Thinkpads Forum

The place is: IBM Repair Center. c/o GEODIS Gmbh, Harzstasse 1, 64646 Heppenheim, Germany. It's somewhere around Mannheim.

I told them in an email last night that I want either a new one or a refund if they can't fix it. I'm waiting to hear back from the European Support Center in the UK as to what's next. I am not a happy camper!

Yea, I know. I wouldn't be either. Do you have the phone numbers for each? Also, what's your type and model #?

This is unbleivable! The following is the answer I just got back from Lenovo:

Dear Mr Miller,

the warranty only covers hardware failures. If the repair center team did not find any defective hardware in your machine (and as far as I understand it, you sent the machine to the repair center INCLUDING the hard disk drive, so even the hard disk drive itself is not defective), then there is nothing they could have done for you. The screen shot of the event viewer you included in your e-mail suggests that the problems you are having are connected to software/applications, which is not covered by the Lenovo warranty. You should therefore do a recovery to factory state again (if you need recovery CDs, please let us know) and test your machine immediately afterwards, i.e. DO NOT install ANY additional programs before you test. As long as the machine works fine in factory state (without any aditional software), the hardware support cannot help you. If however, the problems occur even in the "raw" factory state, please let us know.

Kind regards,


XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

IBM ITS Hardware-Support

Note from Moderator: Read the Rules of the Road paying particular attention to the section on preserving others' privacy.

i have a t61p 15,4" too and i cant understand your problems.

currently i use a clean installed vista buisness sp1 (though not the one that came with the machine - this might be the reason) which runs fine (for windows standards).

before i had xp sp2 (from the recovery cd set) which also ran perfectly stable.

for drivers i use the ones from windows and where windows didnt find drivers i got them from the lenovo page (exept the gpu drivers which are from laptopvideo2go.com)

lenovo software i only have the following ones installed:

-fingerprint software (only the fingerprint software no client security anything just the fingerprint software to be able to use fingerprint when entering windows)
-the one utility which disables the hard drive when the laptop falls down (dont know the english name)
-the energy manager
-and the one program that is used for the on screen display (sound, brightness, wireless etc.) => that all is just one programm as far as i know its name is onscreen display or something like that.

This is a tough troubleshooting problem. The repair center may be absolutely correct and your issue is all in house. The problem is that without knowing what and how they tested you really can't dismiss anything as a cause.

I agree, but they should of at least looked at the error logs on the hard drive I sent with the machine. I told them that I had done a factory restore three times and it hung and BCODed after. I told them there was nothing on the machine beyond the factory stuff other than Zone Alarm Pro. But as you say one can't rule anything out at this point.

All I can say is my old T30 is looking better all the time. I think I may reposess it from from my wife. Especially with the 7200 RPM 100GB & the 2GB I've upgraded to.

Does it work without zonealarm?

tjm001 wrote:I have just done a "scan" off of the Microsoft site which I was linked to through the error viewing procedure. It found 547 registry errors and supposedly repaired them. I hope this helps, but I am quite sceptical since I can't understand why there could be so many errors on a clean install with no software other than ZoneAlarm Security Suite on the machine.

If your clean install produces a large number of registry errors, then there is either a hardware problem (which Lenovo cannot find), or your clean install has problems.

Have you used the proper T61p Product Recovery Disks to do an install, either of XP or Vista? This may help.

A friend's T61p had the same problem of hanging up in Internet Explorer (haven't had that problem with my T61p). After searching the error code I found a solution (don't remember where) but it said to go to Tools>Internet Options>Advanced and un-check the box under Browsing that says 'Enable third party browser extensions'. He hasn't had any problems with IE locking up since then.

I don't know for sure if this did the trick, but this thing has been on for over 4 hours and has not hung yet! I hope this is the fix!!! I'm using Swisscom.com in the Hilton hotel in Bremen as the internet connection.

Sounds like Something has changed for the better

Do report back after you've also written a DVD and checked the other problems you've experienced.

And good luck.

You should download Firefox or Opera while it still works and stop using IE - you won't regret it.

[/quote]
I don't know for sure if this did the trick, but this thing has been on for over 4 hours and has not hung yet! I hope this is the fix!!! I'm using Swisscom.com in the Hilton hotel in Bremen as the internet connection.[/quote]

Glad it seems to have worked. After I changed that setting on my friends T61p it hasn't had a problem in over 3 weeks. It's one of those fixes that seems too simple - or too bad one little check box can cause so much grief.

mdblanton said:

A friend's T61p had the same problem of hanging up in Internet Explorer (haven't had that problem with my T61p). After searching the error code I found a solution (don't remember where) but it said to go to Tools>Internet Options>Advanced and un-check the box under Browsing that says 'Enable third party browser extensions'. He hasn't had any problems with IE locking up since then.

