Thinkpads Forum

I have been watching this and similar threads for a while, and it appears to me that there is possibly a problem with the Intel 965 chip. When there is 4 gb ram and an NV 570 with 256 video mem, then it appears that both chips are getting the mem call in the overlapping upper memory address range. This would certainly corrupt the video driver and/or the ram address driver, both of which are resident in the kernel ring, and would always result in a bsod. Removing the upper ram chip seems to always fix the problem - no prob if 2 1 gb chips - doesn't overlap with the video address range. It is curious, however that some have gotten the planar replaced, and it seems to have fixed the problem. I wonder if Intel has already revised the 965 chip, and the new ones are used in repair orders for this problem. For all other T61 users, a recall would make no sense - if they are using less than 4 gig, or no NV 570, or never stress the mem to a full 4 gig ram and 256 vid ram, at the same time, then this would never happen. I also wonder if new units are being shipped with the revised chip, or if the stock planars are being used up, calculating that few will encounter the problem. It would be interesting to see who has the newest T61 with this specific hardware setup and problem, and when/ if it disappears from the product line.

kernelpanic

its not just 4GB of ram that has this problem. i have had this problem running 1gb+512MB, as well as running 1GB+1GB chips.

and even when running the 1gig or the 512 in either the upper slot of the lower slot it dose not make any difference. but i'm ganna call them now since i am also having another problem with my t61p. i hope this issue gets fixed as well.

also i noticed some one said something about running the seagate hardrive. also that dose not make any sense either. i threw a WD 250GB 5400rpm drive in mine.

anyways i hope we and find a fix for all of our T61p's i love ibm but this problem really pisses me off.

oh well what can ya do.

so i just talked to lenovo.com and was asking about this issue. and they told me that this problem has been moved to the engendering department and should be a simple bois update to fix this issue. and well i'm really hoping so. so he told me just to sit tight for now and wait for that.

i can only say i really hope that will fix this issue.

My T61p too suffers from the aforementioned random shutdown (in addition to artifacts appearing in some games). I was originally going to send my machine in over Thanksgiving break, but i'm glad I found this thread -- I too hope Lenovo can pinpoint the issue and hopefully fix it via a BIOS update.

kernelpanic wrote:...When there is 4 gb ram and an NV 570 with 256 video mem, then it appears that both chips are getting the mem call in the overlapping upper memory address range. This would certainly corrupt the video driver and/or the ram address driver, both of which are resident in the kernel ring, and would always result in a bsod.

This is interesting, where are you observing this? How would I check to see if this is happening on my computer?

I am curious because I received a new T61P and it doesn't appear to be crashing like the old one was, but I haven't returned the old one yet, so if possible I would like to be able to check and see if this address overlap is happening on the old one and the new one to compare.

I guess I'm lucky because I just ran 3dmark06 and also the burnin 3d graphics test at full screen highest resolution on my 14.1 4:3 sxga+ machine with 4 Gb ram installed and thankfully both tests ran with no problems (although the 3dmark06 score was pretty low). I wonder if this problem is limited to just the 15.4 widescreen models?

pae77 wrote:I wonder if this problem is limited to just the 15.4 widescreen models?

As far as I know, the issue SEEMS to only affect people with the 15.4" screen and the Quadro 570M GPU. I think there was only 1 guy who claimed he was having this same issue with the 14" version, but he never would say what exact errors he was getting or share all the details about his situation or what he did to solve it.

abarbieri wrote:
It would be very useful if you could perform the test and see what happens. I have the same Seagate 160GB HDD.

many thanks
andrea

I tried that test twice and finished without problems.

So since the issue seems to have to do with having two sticks of RAM in the laptop (either due to the RAM controller or the motherboard?), have people been sending their machines into Lenovo for repair, or holding out for a BIOS update which will hopefully rectify the issue?

I'm curious as to what to do, as winter break will probably be the most opportune time to go without my notebook.

If it's the BIOS that needs to be updated, how come some people don't have the problem including those with 4 RAM installed? And Why replacing the motherboard will fix the problem?

UPDATE on this problem.

I just received my notebook back from Lenovo today. WOW!
Pretty darn fast turn-around time if I do not say so myself.
I called them on Monday, got the box on Tuesday, and now Thursday I have it back.

So far I've tested it pretty hard, but not immensely through.
And the results have been really good. Not one hick-up or crash so far. And normally I would have restarted the computer about 5 times now.

What did they do? Well, according to the report sheet they replaced the memory and updated the BIOS with some magic BIOS version.

The BIOS that is on my machine is dated 2007-08-27 with the version number 1.22 (7LET52WW)
Which is apparently older than the latest. Shown here...
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... 67988.html

Deep down, if the problem truly solved, I believe the issue was with the BIOS. That or they replaced more and are trying to cover something up.

