T61p freezes/locks up when on battery power

[ZeroVoid]

I got my T61p in September, and since day one it functions horribly when not plugged in. The slightest tap causes it to lock up. It then becomes unresponsive, and the only way to fix it is to hold the power button and force a shut down, or on more extreme cases, take the battery off. Just today I had the computer on my bed and I sat down beside it; this, of course, locked it up. I really don't know what the problem here is. It's become more the rule rather the exception lately. I am actually apprehensive of having it on battery power. Is this a normal issue? A known issue? Any suggestions on what to try? This is becoming increasingly frustrating.

Not sure if it's the same problem, but on battery power (go figure) when watching a DVD, it experiences random lag every once and a while. The DVD will stutter and slow to a crawl for a few seconds, then start up again. Once again, only on battery power.

Thanks everyone.

[ninjaronin18]

Have you checked power manager and set it to the right settings? Updated the BIOS? I'm guessing it's just a windows setting problem since it's fine when plugged in. If it's a hardware issue, contact a service provider to replace a part.

[A.K.A]

Check in BIOS if SATA is set to AHCI.

If yes, do you have Turbo Memory installed?

If TM is not present, do you have the Active Protection System running?

If one of those is the case, then it may very well be tied to the Intel Matrix Storage Manager, which is the AHCI controller involved in both TM and APS, and other stuff. It's got a lot of different functions.

It's known to cause problems with Active Protection System operation. That would explain the lock-ups when you're nudging it.

But one of the other things that MSM does when that service is running is to enable something called "Windows Hybrid Hard Disk Power Saving." That kicks in a lot when the battery is on. Basically, if this is what's at the root of it, your HDD controller is caching writes (either in RAM or in NAND -- via TM or via a "hybrid" NAND cache on your HDD) until it has to make a lot more of them. It's trying to save on head-thrashing, but it's locking up.

It's my best guess that the reason the two are related (APS and WHHDPS) is that the APS is telling everyone "These doors are closing NOW and this train is LEAVING the station." The cached info has not been written to disk yet, and APS tells the hard drive to instantly lock down, so the WHHDPS cache controller's response is, "WAIT! This data needs to be written before you can shut the drive down!" It's doing the PC equivalent of jamming a foot in the subway door.

I have heard that there's a way to disable WHHDPS, but I haven't been looking for it more than a day, and I wasn't yet able to find it in the T61p's power options.

The more obvious thing to do is to 1) update your BIOS and then 2) update your TM and MSM drivers. (MSM gets updated via a TM update if you have the TM. Make sure not to reboot between installing both of them.)

I got lock-ups with the HDD I/O light in the "on" position. I had to reinstall before I knew about this, so I'm not sure -- but out of curiosity, tell me if that's what's happening in your case.

This battery-only lockup is a known problem on X61s and T61s too. Just one of several threads on the subject:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthr ... 154&page=2

ZV, what Ultrabay devices do you have?

As to the DVD, it's not clear. That's also an I/O operation issue, over a legacy IDE signal that may be in conflict with AHCI mode, and if we find out that the above is what's ailing your T61p, then do me a favor and get as many specifics about that glitch, and record any details you find in this thread:
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=71823

It would be really helpful. This may be a defect in the ICH8M-E I/O Controller Hub architecture, and in Lenovo's IDE Ultrabay interfaces.

Thanks!

a.k.a.

PS: If I'm totally off the mark, then ignore what I just said! It's been a frustrating week with my T61p.

[ZeroVoid]

Check in BIOS if SATA is set to AHCI.

If yes, do you have Turbo Memory installed?

If TM is not present, do you have the Active Protection System running?

If one of those is the case, then it may very well be tied to the Intel Matrix Storage Manager, which is the AHCI controller involved in both TM and APS, and other stuff. It's got a lot of different functions.

It's known to cause problems with Active Protection System operation. That would explain the lock-ups when you're nudging it.

But one of the other things that MSM does when that service is running is to enable something called "Windows Hybrid Hard Disk Power Saving." That kicks in a lot when the battery is on. Basically, if this is what's at the root of it, your HDD controller is caching writes (either in RAM or in NAND -- via TM or via a "hybrid" NAND cache on your HDD) until it has to make a lot more of them. It's trying to save on head-thrashing, but it's locking up.

I have heard that there's a way to disable WHHDPS, but I haven't been looking for it more than a day, and I wasn't yet able to find it in the T61p's power options.

The more obvious thing to do is to 1) update your BIOS and then 2) update your TM and MSM drivers. (MSM gets updated via a TM update if you have the TM. Make sure not to reboot between installing both of them.)

