Thinkpads Forum

T61 ThinkPad purchased on 4/18/08
T7500 - 2.2 Ghz
4Gb RAM
160 Gb 5400 HD
Intel X3100
Intel 802.11agn wireless
Intel Turbo memory
Vista Business 32

I have this T61 hooked up to an advanced mini dock. Since purchasing this computer about 1 out of every 20 startups the computer freezes up and I have to do a hard shutdown and restart. I feel it also takes too long to start up. Bluetooth and Digital Line Detect are the only programs listed under Startup. Anybody have any thoughts or is this a Lenovo question?

Does it do this only when attached to the dock or does it do it off the dock? Also have you checked the event logs (right click Computer-> Manage-> Events) for any indication of what is causing the hang up?

It also freezes up sometimes when it is not on the dock. I checked the event log and there were a total of 3,854 entries in the error log. There were five that were in triple digits as follows: The first one is Source: WMI, Log: Application and the number was 394. The second one is Source: CAPI2, Log: Application and the number was 435. The third one is Source: Service Control Manager Eventlog Provider, Log: System and the number was 424. The fourth one is Source: Service Control Manager Eventlog Provider, Log: System and the number was 926. And the fifth one was Source: HttpEvent, Log: System and it had 340 entries. I'm not sure what these mean but I'm just reporting the numbers. Anybody have any thoughts.?

I don't have Vista in front of me to take a look at what its Event Viewer looks like so I'll assume it looks fairly similar to XP. The Application and System event logs are the two you want to pay the most attention to. If you right click the errors and select Properties it will tell you the details of what went wrong. Also the Information and Warning events before and after the errors can also shed some light. Don't expect too much though as much of it will be in Microsoft speak. Note the time that the computer hangs and pay attention to only the events around that time as they will offer the most insight. Alternatively if it is a start up item use MSCONFIG (from a Run dialog) or download Autoruns from Sysinternals (google it). It will show you everything that starts during boot. You could also try putting Windows into Diagnostic mode from MSCONFIG and try restarting a bunch of times to see if it locks up.

I've read many reports from people that have problems with the "Intel Turbo memory". Maybe that's the culprit.

Two suggestions for the long start up time:
1. Maybe the wireless card is looking for an access point (Somewhere in Access Connection, if you are using this, there is an option to check whether a certain profile should be used during log-on (at least on XP, I don't know about Vista), uncheck that one and see whether it makes a difference).
2. Rather than shutting down your machine, put it in sleep or hibernate mode. Start up will be much much faster.