T61p/7ult Turbo Memory woes

[tannerj]

Hey guys,

Kind of a desperation measure at this point, as I've done rather exhaustive searching on this issue and haven't had any luck with a solution.

I had completely forgotten about Intel Turbo Memory until very recently. Did some digging on it, and it seemed like people were having decent enough luck with it as Windows 7 seems to handle readyboost/readydrive better than Vista did. After some digging and deliberation, I went ahead and purchased this guy: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000Q8 ... ss_product

I figured for the price it could be worth a little better performance (not expecting worlds of difference here) at least until I can afford to drop an SSD in here.

Got the memory, installed it, ran the latest driver from intel and bam! BSOD 0xD1 caused by ianvstor.sys about a minute into driver install.

Here's what I've tried:
-Tried driver from intel's site
-Tried driver from lenovo's site
-Updated BIOS to latest revision (I was 3 years behind, and boy did they fix alot with SATA controller performance!)
-Installer prompts my intel matrix storage manager version is newer than what bundles w/ the turbo memory driver. Tried allowing it to replace w/ older, tried installing newest version and removing
-Ran Intel's INF update utility for the chipset
-Put ATA operation to Compatibility from AHCI for the installation.
-Spare hard drive, clean install of 7. First thing out the door installing Turbo Memory driver. Nothing else loaded except for drivers Win7 had.
-Somebody somewhere mentioned disabling Wifi, so I did.

All to no avail.

Anyone have some ideas? I was thinking about trying a clean install and running lenovo system update to handle the driver install, but I don't know if that would make any difference.

Is this one of those situation where it's picky about where the card came from? Do I need to try getting one with the intel FRU or are they completely identical outside of a sticker?

I would greatly appreciate any help you guys can offer, it would be a bit annoying to have to send that guy back.

[Harryc]

I think your clean install then immediate update idea will work ...
http://communities.intel.com/thread/991 ... E.node7COM

[mixz1]

Could this be "white-list" BIOS situation?

[tannerj]

Well I gave the clean install->lenovo update idea a shot but to no avail. I've ripped out the little frustration for now, and I'll probably return it if no new solutions show up soon. Already spent too much time trying to get this thing working...

mixz1, not sure what you mean. I'm not overly familiar with the white-list BIOS thing, but I thought it was related to Wifi cards?

[Harryc]

Well I gave the clean install->lenovo update idea a shot but to no avail. I've ripped out the little frustration for now, and I'll probably return it if no new solutions show up soon. Already spent too much time trying to get this thing working...

mixz1, not sure what you mean. I'm not overly familiar with the white-list BIOS thing, but I thought it was related to Wifi cards?

No, I am positive that the person posting in that that thread meant to say run Microsoft Windows Update and not Lenovo System Update immediately after the fresh install.

[mixz1]

Well I gave the clean install->lenovo update idea a shot but to no avail. I've ripped out the little frustration for now, and I'll probably return it if no new solutions show up soon. Already spent too much time trying to get this thing working...

mixz1, not sure what you mean. I'm not overly familiar with the white-list BIOS thing, but I thought it was related to Wifi cards?

I think, repeat think, the the BIOS list applies to all cards, not just radios.

[Harryc]

I don't think it applies to Intel Turbo Memory cards (same thing with RAM), and if were on a BIOS whitelist it would post an error, not just BSOD.

[mixz1]

I don't think it applies to Intel Turbo Memory cards (same thing with RAM), and if were on a BIOS whitelist it would post an error, not just BSOD.

Point well taken. Thanks.

[Bánh mì]

I have a T61 with Intel Turbo Memory. Clean install W764 Ultimate. Turbo works without issues. Just use Lenovo System Update to update everything. I don't recall having to tweak anything.

[sjthinkpader]

Was the card in the left side slot? I think it only works in that slot.

[eyeland]

Did you ever have any succes with the TM module?
I am thinking of getting one myself as they are dirt cheap on ebay atm and since I've gotten a habit of exploring maximin-tweaks/mods/upgrades.
Furthermore, is it possible to use a 2gb or a 4gb TB in a T61?