I got lock-ups with the HDD I/O light in the "on" position. I had to reinstall before I knew about this, so I'm not sure -- but out of curiosity, tell me if that's what's happening in your case.

This battery-only lockup is a known problem on X61s and T61s too. Just one of several threads on the subject:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthr ... 154&page=2

ZV, what Ultrabay devices do you have?

As to the DVD, it's not clear. That's also an I/O operation issue, off of a PATA interface that may be in conflict with AHCI mode, and if we find out that the above is what's ailing your T61p, then do me a favor and get as many specifics about that glitch, and record any details you find in this thread:
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=71823

It would be really helpful. This may be a defect in the ICH8M-E I/O Controller Hub architecture, and in Lenovo's PATA Ultrabay interfaces.

Thanks!

a.k.a.

PS: If I'm totally off the mark, then ignore what I just said! It's been a frustrating week with my T61p.

Alright, so I did some reading around, and I turned off WHHDPS. I kind of bumped and picked up and dropped my laptop to see if it did anything, and it didn't lock up once. So hopefully that's what the problem was.

I do have Turbo Memory, and I do have the Active Protection system running.

As to upgrading my BIOS, I'm not really sure what version I have, or how to update it. I've tried downloading the BIOS updates before, but they didn't seem to work. I'm not really technologically literate at all, so is there a special method on how to update BIOS? Is there an easy way to check which version I have?

Hopefully that fixed the problem, but I would like to check the BIOS too while I'm at it. If any one can guide me through the process, that would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

EDIT: I'm not sure which UltraBay devices I have.. Whatever came with my computer, I suppose. I got it through my University and didn't really get to customize it too much. What are the possible devices it can have?

[A.K.A]

Glad to hear that made a difference!

Don't worry. You'll pick this stuff up by necessity, whenever things don't work as expected.

To get your system updated, there are two paths to take. Either you need to be running the ThinkVantage System Update program, which should have come installed, unless you installed your operating system fresh, or you need to install the updates manually. If you don't have SU installed, do it, as it'll save you a lot of hassle you don't have time for as a student. The steps below are the way you would find and install SU.

If for now you need to do this manually, just Google [T61p "drivers and software"], and it should bring up Lenovo's page for the T61p where you can get all the latest drivers, including BIOS updates. The only things you need to remember about updating drivers (if System Update isn't doing it), are
1. You need to actually read the Readme instructions. Some have peculiar steps that need to be taken to get them installed.
2. Installing drivers is always a two-step process. First you click on the Lenovo extractor to unpack them. Then you go to the new location and run setup, and usually reboot. That actually installs the new drivers. The first without the second doesn't do squat.

We'll get to BIOS in a second. First, update SU if you need to, and then check what version of the Matrix Storage Manager you have. Go into your Start Menu --> All Programs --> Intel Matrix Storage Manager --> double-click to launch --> Help --> About. The version number is in the lower left hand corner. Then go to the Lenovo drivers webpage I just mentioned, click on either 64-bit or 32-bit depending on your OS, and check the version seen there. (Current x64 version is 8.6.0.1007.) If you need to update it, DON'T install the MSM package. (You just need the version number off the MSM driver versions page.) Instead, look for the Intel Turbo Memory driver package at the same website, and download and unpack that. It SHOULD unpack both the updates for ITM and for MSM simultaneously -- Doing both simultaneously is the way of updating that is much less likely to flake out on you. What I don't remember is whether that driver setup installs both ITM and MSM at once, or makes you do them one at a time. Maybe you should find and run both setups, just in case. If it's done that way, DON'T REBOOT between the ITM and MSM setups. Exit without rebooting ... and finish the second setup ... then reboot.

The last thing you should make sure to update right now is your Active Protection System driver version. Open the APS console and look for it, and verify it against the version on the drivers website.

Finally, BIOS.

At the same website, you'll see the BIOS update. If you're running x64, you'll need to download the ISO version, and burn a CD. (If you're not living under a rock, I assume you know how to burn an ISO file to a CD, but if not, just download ImgBurn, and look for the instructions.) It's easiest to do the ISO update for 32-bit OSes as well.

BEFORE you do the BIOS update -- are you up to date on Windows Update? Make sure you are. There are some updates that will prevent a fatal error when you run a BIOS flash.

Then follow the directions in the BIOS readme VERY carefully. If you have ANY questions as you're preparing, post here, and I'll follow up. You can't afford to screw up a BIOS flash, because you'll make your PC unusable.

