Thinkpads Forum

alacrityathome wrote:Hellbore,

In the interest of Lenovo's own profitability, i am sure they are trying to dissect this problem.

I would bet that there are multiple manufacturing locations and one of them is the culprit. Date codes are critical to narrowing down the manufacturing location and culprit dates.

For some reason on the paperwork I received, I had the impression my Pc was manufactured in singapore which, if so, may have given it a higher manufacturing quality. Maybe Snakejw can ask on his Chinese forum if there are multiple locations for the mobo assembly.

Alacrity

I already did that. Give it some time and I will report back what those guys said about their manufacturing locations. There's one major difference in China is that many of them don't have warranty on their machine, so there's no way they can pay big bucks to purchase a new mobo. All of them are still twitching the bios and swapping different brands of memory hoping it can be solved that way. With new bios update, things have improve a little bit, but the shut down/crash still persist.

Hi Hellbore,

the Factory ID code for my T61p is H too, but I do experience the issue. your doubts are confirmed.

maybe there is a more relevant identifier on the motherboard.

SnakeJW wrote:There's one major difference in China is that many of them don't have warranty on their machine, so there's no way they can pay big bucks to purchase a new mobo. All of them are still twitching the bios and swapping different brands of memory hoping it can be solved that way.

I feel sorry for them, because they are probably doomed to fail... I guess we will have to wait and see if they find a workaround. Thanks for keeping us updated on the Chinese forums.

abarbieri wrote:Hi Hellbore,

the Factory ID code for my T61p is H too, but I do experience the issue. your doubts are confirmed.

maybe there is a more relevant identifier on the motherboard.

Hi Hellbore

would the System Board Serial Number a better indicator?

abarbieri wrote:

abarbieri wrote:Hi Hellbore,

the Factory ID code for my T61p is H too, but I do experience the issue. your doubts are confirmed.

maybe there is a more relevant identifier on the motherboard.

Hi Hellbore

would the System Board Serial Number a better indicator?

I dunno, it might tell us something. I think the only way to find out is if we put together a list of serial numbers from people who do have the problem, and a list from people who do not have the problem, and see if a pattern shows up.

here's my System Board Serial Number (easily obtainable running PC-Doctor, reported in the System Information/Detailed Device Information page):
VF19X7AF56H

My serial is VF19X7BK21G.

I don't see the "H" ID sticker.

My XP sticker says Singapore.

crap, i didn't write down the seriel number of the old board. the laptop is not with me now, i will check the number once i get back. It was shipped from canada instead of hongkong this time. They probably have a warehouse in canada i guess, it should have nothing to do with the origin of the mobo.

alacrityathome wrote:My serial is VF19X7BK21G.

I don't see the "H" ID sticker.

My XP sticker says Singapore.

it is part of the bigger sticker with the FCC symbol

abarbieri wrote:

alacrityathome wrote:My serial is VF19X7BK21G.

I don't see the "H" ID sticker.

My XP sticker says Singapore.

it is part of the bigger sticker with the FCC symbol

Ahhh, the black sticker....yes, I have "H" also.

I can confirm that after the motherboard swap and the replacement of my memory sticks to single stacked version, all games run smooth with no artifacts, hang ups and shutdowns.

However, all the previous symptoms come back again when I insert a 2GB double stacked memory stick along with a 1GB single stacked memory.

My system also has a Factory ID: H
My motherboard serial is: VF19Y7AP137
BIOS version 2.07

Most of you have VF19X, perhaps the VF19Y mobos are the new and fixed ones.

I also spoke with one of the Lenovo engineers about the dual-core gaming issue and he seemed intrigued by it. It could be something with the dual-core feature shutting the system down automatically while gaming.

generalsu wrote: [snip]
Most of you have VF19X, perhaps the VF19Y mobos are the new and fixed ones.

I also spoke with one of the Lenovo engineers about the dual-core gaming issue and he seemed intrigued by it. It could be something with the dual-core feature shutting the system down automatically while gaming.

unfortunately I am experiencing the issues...
I am using single stacked memory modules (2+2 GB, Patriot)

I've never experienced a power down when playing.

Just BSODs, freezes and video device driver stops. With the latest BIOS update I would say I get more 'video device driver stops' which are handled much better by the Vista operating system, although I do get system freezes which can only be recovered from by a power reset.

Every manufacturer has their own set of date code/manufacturing location codes.

But, I am guessing that the "7" is 2007 while the "Y" and "Z" represent a week of the year.

Another guess is that "BK" , "AF", and "AP" represent manufacturing locations. See if Snakejw recognizes those locations in the Far East.

The remaining alphanumberic is the serial info.

