Thinkpads Forum

A few people have complained about the t43-event log problem (which also keeps the hdd from spinning down), and I have not seen a solution for it yet. Fancontrol writes this message to the system event log 4 times a second or so:

\Device\ACPIEC: The embedded controller (EC) hardware returned data when none was requested. This may indicate that the BIOS is incorectly trying to access the EC without syncronizing with the OS. The data is being ignored.

Is there a solution for this? I tried both fancontrol options (startup and service), no difference. Does this happen on every t43? If not, it may be merely a matter of individual settings.

I have a t43 268844U with a 1.27 bios and the 1.04 embedded controller, running xp sp2. Also, I switched my hd to a "non ibm-approved" model, so on top I get the 2010 error on bootup.

I would like to know too. This was mentioned in another post
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?p=195911

... and here too with T60s...
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=28057

I've had the same problem with unresponsive system rarely. Tonight was first time I checked event viewer and found same entry -- four in a row. My T43 was unresponsive and screen was blank, though it still recognised a USB drive being inserted/removed!

Does anyone have any ideas?

Have a look here :
http://winhlp.com/WxACPIEC.htm

Patching the acpiec driver seems to work...

jd2020 wrote:I've had the same problem with unresponsive system rarely. Tonight was first time I checked event viewer and found same entry -- four in a row. My T43 was unresponsive and screen was blank, though it still recognised a USB drive being inserted/removed!

only 4 in a row? heh i used to get about 10 every 4 seconds on both my t42 and x31. currently running the t42 with nhc's acpi fan control to see how i fare with that and have no choice with the x31 as i dont have an acpi file for that.

patched using the above method, seems gotten rid of any more errors appearing on my x31. i used this free hex editor: http://www.hhdsoftware.com/Family/hex-editor.html

although if needed i can upload a copy of the modified somewhere..

Yes, I agree with you skanky. On my T43, it filled the entire Windows event log in few minutes. Sometimes, it generated about 20 warnings in one second !
But now it's over !

My patched acpiec driver file can be found here :
http://glr81.free.fr/tools/thinkpad/acpiec_nolog_fr.zip
Warning : it seems to be a french localized version !

heres mine, from a UK version of XP: http://rapidshare.com/files/764716/acpi ... n.rar.html

still need to point windows to use the new file as in the link posted above. maybe this should be sticky'd? it would be quite useful.

skanky wrote:maybe this should be sticky'd? it would be quite useful.

Done.

Minor edit to title to reflect solution; hope nobody minds.

not sure if its related but something i've noticed is that for some unknown reason, the temps displayed by nhc's tray tool and FC's tray tool (im using it as a service) dont match up.

it seems to be nhc's temps which arent matching up. as well as access connections playing silly buggars with my wireless card.

might be totally unrelated though..

having said that i *really* dont want to go back to the multiple acpiec errors.

i've not run nhc on the x31 without using the acpiec patch.

Hi!

Musti wrote: The only working solution at this time is "hacking" the ACPIEC.sys so it will not populate the system event log.

I implemented an easy option for that in my package at my signature.

Ciao, troubadix

It's great to see that somebody eventually implemented a fix for this. Thank you guys all very much...

My question is, is it OK to stop the acpi from logging any event? What would be the worst thing to happen?

Also, skanky, your version of acpiec.sys's last modification date appears to be August 10, 2004, and has the exact same size as my original XP's version; whereas troubadix's and GLR's were both modified within the last month or so and have different file sizes...

worst thing to happen is to miss an error message from acpiec... no idea if you recognized it in either case.

I checked it again, my patched acpiec is exactly of the same size as my original one from M$

Ciao, troubadix

Hey guys, look what I've found,

Go to the properties dialog box of the System event viewer (i.e., right click and pick "Properties"). Under the "Log size" section, pick "Do not overwrite events". From now on, acpiec will not log anything once the maximum log size is reached. So no need to pach files or anything...

hiyel wrote:...pick "Do not overwrite events". From now on, acpiec will not log anything once the maximum log size is reached. So no need to pach files or anything...

...and no information from other processes

troubadix

troubadix wrote:...and no information from other processes

Well, that's why I asked what would happen if we prevent it from logging. I know, now nothing gets logged but, I never go there and check anything anyways. So, it may well be an alternative for some of us...

I ran into this ACPIEC problem with my T42p, and found a solution as outlined in my final post in this thread:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=49182