The BIOS instructions will also tell you how to find what version you are running, but it's something you should check on now, so the way you find it is: Restart, and immediately as you see the ThinkPads screen, press F1. That gets you into the BIOS configuration utility, where you can have a look around at the options. They won't make perfect sense, but you'll be more familiar with what is going on if you browse it a bit. Just don't touch any of the settings. The BIOS config utility will give you information like your version number and date, which will doubtless be old now. You can also check -- BUT DON'T EVEN TOUCH -- the "SATA" setting in BIOS. (Even toggling the setting may commit changes when you don't want to.) It should be in AHCI, because otherwise you wouldn't be having these issues. But it's good to leave it in AHCI if it runs stably, and if not, don't change the setting until you have clearly followed the rest of this post below. There's a particular procedure you need to keep in mind when doing so.

Now, let me back up, and just clarify what in heck is going on to cause your problem, in case it wasn't clear. You may well experience a lot of other symptoms that are all bound up one way or another in the Input/Output (I/O) controller that Intel supplied for the T61p.

You probably know that SATA is a new generation interface for hard drives and other input/output (I/O) devices. It's theoretically tons faster than interfaces like USB 2.0. There is SATA 1.5, SATA II, SATA 3.0 -- just different flavors of the same I/O interface that's so fast, it doesn't much matter what version people are talking about. USB 2.0 runs at a maximum of 40 MB/s data transfer speed, while in theory, SATA will do 150 MB/s or 300 MB/s. The constraint there is actually how fast hard drives can run, which, in the case of notebooks, is well under that. Sustained write speeds by hard drives max out at 70 MB/s ish.

PATA, or ATA, or IDE, or EIDE are different ways of talking about the previous generation of interface. (Parallel as opposed to Serial ATA.)

The Ultrabay is the swappable bay you have on your T61p. Right now, you have your DVD burner in it. You can take that out and put a second internal hard drive in that bay. The main reason is because it might back your data up off your main internal HDD a little faster than if you connected a backup HDD externally.

Turns out it doesn't. What I got so worked up about is that Lenovo advertised the T61p's Ultrabay as a SATA interface, but it's actually an IDE interface. You put SATA drives in it, and they connect at IDE-emulation speeds.

What's managing all of this is what's called an I/O Controller Hub (ICH) on the "Southbridge" chip on your motherboard. The Southbridge handles things like I/O and devices like your LCD. The Northbridge is more the system operations itself -- RAM controllers, and so on.

Here's the last piece: When PATA (the physical connector for IDE) is good and obsolete, all the SATA I/O will be done via a protocol called AHCI, which is a setting that you enable in your BIOS. (And BIOS is just the "firmware" for your laptop -- the basic, permanent programming the machine needs to physically run.) Because Lenovo had a lot of PATA-generation hardware to sell (like your DVD burner), in the T61p, it decided to go with an Intel ICH that had backwards-compatible IDE emulation, called, naturally, Compatibility Mode. And the chip that Intel supplied is having a hard time negotiating between SATA and IDE, hence the jittery performance of your DVD. If you see more symptoms -- like Windows Blue Screens of Death (BSODs), you'll probably be running into issues that have to do with the ICH8M-E chip design, which is, AFAICT, defective.

Updating your BIOS and the Matrix Storage Manager that's trying to juggle SATA and IDE devices at the same time might help. At that point you could experiment with turning the hybrid power thingy on again, since some people seem to think things are better now, but you might not find the updates have solved this.

If you find you're having other serious problems, there is one troubleshooting step you need to take now so that you can get help in other forums. There are a couple of other settings involved (turning the pagefile on, and ensuring it does a kernel memory dump on system failure), but Vista sets them perfectly by default. This is the only one you should do manually now.

1. Disable Vista from rebooting when you get a BSOD. That gives you time to write down the numbers and system errors referenced on the BSOD error screen. The way you do that is: Control Panel --> System and Maintenance --> System --> [left margin] Advanced System Settings --> Startup & Recovery Settings --> System Failure --> UNCHECK automatically restart.

If the errors are giving you BSODs, you can go in to BIOS and disable AHCI, and run your T61p in Compatibility Mode, and you should immunize yourself from all of this. The advantage is that it will clear up almost all your bugs. The drawbacks are specific: First, you lose the Active Protection System, which is an incredible gadget that monitors the physical movement of your laptop, and has lightning reflexes that brace your hard drive for any accidental fall to the ground. It's GREAT stuff! The other things are less critical: You lose your Turbo Memory, which does very little to begin with. Your SATA drives run a little slower. Your battery life will be a little shorter. That's about all. Keep your fingers crossed.

One other thing that you need to know: If you do decide to go into Compatibility Mode within BIOS instead of AHCI to gain some stability, just know that it's crucial you not even toggle the switch back to AHCI. If you do, you won't be able to boot Vista. It's BAD. The simple precaution is to follow directions in a Microsoft article that you can Google, called KB922976. That tells you to change one numerical value inside Vista, and you're good to go. What happens is that when Vista is running in IDE mode, it disables the device driver bits that allow it to operate in AHCI mode, they say in order to boost IDE performance. (Whatever.) You need to tell Vista it needs to load the drivers before flipping that switch in BIOS.

