Thinkpads Forum

I installed Windows 10 Pro (1903) on my T61 so there's more adequate use out of it, but I ran into some hitches. This is 32bit as I don't have the sufficient funds to get 8GB RAM for 64bit, so I'm on 3GB at the moment.

The first hitch is RAM usage, keeps using about 60% despite not running much (probably Windows 10's unnecessary bloat that seems to be just there)
The second hitch is the start menu lags a lot however if I install Intels driver, the lag goes away UNTIL I restart and I'm back with the original lag like with Windows 10's provided driver.

I'm more concerned about the second hitch, so I'm not entirely sure what to do to stop it from lagging again after a reboot. I don't understand how it would lag, and I don't understand it wouldn't lag until I restart the laptop after the video driver install.

I bought a 90w adapter thinking that would solve it as before I was using a 65w on AC only, but kept running it at 1.2Ghz. Now it's running at 2.0Ghz, yet it didn't solve the laggy start menu issue. Has anyone been able to eradicate this issue?

That god forsaken start menu lag and in general laggy UI is one of the major reasons why I give up on Windows 10. I like the GUI to open and be usable instantaneously, none of this baby talk "Getting your updates ready" and rotating dots without a progress or percentage bar and no verbosity. Zero idea what the computer is doing!!

Windows 10 is very heavy with background tasks such as updates, security, updates for security, telemetry, updates for telemetry, and more. On a mechanical hard disk drive the OS takes minutes to load and even then is laggy af. On an SSD it boots fast but still expect UI lag.

IMO replace the Win 10 start menu with Classic Shell. That will open faster.

The Win10 GUI is quite snappy on a modern system with graphics drivers optimized for the new OS model. Of course, a 12-year old T61 does not fall into that category.

+1 on the SSD.
I got so frustrated with the Win10 startup time and even worse, the time it takes for the Windows UPDATE to run, that I am going to replace the HD on my wife's computer and my test computer with a SSD. As much as I do not like auto-update, I may have to switch to that. The computer is unusable when it is updating, and sometimes the update takes over an hour; 3.2GHz quad core but with a spinning HD.

Khavvie wrote: ↑

Thu May 30, 2019 9:03 am

The second hitch is the start menu lags a lot however if I install Intels driver, the lag goes away UNTIL I restart and I'm back with the original lag like with Windows 10's provided driver.

I'm more concerned about the second hitch, so I'm not entirely sure what to do to stop it from lagging again after a reboot. I don't understand how it would lag, and I don't understand it wouldn't lag until I restart the laptop after the video driver install.

Well from my experience, versions after 1607 have bad support for DirectX 9 GPU hardware and software. From 1703 and later, while my T43's X300 and FireGL V3200 still works with system animations, they start to feel a lot more sketchy, and it refuses to even play back 480p video content.
Try version 1607, install it without internet connection. And then when everything is ready, connect to the internet, run slmgr /ato to activate Windows, and then immediately stop and disable Windows Update. See if this works a lot better than the latest versions

dr_st wrote: ↑

Thu May 30, 2019 12:25 pm

The Win10 GUI is quite snappy on a modern system with graphics drivers optimized for the new OS model. Of course, a 12-year old T61 does not fall into that category.

There is something to be said about running an OS that is fairly contemporary to the hardware that it's being installed on...

My (well-known) dislike for W10 aside, I wouldn't expect it to play nice with something as old as T61. Running anything newer than W7 on these systems - which were shipped with XP and Vista - equals looking for a migraine IMO.

Yes, it can be entertaining to push boundaries of old hardware once in a blue for fun and testing purposes. I installed W7 on a T23 back in the day and that was one of the most unpleasant computing experiences I've ever encountered. Reversing the direction of time also doesn't work too well. I would not expect W95 - or even 98SE - to run smoothly on a T420.

A couple of years ago I did a brief test of W10 on an Intel-based FrankenPad and was not happy with the temperatures that shot up 10C on idle when compared to W7 and a couple of other things. Pushing my own bias aside as much as humanly possible, I would still say that the machine was struggling, and that was with an SSD.

While I do understand that people run W10 on machines as old as T43/p, I wouldn't want a system like that as my daily driver. If you *must* run W10, move to newer hardware. If you are intent on sticking with Windows on a T61-era-unit, move back to W7.

My $0.02 only...

I've been toying around with the install and made just the one change where the transparency isn't on.

I tried old drivers which kind of worked but since they were windows 7 drivers it crashed often. Driver side of course.

My findings resulted in turning off the fancy effects of the windows and its made the experience smoother.

I've taken old builds into account and the fact it is a 12yr old machine, but knowing my other laptops that are from the same era, Windows 10 1903 has been positive on my old Dell D830.

I have somewhat positive intention getting it to run smoothly so that others could try for themselves but it'll take a while. And a lot of testing hence I now have 90 gigabytes worth of laptop images of the T61.

I appreciate all suggestions and educational insights about this. It's amusing to see some of these units popping up in ebay with the OS.

I'll still have a fallback failsafe plan B to keep the t61 a usable unit so, this should mean some fun like I used to occupy myself as a kid with my first laptop! And I'll do another thread of how I configured my somewhat legacy machines to be running Windows 10 smoothly and lag free at some point. Thanks again.

Khavvie wrote: ↑

Fri May 31, 2019 6:39 pm

My findings resulted in turning off the fancy effects of the windows and its made the experience smoother.

I've taken old builds into account and the fact it is a 12yr old machine, but knowing my other laptops that are from the same era, Windows 10 1903 has been positive on my old Dell D830.

