Thinkpads Forum

Received T60p last week; spent a week customizing it, so I am getting functional again.

Have VPN issue. Get frequent "subsystem not available" error. Upon reboot (one or more) may work.

In Device Mgr, I see an exclamation mark next to this Deterministic Network thing... error states "windows cannot load drivers required for this device"...

Lenovo customer support seems clueless... none of their instructions have worked.

Your thoughts are appreciated. Thank you in advance.

Have you asked Cisco? I use a Juniper Netscreen VPN and the Deterministic Network Enhancer is a key in the network section of the registry, not a Device (in Device Manager). Given that I see VMware virtual devices in the registry and not in Device Manager, I am surprised that Cisco makes it a Device.

If Cisco can't help, consider uninstalling the VPN client and re-installing it.

It's not a Lenovo or IBM problem that I can see, so I am not surprised they don't know.

... JD Hurst

Thank you for taking the time to comment. I am not sufficiently technically trained to understand exactly what you write... I wil resarch this some more.

Lenovo suggested I uninstall the Device but windows would not let me because "this component is required for windows to boot".

The VPN has been installed several times and in several ways (log on as self, administrator, etc.) and I can usually get it to work eventually, but sometimes only after several reboots. Unfortunately I cannot detect a pattern of what is different from when it works to when it does not work. In each case, I just start the computer, wait for all the drivers to load, then log on to the WWW to verify I have a good connection, and then try to load the VPN. So start up should be the same each time, but obviously it isn't (one variable being time... and waiting for all drivers to load... which I do each time, given the problems I am having... time does not appear to be it... also not different drivers when on battery because it works (and also does not work) regardless of power source.

Did you uninstall or just re-installed? If you just re-installed try an uninstall reboot then re-install.
What about trying a newer version, if available, of the VPN Client.

Check the Cisco VPN Client FAQ:
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/sw/ ... .shtml#q14

There are some instructions on uninstalling the Cisco VPN Client. Also verify that you are running the latest version of the client.

HTH,

Thank you again for the additional posts... yes, we had completely uninstalled the VPN, confirmed it was gone, reinstalled the very latest version, etc.

I wonder that if I were successful in getting rid of whatever the error is with this Deterministic Network Enhancer, whatever that is, if my VPN issues would resolve...

Are the two related?

And I am somewhat hesitant to even attempt to uninstall this Deterministic thing since when I try to do so, windows sends the error message that it won't boot if removed...

As a follow up to above thread, it appears the system Lenovo sent to me came with a corrupt install of either Windows Pro, Client Security, or a combination of both.

In the end, just before getting ready to end my first Lenovo experiment by sending it back, I did a complete system reinstall.

With that, all issues I had since day 1 have resolved. VPN works just fine and is stable. I don't have a Deterministic Network Enhancer in the Device Manager any more...

It cost a whole week, and lots of $$$ with in IT consultant expense, but in the end it was some faulty install by Lenovo that evidently caused all the problems. Thanks guys for the helpful suggestions above.

Interesting result.

I recently got two T43's for clients. I built them side by side. One worked well, one didn't.

I don't take any rubbish from IBM or Microsoft. I know what I am doing. So I said: "Your call, new hard drive and new CD's or you can have the machine back" I had already interchanged drives and know both boxes worked just fine. So I got a new drive, new CD's, rebuilt it and it works fine.

There are lessons over time:
1. Recovery CD's from IBM may or may not work. Test them.
2. Corrupt machines are hardly rare.

Do NOT ever take NO for an answer from these people. ... JD Hurst

I did my system reinstall from the preinstall loaded on the original hard drive. My machine came without installation CDs. It worked well, as discussed above.

I wonder how they install all the different models/configurations in a cost effective manner. Pure speculation, but perhaps Lenovo gets the hard disks with Windows preinstalled and then plugs the hard disks into the systems WITHOUT proper system specific install. If they make a mistake, or accidentally put the wrong hard drive into a system configered otherwise, we have these issues.

Perhaps if Lenovo built each system and then did the Windows install once the system is completely built, we would not have these configuration issues. I wonder if it would make sense, especially for Lenovo that comes with so many different configurations, for us users to ignore the preinstall and to immediately do a reinstall when we get the system... yes, it may take an hour or so, but at least we'd know we have a preinstall for OUR SPECIFIC configuration, rather than whatever the install that came on the hard disk assumes the system looks like? Given the week I've just been through, never mind the $, that's something I'd consider...

I am not sure, but I guess they use DRIVE CLONING. Their configurations are not really that diffrenet. Motheboards and controllers (the most important parts) ar almost the same. Graphic cards and Wireless cards (and some WAN cars) are different which doesn't affect cloning.