I would like to thank mdblanton for this suggestion. I don't know if I have everything fixed yet, but it's been over 24 hours on the internet
and hasen't hung yet with this little check box changed. And thanks to all others who tried to help me. It is greatly appreciated.

Well I'm sorry to say that I'm back again. Maybe I should start a new thread on this? What do you think?

In any event the good news is that the idea of going to Tools>Internet Options>Advanced and un-checking the box under Browsing that says 'Enable third party browser extensions' has definately solved the hanging up problem in Internet Explorer. I have been switching back and forth between Internet Explorer and Firefox and now in either browser the machine seems to be rock solid while using the internet. This is a great relief! Thank you.

The bad news is that I still get the BSOD every time I try to finalize a DVD using the Lenovo given SONIC DLA software. Reiterating, I now have nothing on this machine other than ZoneAlarmSecuritySuiteand Skype beyond what Lenovo had on it when I turned it on. I did a selective restore and got rid of everything but the Thinkvantage stuff a long time ago. The not so bad news is that I have at least isolated the BCODs to the DVD writing process. The error messages tell me that it is a device driver problem after the BSOD crashes.

This is what the error log says:
Product: Windows Operating System
ID: 1003
Source: System Error
Version: 5.2
Symbolic Name: ER_KRNLCRASH_LOG
Message: Error code %1, parameter1 %2, parameter2 %3, parameter3 %4, parameter4 %5.

Any ideas please?

I have spent 99% of the time I've had this machine on just trying to get it to work as advertised. This is not fun for me.

I personally don't much like the Sonic stuff. I would suggest trying something else like Nero 8 or the freeware program "Img Burn" to burn DVD's. http://www.imgburn.com

I've never used Sonic either, it's full of... IMO. So is IE... and there are so many little hidden features in vista and the new IE, that both seem to create more problems for end users than MS intended to solve by introducing this software. (not intended as a start of some OS war, just a personal opinion).

The majority of software problems such as these can easily be solved by using the "non-mainstream" or "non-hyped" software that do a perfectly good job, if not better, than the installed stuff.

Personally, as soon as I get a computer (laptop), the first thing I do is make a recovery CD/DVD set, then reformat the drive and install a clean and fresh copy of XP and Linux - each used in conjunction with one another for work.

Crunch wrote:Note from Moderator: Very cute attempt to disguise it, but watch your language.

Very cute as to how you disguise your identity, oh so powerful moderator. POS. Can I say that? Well, let's find out...

tjm001 wrote:Well I'm sorry to say that I'm back again. Maybe I should start a new thread on this? What do you think?

Dude, you're still around? I am on my T60p 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Your Thinkpad should never get too this or too that. It should just be a workhorse. I'm surprised you haven't sent that POS back for either a new one, or a refund! And don't ASK anymore. TELL them what you EXPECT, not hope for. Don't be too aggressive. I always say, be assertive, not aggressive. But at this point, I would bill them for the time I had to deal trying to get anything done. Yes, I agree with other responders. I don't like Sonic either, but that shouldn't prevent you from using it.

You will do what you feel you have to do, but again, I would except nothing but a BRAND NEW one, since that it what you bought, right? They sent you a bad "sample" lol...So now you're ready for the real thing, an apology, as well as some 2-for-1, and 50% OFF coupons. That's what IBM would do in this case. And IBM would not have waved some flag in front of a customer that says "it's been more than 30 days", "we can't do this, and we can't do that"...Lenovo is just lame, compared to IBM. The "p" in T61p stands for performance. You got a T61a, the aggravation model.

tjm001 wrote:The bad news is that I still get the BSOD every time I try to finalize a DVD using the Lenovo given SONIC DLA software....The not so bad news is that I have at least isolated the BCODs to the DVD writing process.

It's either the Sonic writing program, or the brand of DVD you're using (and remote chance it's your DVD writer). I would go with the previous suggestion to switch to another DVD program. As for another DVD brand - Verbatim DVD-R 8x speed are very good, or alternatively 16x.

OK...Are you ready for this?

After months of agony over this thing I have finally discovered the problem. The problem was not the machine. The problem was not Lenovo. The problem was software. Just like Lenovo said it probably was.

The first issue with the internet hangs was solved by the aforementioned check box solution idea. Thank you again for that!

But after three days off and doing nothing but trouble shooting this thing, I have positivlely confirmed that the second issue of BSODs was being caused by a conflict between the SONIC DLA CD/DVD writing software and the Zone Alarm Security Suite firewall/virus software.

One or the other (both?) has to go.

Thanks for all of your input on this ordeal.

Hey that's great news.

I would keep Zone Alarm, and go for another burning program.
I do extensive burning and can recommend Nero.
The freeware program Img Burn is also good for general burning and data copying.

Glad to hear that you've got it figured out.