less of a memory and resource hog than the versions that come with many computers these days.

I'm running 8.0.1.425.

There are also several free antivirus programs out there. I can't remember the name of the one I used back in the Pentium II days. It had some sort of umbrella icon.

jbischke · #14 Post by **jbischke** » Fri Aug 19, 2005 4:07 pm

Someone suggested Avast as a less resource-intensive option. I may look into that. At least now that I've identified the source of the problem I can work around it. It's still annoying but probably nothing that I can't live with.

Reiko · #15 Post by **Reiko** » Sat Aug 20, 2005 4:06 pm

Hi friends,

nice to know that some are dealing with the same troubles I'm confronted with.

Without installing new software, my T43 beginns (from one moment to another) to have a lot of latency. Also on startup it takes at least 3 minutes until I'm asked to put my finger on the reader.

After recovering the system, everything is fine! No problems at all. But some days later I have to do it again?!?!

Some ideas? It doesn't seem to be a hardware problem.

Thanks for your help,
Reiko.

bluewale · #16 Post by **bluewale** » Sun Aug 21, 2005 6:42 pm

Hi,

I experienced similar problem on a desktop. It ran windows 2000 and Norton antivirus version 9 (bought in BestBuy). ccApp, which is part of norton Antivirus, caused a lot of trouble.

I ended up with removing the norton AV 9 and install norton AV 8 and it is working fine. The corporate version of norton is fine but a clean uninstall of retail norton AV 9 is necessary. It works fine now (at least 6 months).

Reiko · #17 Post by **Reiko** » Mon Aug 22, 2005 3:12 am

thanks, but unfortunately this seems not to be the problem: norton was successfully removed, I'm running AntiVir...

by the way: is your harddisk-lamp blinking all the time? may be my disk has some troubles, but DiscDoc didn't indicate any errors?!

thanks again,
Reiko.

paul_1011 · #18 Post by **paul_1011** » Mon Aug 22, 2005 3:39 am

I wouldnt have thought it was anything to do with anti-virus software. I have never seen that behaviour caused by AV software on what should be such a powerful machine.

Also, I dont have any AV software software at all installed on my thinkpad and I get the problem regulary.

Navck · #19 Post by **Navck** » Mon Aug 22, 2005 3:40 am

Start menu -> Run -> chkdsk /r

That will scan for any bad sectors, it might take a while and your HDD might get warm, I suggest you keep it cool by putting a nice metal heatsink over the IBM symbol, or using a cooling pad, at last choice, use the AC

trpt192 · #20 Post by **trpt192** » Mon Aug 22, 2005 7:27 pm

yeah, I started experiencing this same problem as well back in July and I still haven't been able to fix it. I've run a number of disk checks and it says that there's no problems with the harddrive

Normally I would think that it would be a process tying up the CPU that is causing this. However, I've had Task Manager open and there aren't any CPU spikes associated with this.

on my computer, it would randomly jump to 20% cpu usage and when I look in the task manager, I can't find a process to associate with the cpu usage. I used a program called Process Explorer by Sysinternals and it determined the usage as being used by hardware interrupts. I looked in the help file for it and it said: "These processes reflect the amount of time the system spends servicing hardware interrupts", "High CPU consumption by these activities can indicate a hardware problem or device driver bug."

I also had norton av on my computer and I removed every norton product on my computer and I still have this problem.

If anyone could clue me in on a possible solution, that'd be great!

Thanx

mdarnton · #21 Post by **mdarnton** » Mon Aug 22, 2005 9:15 pm

When my T41 started acting like this is was the beginning of the end, and a week later it went in for a new motherboard. Take this with a grain of salt, because I don't know what I'm talking about, but would not a huge amount of time being spent on hardware interrupts imply a failing piece of hardware somewhere? Which on a laptop means motherboard in a lot of instances. But I don't know what I'm talking about, so. . . . .

zelchenko · #22 Post by **zelchenko** » Mon Aug 22, 2005 10:26 pm

This installs a w.exe :

http://securityresponse.symantec.com/av ... rojan.html

Reiko · #23 Post by **Reiko** » Tue Aug 23, 2005 2:18 am

Hi everybody,

the same problem, discussed in a german forum, offers a solution quite that simple: Just change your mouse (and external) keyboard. Sometimes it works, I'm just testing! Cross your fingers please!

Reiko.

paul_1011 · #24 Post by **paul_1011** » Tue Aug 23, 2005 9:20 am

I use an external mouse/keyboard about 50% of the time with my T43 and it does the same thing.

I dont think it has anything to do with the mouse itself.

paul_1011 · #25 Post by **paul_1011** » Tue Aug 23, 2005 9:42 am

One other thing, do any of you guys use "lookout" its an add-on to outlook that indexes your inbox.

I know its a real long shot, but I have always suspected this might be the cause of the problem

bing · #26 Post by **bing** » Tue Aug 23, 2005 11:11 am

I posted a similiar problem here:
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=14619

I didn't realize this was a general "my T43 sucks" thread.

In a nutshell, my T43 started hanging (w/o error msg) out of the box, hardware support changed the systemboard, but it still sporadically hangs. The second time, they couldn't replicate the problem. Since it's new, it should eliminate most software/malware factors. I updated drivers and BIOS, and I assume hardware support did a thorough hardware sweep, but who knows.

trpt192 · #27 Post by **trpt192** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 2:25 am

I think I found a solution to this problem for my computer now atleast. In my t43 I have the intel pro 2915abg card and I thought that the hardware interrupt problems that I was having might be related to the wireless card. It turns out that they released an update for the card, bringing it to version 9.0.2.31 just 2 days ago. I installed the update and for the most part, things seem to run a lot better now. Where windows normally took 3 min. to boot, it now takes about 30 sec.. Also, my music in iTunes seems to run a lot smoother. I hope this is the answer to the problem but if not, it seems to be a good temporary fix. Goodluck to others, I know how much of a pain this can be..........

bing · #28 Post by **bing** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 10:11 am

trpt192 wrote:I think I found a solution to this problem for my computer now atleast. In my t43 I have the intel pro 2915abg card and I thought that the hardware interrupt problems that I was having might be related to the wireless card. It turns out that they released an update for the card, bringing it to version 9.0.2.31 just 2 days ago. I installed the update and for the most part, things seem to run a lot better now. Where windows normally took 3 min. to boot, it now takes about 30 sec.. Also, my music in iTunes seems to run a lot smoother. I hope this is the answer to the problem but if not, it seems to be a good temporary fix. Goodluck to others, I know how much of a pain this can be..........

Thanks. Just installed this now and giving it a runthrough.

paul_1011 · #29 Post by **paul_1011** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 6:55 pm

I have installed the updates and I *think* that is has fixed the problem.

If it hasnt then it has been massivley reduced. Was getting to be a real pain, was causing stutters during internet telephony.

Thanks for your help!

trpt192 · #30 Post by **trpt192** » Fri Aug 26, 2005 2:51 am

Yeah, the problem is still present but it has been greatly reduced from what it was before. I just wish I knew what the heck is causing this. I've updated the bios and other drivers but still the problem keeps coming back quite often. Maybe I should just give IBM/Lenovo a call one of these days and see if they can give any insight into this problem

Latency/freezing on IBM Thinkpad T43

Latency/freezing on IBM Thinkpad T43

w32.benpao.trojan?

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