I am toying with the idea of installing TM and/or a highspeed CF card (through PCMCIA CF reader) and thus trying to understand what options I have.

[tannerj]

I spent a frustrating amount of time on this, as you can see from my initial post. I gave up and sent it back to Amazon. It looks like some people have had success with it, but overall this was a giant waste of time for me. I'm just gonna take the performance I've got for now until I can afford an SSD, although I have been considering just doing one of the Seagate Momentus XT drives.

I guess worst case, these chips run about $30, it's worth giving it a shot, and if it doesn't work you can send it back. As far as I know you can only use the 1GB chip in the T61's

[eyeland]

ok, thanks, I'll try a 1gb module then as the "compatible" ones sell for 15$
Guess the Pcmcia+CF might end up being a better investement (3-5$ + an old CFcard

[Kamika007z]

The whitelisted BIOS only applies for wireless devices.

Ultimately, you don't need the turbo memory if you have an adequate amount of RAM.

I took my TM module out because it wasn't helping and would cause my machine to having a blinking cursor post BIOS for a while before the OS loaded... Did you ever have this issue?

[ThinkPadophile]

If you're looking for a performance boost but don't want to spring for an SSD just yet, there is another alternative: run Windows ReadyBoost (or, better yet, eBoostr) from one of the new, super-fast expresscard memory cards . These cards boast read speeds of 115 MB/s and write speeds of 65MB/s — in other words, they're nearly as fast as an SSD, particularly in T60 models that are hardware limited to SATA 1 speeds. They fit readily in the expresscard slot of any T6x laptop and don't protrude, so you'll never know it's there.

Although I now have an SSD on my T60p I used one of those cards for quite a while, and was very happy with it. I used eBoostr in place of Vista's ReadyBoost since eBoostr allowed me to pin applications to the disk cache, which ReadyBoost didn't.

The setup worked really well. The tests I ran showed that the memory card performed exactly as advertised. My subjective experience is that applications loaded almost as fast from the expresscard as they do from my SSD. Best of all, there were absolutely no compatibility and instability problems such as you experienced with TurboMemory. The only down side is that Windows boot times are not improved significantly since Windows doesn't recognize the memory card until it nears the end of its boot sequence. For that reason alone, and because I have only modest data storage needs, I'll probably stay with my SSD.

There are other benefits. Most importantly, you don't have to choose between storage capacity and performance. You can store your data on a big, inexpensive 5400RPM hard drive and experience virtually no performance loss on your commonly-used apps. Moreover, since you won't need more than 8GB for the disk cache, you'll have lots of space left over for file backups, file transfers, installing apps, or keeping sensitive files onboard. It's like having a second hard drive on your laptop, without having to give up the ultrabay slot. Regarding the data security issue, if you need to walk away from your laptop and worry about securing your data, simply remove the memory card and keep it in your pocket.

As I said, I was quite pleased with the setup and wouldn't hesitate to go back to it if needed.

[eyeland]

Mm, that is truly an interesting solution.
My thought was to do something similar with the CF cards as I only have PCMCIA and not expresscard installed.

[ThinkPadophile]

That would work, and CF cards would be much cheaper than expresscards. The key is to find a CF card with fast read/write characteristics. Most flash memory is terribly slow, and not much of an improvement over the hard disk drive. That's why TurboMemory and ReadyBoost generally don't provide much of a performance boost. The newer, high-speed flash memory changes the equation.

BTW, if your laptop has the 4-in-1 card reader, it might just have an expresscard (PCI-e) slot. However, if you can find a high-speed CF card, that would probably be cheaper and serve the function just as well.

[eyeland]

alas, I have the smartcard+pc-card slot (grrr)
My thought was to get a dirtcheap PCMCIA-CF adaptor and start by using one of my many sandisk extreeme3 CF that I have from my canon DSLR.

[eyeland]

the CF cards I have can only perform at 30mb/s which considerably slower than my momentus 7200 (roughly 70-90 mb/s at the center og the platter) but I am thinking that the lower accestime on the flash will make a difference?