Thinkpads Forum

I have T61 with 2gb of mem for some reason i am having these issues :-
a) Takes forever for vista to bootup and shutdown. I disabled whatever services I could
b) hd light is blinking all the time even after the pc is fully booted up, both cores being used
c) All my function buttons stopped working, I have the latest version of system update.
d) Defraged my harddrive couple of times

Is this the factory Vista install, or did you do a clean install?

The boot time culprit may be CSS (Client Security Solution) -- do you have that installed?

For the CPU usage, can you run Task Manager (make sure you display processes from all users) and see what is using up your CPU? Note that a new Vista install will spend some time (anywhere from a few minutes to a few days) indexing all your documents for searching.

some people have reported what they call "thrashing" of the HDs which might be a bug but also remember that superfetch loads up applications in the RAM so when you boot up (everytime) superfetch will load your apps into the RAM and with 2GB it will take a few minutes to do that. More if you are using the machine. If you put the system to sleep instead you wont have to reload everything into the RAM each time.

Its not a factory install I did the upgrade, i do have Client Security Solution installed.

Removing CSS should help with the boot times for sure.

worldsmart wrote:I have T61 with 2gb of mem for some reason i am having these issues :-
a) Takes forever for vista to bootup and shutdown. I disabled whatever services I could

Vista takes forever to boot and shutdown. Should get better after a few days of use, but Vista isnt ready for primetime.

b) hd light is blinking all the time even after the pc is fully booted up, both cores being used

Vista is indexing your HD. Should get better after a few days of use, but Vista is a hog.

c) All my function buttons stopped working, I have the latest version of system update.

Updating with System Update has broken HotKeys for a couple of weeks now. A few threads on this issue have sprouted but mostly for XP.

d) Defraged my harddrive couple of times

Away manager will do that, but Im not sure if this is a problem or not.


My advice is to hit F11 right after the boot and recover to XP. All data will be lost, but you will have a clean working XP installation.

If you really want Vista, do a clean install with Vista Upgrade. Again, all data lost. Vista upgrade/clean install workaround:
http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/31/clea ... iscovered/

sr. Technician wrote:Vista takes forever to boot and shutdown. Should get better after a few days of use, but Vista isnt ready for primetime.

A minute and a half to a ready desktop for me, on an X61. For my once-a-week restart, that's quite all right in my books.

sr. Technician wrote:Vista is indexing your HD. Should get better after a few days of use, but Vista is a hog.

Vista's indexing is better-behaved IMHO than any of the add-on desktop searches on Windows XP.

If Vista indexing is well behaved, the other indexing services must eat babies.

They pretty much do, yes. Once Vista finished its indexing (268,000+ items indexed for me!) the search indexing engine has been much less obtrusive in terms of CPU, memory and disk usage than the previous generation of incumbents: MSN, Google and Copernic desktop searches. I just had to be patient and let the indexing finish first.

so its vista indexing service causing my pc to be dog slow. what does css does on a T61

worldsmart wrote:what does css does on a T61

ThinkVantage Technologies

Lenovo wrote:Client Security Solution

This unique hardware-software combination helps protect your company information, including vital security information like passwords, encryption keys and electronic credentials, while guarding against unauthorized user access to data.

Basically it encrypts the data on your hard drive, and stores your passwords in the security chip.

worldsmart wrote:so its vista indexing service causing my pc to be dog slow. what does css does on a T61

Depends on how much the filled capacity of your HDD is, in my experience indexing took 2 full days to settle down.

In Windows Vista, System restore points and defrag options are turned on by default, defrag runs on set schedule but System restore almost makes restore points every now and then which contributes a bit to HDD activity, I have turned off System restore and create restore points manually as Windows was creating 10 (yes) restore points per day and eating alot of disk space in my situation.

I had the same issues as well with Vista. I think it had a lot to do with the not quite ready for prime time drivers for the new Santa Rosa chipset equipped with Turbo Memory.

I know that on my old Dell Latitude D620 running the last generation Core 2, Vista was much better behaved.

I finally got tired of 4 minute startups and shutdowns, so after 2 weeks I regressed back to XP for now, till Vista and the drivers mature a bit more.

tomh009 wrote:They pretty much do, yes. Once Vista finished its indexing (268,000+ items indexed for me!) the search indexing engine has been much less obtrusive in terms of CPU, memory and disk usage than the previous generation of incumbents: MSN, Google and Copernic desktop searches. I just had to be patient and let the indexing finish first.

Especially GDS is the worst offender since you can't set indexing settings for power and battery scheme. On my old XP it always went mad because it would not only index your files but defaults to indexing all your harddrives!

My experience with Vista on different machines has been that it takes about 1-2 days (depending how long the machine is running) to settle down with hdd-activity. There are numerous things going on in the background like first time indexing, superfetching, Windows Defender, defrag and so on. And i would suggest you tweak your indexing settings in Power Manager or Energy Applet. Default settings is to aggressive.

I have the same problem of long boot times and hard disk doing excessive paging after everything loads as reported by vista system health report. therefore I was thinking of upgrading to 2gb but it seems that it is not going to solve the problem.
I have done a factory reset and the issue was encountered just after I enrolled and the client security solution initialized. but now when I uninstall CSS 8 from add/remove thing in vista, the boot time doesn't change.