USB still powered on despite T40 going to stand-by

[ns_anand]

I am facing a peculiar problem.

I have a Thinkpad T40 which has been recently installed with a fresh copy of Win XP Pro. I have set the appropriate power properties on the laptop to go to standby when the lid is closed. This works fine. However, the cooling fan which is connected to the USB is still running even after the laptop goes to standby. This is true when the laptop is connected to AC power or when on battery.

I am experiencing this only after the recent XP pro install.

How can this be possible? How is the USB still getting the power to operate the cooling fan despite going on standby. Please assist.

[SteveS]

Did you install clean WinXP from a generic Microsoft disk, or use the IBM recover disk? If it is generic, you probably did not load the correct drivers. Go to the Lenovo web site and enter you type number on the support page (something like 2373-xxx) and to the driver page. The USB is controlled directly by the Southbridge chip, so download the “Intel chipset driver”.

If you used a generic Windows disk, check to make sure you have the correct HAL installed. For T40, it should be “Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) PC”. To check it, right click My Computer, then Properties, then Hardware, then Device Manager”. When the list of devices appears, right click “Computer” and the HAL will be listed.

One of the important functions the HAL enables is the power control features in the laptop. If a default HAL for a desktop is loaded, many of the functions will default to “full power” or “always on” modes, as a desktop HAL is not intended to support battery operation.

[ns_anand]

Hi Steve - Thanks for your response. I did the install from a generic MS disk. Let me go ahead and download the chipset drivers from the Lenovo web-site. Can I go ahead and install it directly or should I need to uninstall anything before that?

On your other point about HAL, when I right click "Computer" inside Device manager, no HAL is listed. In the mean-time, let me re-install the chipset drivers after downloading from the web-site.

Thanks,
Anand

[SteveS]

You don’t need to un-install anything when updating the Lenovo driver. While you are at it, you might want to put in the power miser driver, and look through the list for others you might want. Many of these are required to get the feature set of the T4x ThinkPad to work, although some have marginal value and take lots of space.

For determining the HAL, pardon my mistake - just expand "Computer" in Device Manager. The HAL is the listing under "Computer".

Note that it is either impossible or extremely difficult to change the HAL once the operating system is installed. Since the HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) is the interface between Windows and the computer hardware, altering it in an operating computer would result in loss of control during the transfer function.

Good luck

[ns_anand]

I did install the Intel chipset II driver for T40 - oss206ww.exe by downloading it from the lenovo web-site. But no change. Still my laptop fan is humming even after the laptop goes to standby.

I did check for the HAL version under the details tab. It is ROOT\ACPI_HAL\0000

Anand

[ns_anand]

I meant the laptop cooler and not the internal fan within the laptop.

[Beaver]

# Click on "Start" and then right-click on "My Computer."
# Click on "Properties" and then on the "Hardware" tab.
# Half-way down on the right, click on "Device Manager."
# Click the "plus" sign in front of "Universal Serial Bus Controllers."
# Double-Click on the first "USB Root Hub"
# Click on the "Power Management" tab.
# Check the box that says "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power."
# Click "OK" and repeat for all other "USB Root Hubs."

[ns_anand]

I already did this