Thinkpad T60/p Slow

[runfrodorun]

So I have a thinkpad T41 but it wasn't enough for what I was working on any more, so I bought a used T60/p with maxed out options (biggest cpu, etc.) I bought a new hard drive, a new battery, and a new power supply. It's really nice, but my T41 is kicking it's royal [censored] performance-wise. It does this weird thing where I'll do something really simple, and it will freeze for a second or two with the hard drive light full on. I can't hear the heads moving when this happens, and I have no idea what is making it do this.

I have re-imaged this laptop several times both with 32-bit windows xp and 64-bit windows 7 and I had the same problem with both operating systems, before I install any software.

I had this happen with another laptop of mine, but it wasn't a thinkpad and I don't speak of those days of my life. Again, I would not post this if my computer was just going slow, there's something wrong here and I'm wondering if anybody else has a similar problem with any thinkpad... thank you in advance.

[ZaZ]

Perhaps there's something wrong with the drive.

[RealBlackStuff]

Would you have an over-enthusiastic AntiVirus program that looks for updates all the time?

[runfrodorun]

Thank you for your answers, I really appreciate it.

@ZaZ:
I have considered this. After all, it is a new drive. There is some evidence to suggest that there could be an issue with the drive, but I haven't had time to really give it a complete test yet. The first time I installed Windows 7 on this box, it did not work properly, but I have not otherwise had any corrupted data. On the other hand, there is no definitive evidence that this would be the drive's problem. I've had issues with the windows installer before. Thank you for the suggestion, I'll try out another drive and see how my luck goes.

@RealBlackStuff:
Another possible problem. I do not have an answer to this question right now, but if I have some extra time on my hands I'll try to see if I can disable the antivirus for a little bit, and see where that gets me. Thanks for your reply!

It's a really strange problem. I don't play many video games, but I tried playing minecraft once, and it would do this thing where every now and then it would just stop piping frames for a few seconds, with the hd light solid on, but no seek like I said, and then it would just come back. This was the worst case, and I think the hardware stress exacerbated the problem. If I find anything else out I'll post it.

[RealBlackStuff]

Slow internet or overheating router?

[ZaZ]

I once bought a WD external drive that was having issues not long after I got it. They sent me two replacement that were DOA. You'd think they'd check this stuff. The third one they sent me by accident actually worked and was quickly sold.

[Morten]

It's a really strange problem. I don't play many video games, but I tried playing minecraft once, and it would do this thing where every now and then it would just stop piping frames for a few seconds, with the hd light solid on, but no seek like I said, and then it would just come back.

My son has a similar problem with Minecraft on his T60 with X1400. Runs decently, but then stops for a while, then goes again. He's for a X25M SSD but I didn't notice if the HDD light was on - will look for it. Did you ever find a solution?

[nforce4max]

It's a really strange problem. I don't play many video games, but I tried playing minecraft once, and it would do this thing where every now and then it would just stop piping frames for a few seconds, with the hd light solid on, but no seek like I said, and then it would just come back.

My son has a similar problem with Minecraft on his T60 with X1400. Runs decently, but then stops for a while, then goes again. He's for a X25M SSD but I didn't notice if the HDD light was on - will look for it. Did you ever find a solution?

During gaming the most likely cause for a crash like that is the gpu overheating. The good news that it is very easy and cheap to fix plus the older ATI boards are hard to kill when maintained. You will need to take the machine apart enough to remove the cooler, when you first pull it you will need to clean it. The thermal pad for the gpu needs to be replaced with a copper shim and apply good thermal compound on the gpu first then some on top of the shim. Do that and it will be much more stable, anything more it will be software related.

[lab]

Might be som device initiated power management routines ("dipm" or something similar) of the new hard drive that is not compatible with T60 drivers. I had the same problem, switching dipm off solved it.

[Medessec]

I tried playing minecraft once, and it would do this thing where every now and then it would just stop piping frames for a few seconds, with the hd light solid on, but no seek like I said, and then it would just come back.

That's a common problem with running Minecraft on older hardware with mediocre RAM-CPU bridging, Minecraft bloats it's allocated RAM with cached or generated world data(because Minecraft's world is infinitely generated and cached) and then does garbage collection. If the computer has a low amount of RAM, some of this work has to be done on the HDD, and the CPU has to work harder than it has to. The problem is a result of Minecraft being lazily coded in Java, and usually isn't a problem with the actual machine.

I've used numerous T60s, and I can tell you for a fact that you should be getting good performance, especially over a T41. It should be very snappy and fast, and if it isn't, there is a problem somewhere in the unit. You can see if the thermal paste is dried up for the CPU, or if it's even mounted correctly, etc. It's always good to give the insides of your Thinkpad a refresher. If you're not confident in that, I'd probably see about fetching another barebones T60 to cross-check with yours. No shortage of those on this forum.

[Morten]

Wow, thanks for all the input. The original poster had this problem way back in 2012, but it is current to me and the support is much appreciated.

I was unaware the CPU thermal pad could cause this kind of problem, I basically thought that would result in much more severe problems. To clarify, the computer never crashes, it just has these strange slowdowns in MineCraft - but I will definitely go in there and get rid of the pad and apply some paste (I'm hoping a coin is not needed, but will check).

[Medessec]

it just has these strange slowdowns in MineCraft

Just try allocating more RAM to it if your computer has some to spare... 1GB is a good choice. You should have at least 2GB of RAM or more if you hope to have any sort of a good Minecrafting experience on your T60. Just google how to do it on normal Minecraft if you're not sure how to do it-I play modded Minecraft, so I can't tell you for sure.

If you plan on upgrading the RAM, just remember that the T60 can't pick up any more than 3.5 GB of RAM regardless of how much is installed... people usually will have 3 GB installed to max it out.

but I will definitely go in there and get rid of the pad and apply some paste (I'm hoping a coin is not needed, but will check).

As I said, it's always good to get in there and make sure everything's ship shape, it's good for keeping the T60 on it's feet. Make sure the thermal pad over the graphics chip is contacting okay. Also-if you're not using at least a T7200 Core 2 Duo, you may want to consider upgrading to that. It's a fairly cheap, easy upgrade.