I sold 2 T61's recently, a 14.1" and a 15.4", both Intel X3100 units. One with a T8100, the other with a T8300, both with 4GB RAM and Windows 10 Pro v. 1809. They seem to run well enough after a bit of tweaking. I disable most of the graphics effects and auto-reboot in advanced system properties as a general rule.

As for myself, on my T61p, I run Manjaro Linux and Windows 7 Pro as a dual-boot setup. I absolutely hate the way Windows Update nags, the never-ending updates, and the way it hijacks the shutdown button. Seems like I have to redo the regedit to stop it from doing that every time updates run. That and remove, block telemetry updates.

Though the T61p is my main, I do have a Dell D830 with Windows 10 Pro v. 1809 on. Since I work on computers as a sideline, I find it helps me to use and be familiar with the OS that's on most of the computers I repair and upgrade, 7 and 10.

TPFanatic wrote: ↑

Thu May 30, 2019 10:33 am

That god forsaken start menu lag and in general laggy UI is one of the major reasons why I give up on Windows 10. I like the GUI to open and be usable instantaneously, none of this baby talk "Getting your updates ready" and rotating dots without a progress or percentage bar and no verbosity. Zero idea what the computer is doing!!

Windows 10 is very heavy with background tasks such as updates, security, updates for security, telemetry, updates for telemetry, and more. On a mechanical hard disk drive the OS takes minutes to load and even then is laggy af. On an SSD it boots fast but still expect UI lag.

IMO replace the Win 10 start menu with Classic Shell. That will open faster.

Baby talk indeed. I don't know if they intended it so, but it comes across as condescending to me. At least Windows 7 has a percentage progression while doing updates. Laggy is true, even with the old HP SSD I have in my Dell D830, but so far tolerable after a few tweaks. Not so with the old 160GB hard drive it had before, that now serves as external extra storage.

I've been running Windows 10 64 bit on this T61 for a few years. When I find the time I'm going back to Windows 7 64 bit. My biggest gripe is that I have been able to find no remedy for seemingly random and very frequent tiling of all my windows, like a chess board, when swiping the trackpad, just moving the cursor. A hit of the ESC button gets me back to the window I was working on, but it's aggravating, of course. I have a feeling I will like Win7 for a lot of other reasons when I return to it. Probably won't find myself paging nearly as often, for one thing. That's happening far too much. Yep, I'm running 8GB RAM.

I think a SSD is mandatory today, for decent start up, response, and especially the blasted updates.
I just upgraded my wife's desktop from a spinning HD to a SSD and the difference is like a NEW computer.
The HD start up was painfully slow, and updates would take a LONG time.
Now the SSD startup is fast and the updates reasonable in duration. No more of those 2+ hour updates, when the computer was effectively useless.

But, now that Win7 is scheduled for EoL in Jan 2020.
Do we still continue to use Win7 on the T61, or bite the bullet and upgrade to Win10?
And will the latest ver of Win10 install, or are we in driver hell?

Maybe time to finally replace the T61.
But I HATE the chicklet keyboard of the new laptops.

Like many others on the Forum, I too detest W10.
With the exception of my T23 (runs XP/SP3), all other machines run W7/SP1 and Office 2010 where needed.
None of those have been updated in about 3 years.
Exceptions: update and run Windows Defender and Malwarebytes once a week, no other AntiVirus etc. programs installed.
Since I'm retired, those machines are not used for any "serious" work.
I have completely removed Internet Explorer on them.
Lately i have been dabbling in Linux, which will eventually replace W7.
But since W7 still runs strongly on these machines I intend to keep it that way well beyond 2020.

Over the years I have had many T60 and T61 in my hands (a.o. I built about 75 Frankenpads).
Nearly all of those ran W7, and none ever got W10 (at least from me).
If Micro$haft would do a better job, there would be no need for all those endless time-wasting updates!

ac12 wrote: ↑

Thu Sep 12, 2019 9:38 pm

But, now that Win7 is scheduled for EoL in Jan 2020.
Do we still continue to use Win7 on the T61, or bite the bullet and upgrade to Win10?

I would rather continue using Win7 on a T61; it's too old to support/benefit from Win10 properly.

ac12 wrote: ↑

Thu Sep 12, 2019 9:38 pm

Maybe time to finally replace the T61.
But I HATE the chicklet keyboard of the new laptops.

T61 may be getting too old to be a primary machine. Although with 8GB RAM and SSD running at SATA2 speeds it can still be useful.

I don't know why everyone is against Windows 8.1. Unlike Win 8, you can get rid of the stupid tiles entirely in 8.1, takes abot 5 minutes to adjust a few things after installation, and it becomes the most streamlined, logical and simple looking (in a good way) Windows out there out of the box. I think it gets overlooked by everyone because of the factory setup with the tiles, and most people think it's just like Win 8. It's NOT, it's my favourite version of Windows by far. And it runs on my T60 flawlessly (had to disable fast boot due to getting black screen after boot because of the Ati driver, and had to use and older version of on screen display driver, but that was pretty much it, everything works perfectly now). And the end of life support will be in 2023, so still have quite a bit of life left.

Win 10 will not cut it on 3.25GB, 8GB is best realistically. SSD is a must. CPU & integrated GPU does not matter much. I maintain a T500 with win 10 Home, who is owned by my friend for years and recently month ago, did only a change in one part to this configuration for YEARS (running about 8 years straight, was windows 7), currently running on 2.8GHz, 8GB, integrated GPU manually set is change from WD black 500GB to SSD 256GB by Sandisk. Big improvement on performance. All they use it is for web and email, youtube etc, which is good enough on that remarkable T500.

Cheers, thinkpadcollection.