I'll let you know if I run into any trouble.

biohazard2k wrote:snipped

I just did a test on my machine with BIOS version 1.22 with 2 stick memory, and the machine still crashed with the BurnInTest. So I conclude, that it has nothing to do with the BIOS. Now I am even more convinced that it's a motherboard/memory defect.

Agreed with generalsu

Did anyone else send their thinkpad back to depot for repair?

Oh another thing. I'm running with BIOS version 1.26, which is the latest official version, still have this crash problem.

Oh I'm sorry. I spoke too soon. It still crashes, but only when I replace the memory with double stacked memory. The way Lenovo sent it back to me still works great and without crashes. I guess I was just surprised they downgraded my BIOS to 1.22 when I sent it in. So I assumed it was related. Sorry.

As I said before, when I sent it into the depot the two things they changed on my notebook was the memory and the BIOS version.

When I lifted up the palm rest to look at the memory they changed my memory from double stacked 1GB modules to single stacked 1GB memory modules. That being said both the before and after sticks are still Samsung PC2-5300 memory. Just different types.

Single Stack example:
http://yeahdone.com.au/images/214P512SA533.jpg
Double Stack example:
http://computermonger.com/wp-content/up ... Memory.jpg

Still this is rather upsetting to me if I want to upgrade to 4GB later on. Because to my knowledge there is no single stacked 2gb laptop modules out there. Perhaps I'm wrong?

Any ideas guys?

generalsu wrote:

biohazard2k wrote:snipped

I just did a test on my machine with BIOS version 1.22 with 2 stick memory, and the machine still crashed with the BurnInTest. So I conclude, that it has nothing to do with the BIOS. Now I am even more convinced that it's a motherboard/memory defect.

biohazard2k wrote:Single Stack example:
http://yeahdone.com.au/images/214P512SA533.jpg
Double Stack example:
http://computermonger.com/wp-content/up ... Memory.jpg

I fixed your links. Please don't post in-line images without a warning in the subject line. Also, in-line images should be <50k.

SnakeJW wrote:Did anyone else send their thinkpad back to depot for repair?

Oh another thing. I'm running with BIOS version 1.26, which is the latest official version, still have this crash problem.

Believe it or not, Lenovo is still looking for a system that will demonstrate the failure that we are having successfully. Luckily they contacted me and I have volunteered to participate since my system will definitely reproduce the error successfully with the BurnInTest. So, in short, my machine will be tested and repaired in 3 to 4 days by Lenovo at the Research Triangle Park headquarters in North Carolina. I believe this beats sending it over to the depot, which according to several forums have been quite unreliable. I'll have more news after Dec 5th.

Dude, please keep us posted.

Hello,

just a quick note wrt biohazard2k hypothesis of single vs double stack memory.

I am using Patriot Signature Line 2x2GB CL5 PC2-5300 (667MHz) DIMM Kit (PSD24G667K):
http://www.patriotmemory.com/products/d ... 604&type=1
which is single stack and yet I do experience the same problems when performing 3D intensive tasks (well, at the moment this 3D intensive task is playing Pirates of the Caribbean Online game).

generalsu:
please keep us posted .

Interesting, that is why I'm asking.
Again with the single stack memory in my laptop I haven't been able to make my computer crash, at all. Unless it has something to do with the BIOS version and that type of memory. One thing is for sure abarbieri, it is a hypothesis.

I also would like to let you know, no matter the configuration, before or after, I have not been able to get the burnintest to crash my computer. It has always passed on my T61p. I've only been able to get the intense 3d-applications to either crash/freeze, bluescreen or just shutdown my computer.

I've tried many different Quadro drivers, even the latest beta drivers from laptop2go and that only seemed to make things worse.

Ditto to generalsu, keep us posted!

I'm hoping Lenovo will make a BIOS fix that will correct all this crap, if it is even possible.

abarbieri wrote:Hello,

just a quick note wrt biohazard2k hypothesis of single vs double stack memory.

I am using Patriot Signature Line 2x2GB CL5 PC2-5300 (667MHz) DIMM Kit (PSD24G667K):
http://www.patriotmemory.com/products/d ... 604&type=1
which is single stack and yet I do experience the same problems when performing 3D intensive tasks (well, at the moment this 3D intensive task is playing Pirates of the Caribbean Online game).

generalsu:
please keep us posted .

abarbieri wrote:Hello,

just a quick note wrt biohazard2k hypothesis of single vs double stack memory.