As they say, "HTH!"

a.k.a.

[ZeroVoid]

Alright, so all my other stuff was up to date. Now, about the BIOS update, is it possible that I might ruin my computer? I mean, I'm not that proficient with computers by any means. I don't want to take the risk that I wreck my laptop, because I need it every day. If there's little to no chance of harming it, I'll go ahead, but I don't want to do something wrong and end up with a useless computer. Thank you so much for the help though, that post by A.K.A. was exactly what I needed.

[Marin85]

Just two points:
1. If Vista is installed in AHCI mode, you can toggle between AHCI and Compatibility in BIOS whenever you want to. If Vista is installed while in Compatibility mode, this isn´t anymore the case and any attempt to change back to AHCI will result in BSOD at boot.
2. Just toggling between AHCI and Compatibility resp. running in Compatibility Mode won´t affect Active Protection System.

[A.K.A]

Oh good! So you're in business again!

Hey, by the way, your university supplied you with an anti-virus setup, I hope? If not, you want one, like AVG (or the Microsoft free one when it comes out late this year.) And a good place to for that kind of general info is DSLReports.com's security forum.

Marin's right to say that, by the way. You're not going to do yourself in the minute you glance at the SATA setting in BIOS. I was stressing not touching SATA's AHCI setting because, in my experience, the Lenovo BIOS commits changes as soon as you exit the SATA submenu, even if you stay inside the BIOS utility. (There's a very long pause as you exit, while it digests the new settings). If you go back in there, you can reset, but I would be cautious about potential signs of instability from committing changes, however briefly.

Now, onto ... the Dreaded BIOS.

ZV, I disclaim responsibility for any ineptitude on your part!



But, seriously, it's straightforward, and when you've done it once, you'll have no worries about doing it the next time you need to. If something goes awry, it's either because you got distracted, or, more likely, because your hardware is possessed. It's kind of like jumping off the highest diving board at the public pool. If you don't belly flop, it'll be painless.

1. Now, this isn't meant as an insult, but I don't want to deter questions either. Are you OK burning an ISO to disc -- because there's a difference between burning "the ISO file" to disc, which is like making a copy, and burning "the ISO image" to disc, which is making it "launchable" -- which is what you're looking for. So you're just opening the burner, locating and loading the ISO from the file menu, and using the "burn as image" option, whatever that may be in your program. If the menus in the burner you're using are ambiguous, try grabbing a music ISO off of the web and experimenting burning that. Probably the last thing you want to fool around with is popping a BIOS disc in your PC while it's running to check whether you configured it right.

2. You also want to print out the Readme. Your computer needs to be off when you boot the ISO, so you need to have the directions handy to convince yourself of what you're doing.

3. You also definitely want to have your TP plugged in, with battery in too, while you're doing it. (Don't skimp on the battery part, lest it confuse the CPU about the resources associated with it while it's getting its brain transplanted.)

See you on the other side!

a.k.a.

PS: Hey, by the way, I almost forgot! I need your help on something here too! What's the path you followed to find the "disable hybrid power" option?

[ZeroVoid]

Alright, I've printed off the Readme, and I think I'll give it a shot tomorrow or in a few days, as it's late here and I've got class early tomorrow. And of course I won't hold you responsible for me being next-to-useless with computers.

Yes, my school did supply me with anti-virus software (Sophos Anti-Virus); so far it seems alright, nothing special. It has a few trojans in quarantine, but seems unable to do anything about them, which is irritating but nothing to worry about.

And the pathway I followed was....

Start-->Control Panel-->Mobile PC-->Power Options-->Change Plan Settings (for whichever plan you're using)-->Change Advanced Power Settings-->Hard Disc (expand)-->Windows Hybrid Hard Disc Power Savings Mode (expand)--> On Battery=Disabled

That seemed to solve the problem for now; we'll see if I muster up the courage to give the BIOS update a shot! I've done burn image to disc things before, so I think I'll be fine.

Thanks again for the help; you've been great!

[A.K.A]

Glad to be of service.

It was a lucky guess this time, but just message me if you run into anything, and we can take another look at it.

Regards,

a.k.a.

[Marin85]

Oh good! So you're in business again!

Hey, by the way, your university supplied you with an anti-virus setup, I hope? If not, you want one, like AVG (or the Microsoft free one when it comes out late this year.) And a good place to for that kind of general info is DSLReports.com's security forum.

(Was that for me or for ZeroVoid?)