A fairly recent Lenovo Date Code/Manufacturing Code PDF document:

http://www.pc.ibm.com/ww/lenovo/procure ... 1U3001.pdf

Hi,
I don´t have a T61p yet but I´ve been following this thread very carefully for a few days now. Since the FX 570M uses TurboCache (pls correct me if I´m wrong) I thought this might be an issue with addressing the system memory through the gpu. I guess shared memory is pretty much in question when running whatever graphic intensive applicatons.

Just a thought...

Cheers

Marin

Hi guys,

unfortunatelly I'm one of those having the same symptoms. I have two 2GB memory modules on my T61p. With these 2 modules every game I have crashes almost immediately (Air Conflicts, MotoGP 07, Sega Rally). Also volume buttons doesn't work.
After removing one memory module everything is OK. Even volume buttons work.
Thanks for this forum and those who post their experience. At least I know I am not alone.
I got this notebook on 17th of December so it's brand new.
System board serial number is VF19X7AX051.

I have an "Y" mobo, VF19Y7AD1BZ and an "H" for factory but I do experience freezing in Crysis. It seems to me that the new BIOS 2.07 improves things a little bit.

Today my TP behaves quite strange as usual mainly because it was able to play Crysis with 2x1GB double stack memory modules and dual-core enabled but fails to finish a level of UT2004, which is a premiere to me.

I will try BioShock in the next minutes and I'll come back with comments.

crysis demo also runs ok at highest resolution and medium details.

with any 3d stuff running, i am having a very minor buzzing/hissing sound from the location where gpu is located. does not bother me, but can be clearly heard putting the ear there. most pronounced is it with the atitool's fluffy 3d cube. dont think its a manufacturing error, but wild speculation was that its sparks flying across the gap of a cold solder joint

having a VF19Y board.

EDIT: I have a VF19X board

OT: if anyone knows a tool to modify the memory timings (not the clock) from currently 5-5-5-15 to one nothch lower, pm me, thx

There is no pattern in mobo's serial number. I have "Y" and it was the first time reboot during Crysis. I thought I'll have only freezing. The last video driver from MS update (6.14.11.5687) is much worst then the Lenovo one (6.14.11.5666) The power off happens after updating the video driver.

I am starting to think it is a motherboard power problem, not a video one. The new driver seems to push up the video card.

alacrityathome wrote:YinLe,

Not sure how intensive PES2008 is. You can pull down 3DMark06 for free and test your PC capability.

With an intensive 3D game or 3D graphics test, you can actually see the GPU temp rise rapidly. When that happens, every thing gets stressed or tested on the motherboard/graphics card.

Higher temp is not a bad thing.....but a bad solder joint will be tested at the same time and fail.

I did run some 3DMark06 test. Everything seems pretty OK. Using 1920x1200 resolution, the score is 2875, while using the default 1280x1024, the score is 4023. Could I say this problem does not come to my laptop?

YinLe,

Chances are good you are ok. Maybe do one more thing...

Download the free Bioshock Demo. Run it on your PC. If no freeze up or crash....you are good to go.

The Demos are tougher tests than the 3DMark06.

Alacrity

Alacrity,

By your instruction, I clicked the download url tremblingly. Waiting to see what is going on...

Just a note, I'm not sure Bioshock works in Directx 10 mode with the Lenovo drivers, you might want to run in Directx 9 mode. I never had any luck getting Bioshock to work with the Lenovo video driver and Directx 10 mode. It would play the airplane scene then go to a black screen. That was in Vista 64 bit though, it might be a different story in other OS's. In order to use the Lenovo video drivers with Vista 64 and Bioshock I have to use the -dx9 commandline argument when running Bioshock.

Just ran Bioshock Demo for about 30 min, using 1920x1200 resolution, everything acts good. Glad to say my laptop is "complete". Thank all guys here.

ok, there's one guy on the chinese forum posted his seriel number: VF0WC76C14V , which looks totally different from ours. Still waiting for others to post theirs.

SnakeJW wrote:ok, there's one guy on the chinese forum posted his seriel number: VF0WC76C14V , which looks totally different from ours. Still waiting for others to post theirs.

Snake, Can u please paste or PM the URL of the chinese forum? Another question, how could I find my serial number? 谢谢

YinLe wrote:Another question, how could I find my serial number?

Run PCDoctor, go to System reports then choose System information, click on tab Detailed device information and on the left tree click on System board

awfully quite these two days. I guess people r busy with the holidays.

Snakejw,

We are all just waiting for your Chinese update to this detective mystery!

Alacrity

Only one guy is kindly enough post his seriel number. They are more interested in how to fix this thing. There's one member turned off his turbo memory and swap a new set of RAM and amazingly it's fixed. Before he did that, he had similar symptoms.