I am using Patriot Signature Line 2x2GB CL5 PC2-5300 (667MHz) DIMM Kit (PSD24G667K):
http://www.patriotmemory.com/products/d ... 604&type=1
which is single stack and yet I do experience the same problems when performing 3D intensive tasks (well, at the moment this 3D intensive task is playing Pirates of the Caribbean Online game).
please keep us posted .

Last week I've received my brand new T61p, and it has been great at the office. At home it has been a nightmare. I'm having the same problem with GPU intense gaming as almost everyone else here. The laptop powers off after 5-10 mins of gameplay (mostly BF2). I've tried bios upgrade, and several different Nvidia drivers, including the one at Microsoft Update, but nothing seems to redeem the situation.
Browsing through some other threads on the forum related to this issue, I found a tip related to removing one of the DIMMS. After removal, my system is rock steady, no crashes at all during gameplay. I would still like to have at least 2 GB, but for the moment 1 GB will have to do, until IBM resolves this issue...

hello Fantomet,

sticks and stacks... two different things.

it is well known that most of these issues appears when one uses two memory sticks and disappear all together when going back to a single memory stick.

biohazard2k sugested instead that if one used "single stack" memory modules then the graphics driver problems might go away even with two memory sticks (modules)... but as I mentioned the Patriot SL memory modules I use are single stack and nonetheless I do experience the same issues.

so... let's just hope Lenovo engineers find a fix quickly and make it avaliable.

cheers

well, burnin test and 3dmark06 couldn't crash my computer so far (i have two sticks of 1G memory, 2G total).

but to be sure i guess i should play some kind of 3d game with 2 sticks of 2G memory installed.

tom2517 wrote:well, burnin test and 3dmark06 couldn't crash my computer so far (i have two sticks of 1G memory, 2G total).

but to be sure i guess i should play some kind of 3d game with 2 sticks of 2G memory installed.

For the BurnInTest, make sure you are running the 3D graphics test with the value set to 100 at your LCD screen's native resolution. You should play the latest games that are very 3D intensive such as Tomb Raider Anniversary, Stranglehold, or Half Life 2 Episode 2.

generalsu wrote:

tom2517 wrote:well, burnin test and 3dmark06 couldn't crash my computer so far (i have two sticks of 1G memory, 2G total).

but to be sure i guess i should play some kind of 3d game with 2 sticks of 2G memory installed.

For the BurnInTest, make sure you are running the 3D graphics test with the value set to 100 at your LCD screen's native resolution. You should play the latest games that are very 3D intensive such as Tomb Raider Anniversary, Stranglehold, or Half Life 2 Episode 2.

That's a very odd list of games (save HL2E2). Are these the games you've been playing?

Anyhow, I'm quite happily playing Gears of War on my (repaired) T61p. I don't see why everybody doesn't just turn theirs in for a motherboard replacement.

This is getting more and more annoying, at least someone from Lenovo should give us an answer.

Pocket Aces wrote:

generalsu wrote: For the BurnInTest, make sure you are running the 3D graphics test with the value set to 100 at your LCD screen's native resolution. You should play the latest games that are very 3D intensive such as Tomb Raider Anniversary, Stranglehold, or Half Life 2 Episode 2.

That's a very odd list of games (save HL2E2). Are these the games you've been playing?

Anyhow, I'm quite happily playing Gears of War on my (repaired) T61p. I don't see why everybody doesn't just turn theirs in for a motherboard replacement.

These games are just suggestions for those who are looking for 3D intensive games to try on their T61/p. Not all games are 3D intensive (ex. Silent Hill series).

As for why don't most people turn theirs in for a repair? Most likely because the repair center is described as being unreliable. They're also waiting for a formal solution to this widespread problem in which I am helping Lenovo to figure out.

And yes, I have used these games to test my machine.

generalsu wrote:

tom2517 wrote:well, burnin test and 3dmark06 couldn't crash my computer so far (i have two sticks of 1G memory, 2G total).

but to be sure i guess i should play some kind of 3d game with 2 sticks of 2G memory installed.

For the BurnInTest, make sure you are running the 3D graphics test with the value set to 100 at your LCD screen's native resolution. You should play the latest games that are very 3D intensive such as Tomb Raider Anniversary, Stranglehold, or Half Life 2 Episode 2.

It was running at 100.

I ran 3DMark06 and got 4080 and right after I ran Burnin again and it froze for about 3 min. but was then able to complete the test.

Is Call of Duty 4 considered 3d graphic intensive enough to be a test for this problem?

pae77 wrote:Is Call of Duty 4 considered 3d graphic intensive enough to be a test for this problem?

Never heard it and never played it before, so I have no idea.

As I said before, you don't need a 3D intensive game or application to test your laptop for reliability problems. The BurnInTest 3D graphics test will do just fine, at least on my machine it did.