Incessant crashes - sanity check

[wpla]

I have a brand new T61 ThinkPad:

• Vista Business
  Intel Duo Core 2 T7500 2.20 GHz
  2 GB RAM
  1 GB Intel Turbo Memory

Two days after delivery, it crashed with what could best be described as a "blue screen of death" situation. Lenovo tech support offered no help at all other than to tell me to restore the PC to its original factory settings - frustrating solution because all of the data that I had transferred and the hours of work that I put into it to get Vista Business to network with my XP Pro desktop went down the drain.

I've had the ThinkPad for about a month and it is slow beyond belief. It crashes almost every time I use it. I have stopped calling Lenovo for help. They appear to just shrug their shoulders and resolve everything with a suggestion that I spend the rest of my life resetting the Thinkpad to its factory settings and starting again.

All Windows updates have been applied.

I don't know whether I have a bad PC or if Windows Vista Business is the problem.

Today, in a desperate attemtp to resolve this, I called Lenovo again and the tech resp said that I need to replace the motherboard and the processor.

Does this sound right? A brand new T61 crashes daily regardless of application being used (Outlook, Word, Excel, Internet Explorer, etc.) and there is no diagnosis to determine its cause? I feel like Lenovo is just guessing: reset it to its factory settings or replace the computer's heart.

[jdhurst]

I don't know enough about Vista to say conclusively, but my trials with Vista on a T41 did not crash at all with a BSOD. I had other difficulties, but reliability was fine.

I know reinstalling is an utter pain (a week's work for me on my T41 if I had to do it), but either:
(1) the install is bad (need to re-install), or,
(2) there is a ThinkPad hardware issue.

In the latter case, IBM (and now Lenovo) have proven reluctant to accept a hardware error diagnosis until a factory re-install had been done (in order to for them to determine if hardware is an issue or not).

... JDH

[ryengineer]

Your solution to all problems:

Downgrading from Windows Vista to Windows XP.

I noticed you've Intel Turbo Memory installed which is known to cause crashes and BSODs in the absence of proper drivers, so make sure you've the latest drivers installed for that too.

Somewhat similar thread with mentioning of some improvement after the member installed the Turbo memory patch:

x61t BSOD w/in 20 minutes of going on battery power

[wpla]

I will check into the driver for the Intel Turbo Memory but it would seem strange to me that Lenovo would ship a brand new ThinkPad with an outdated driver for a preinstalled hardware item.

Also, I can't believe that after Vista has been out on the market as long as it has, paying $49 (I believe that is what Lenovo charges) to "downgrade" the ThinkPad to Windows XP is a rational business solution. My God, that is playing right into the Apple ads curently running on TV which portray IBM PC users "upgrading" from Vista to XP.

Your solution to all problems:

Downgrading from Windows Vista to Windows XP.

I noticed you've Intel Turbo Memory installed which is known to cause crashes and BSODs in the absence of proper drivers, so make sure you've the latest drivers installed for that too.

Somewhat similar thread with mentioning of some improvement after the member installed the Turbo memory patch:

x61t BSOD w/in 20 minutes of going on battery power

[stephenaron]

As a rule of thumb for me....if i get BSOD's early on with a new computer. Usually seems to be a bad sign of things to come, so i send it right back and request a new one or refund. Not worth having problems for the next few years.

[Hellbore]

This is a T61 not a T61P right? Does it have the Intel graphics?

Just wondering...because I do know there have been hardware issues with the T61P's, several people I have talked to online had their motherboards OR entire laptop replaced, thus solving the issues.

I'm one of them My T61P never worked right, until they gave me a new one. The new one is awesome.

[wpla]

It's a T61. Type-model 6459-CTO.

This is a T61 not a T61P right? Does it have the Intel graphics?

Just wondering...because I do know there have been hardware issues with the T61P's, several people I have talked to online had their motherboards OR entire laptop replaced, thus solving the issues.

I'm one of them My T61P never worked right, until they gave me a new one. The new one is awesome.

[wpla]

Graphics is NVIDIA Quadro NVS 140M.

Does it have the Intel graphics?