Thinkpads Forum

Could a memory parity error on a T60p be caused by a flaky wireless card? Recently I've been experiencing this error a number of times, and have updated most drivers. A diagnostic run by my repair tech showed no hardware malfunction, but I notice that my Thinkpad's Wifi connection drops out frequently. Sometimes the Thinkpad will start up without the Wifi icon lighting up, as is happening now. But the router is working...I'm connected through ethernet.

taichi wrote:

Could a memory parity error on a T60p be caused by a flaky wireless card?

No. Not by any stretch of imagination.

If you have Intel 3945ABG, your best bet is to replace it.

As for the parity error...RAM or VRAM are the most likely culprits.

Good luck.

What card would you replace it with that is white-listed for the T60p?

Any Atheros-chipped card, preferably 41U4782 or equivalent (42T0825 or 42T0827)...these are the only whitelisted "n" card for T60/p.

ajkula66 wrote:Any Atheros-chipped card, preferably 41U4782 or equivalent (42T0825 or 42T0827)...these are the only whitelisted "n" card for T60/p.

Those cards appear to be difficult to obtain. Because I only have a g router, I don't necessarily need an “n” card. Can you recommend any g cards there are whitelisted for the T60P?

Last night I had a conversation with a technician and he mentioned that duplicate files can trigger the same memory parity error. Have you ever heard that?

Thanks

taichi wrote:

Last night I had a conversation with a technician and he mentioned that duplicate files can trigger the same memory parity error. Have you ever heard that?

How would I say this politely...

He (or she) has absolutely no clue on what he/she is talking about. And you can quote me on that.

From MS:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/222973

And there's more...

http://forum.notebookreview.com/dell/92 ... crash.html

As for the wireless cards, see here under # 7:

http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/product ... D=PD012996

I downloaded Microsoft's Memory Test, burned the ISO to a CD, and tried to boot from it without success. I hit the Thinkvantage button at bootup, hit F12, chose the CD/DVD drive as startup...but no go. Restarted, booted to desktop. Restarted again hit F12..no go.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

Have you burned it as an ISO format?

ajkula66 wrote:Have you burned it as an ISO format?

Using Ashampoo, I believe I did. When examining the CD in my drive it says windiag, ISO file 298 kb. Is it possible I just made a copy of the ISO file on a CD rather than burning it as a bootable ISO?

I downloaded mtinst.exe from MS, double clicked, and then followed what I thought was the right procedure

taichi wrote:

Is it possible I just made a copy of the ISO file on a CD rather than burning it as a bootable ISO?

That's exactly what it sounds like to me.

Use Record Now to open the file and consequently burn it...

ajkula66 wrote: That's exactly what it sounds like to me.

Use Record Now to open the file and consequently burn it...

I initially used the wrong burning option in Ashampoo, thinking that I could simply burn the ISO image on my desktop using data copy. There's a specific option for ISO.

I found the Lenovo site confusing in that the wireless mcpcie g card is listed as PMX for my 2623 DDU...as
opposed to a longer standard model number. I can't find that model number under IBM/Lenovo parts.

I.T.Xchange, which is supposed to be a recommended site for older Thinkpads has this:
Lenovo ThinkPad 11a/b/g Wireless LAN Mini-PCI Express Adapter - 802.11b, 802.11a, 802.11g -FRU: 39T0499

Is the Lenovo version an Atheros, a relabelled Intel, or something else?

Thanks

Lenovo (and IBM before them) are always Atheros-chipped cards.

Have you ever dealt with I.T.Xchange? The Lenovo site directed me there regarding older Thinkpad parts.

No.

I have my own sources (on this very forum) which have never let me down when I needed a new part.

ajkula66 wrote:No.

I have my own sources (on this very forum) which have never let me down when I needed a new part.

Can you link me to your source for that part...the Lenovo Atheros 802.11 abg (bg) card?

Thanks

Just post a WTB ad in forum's Marketplace and someone will come to the rescue, I'm sure...

No. Not by any stretch of imagination.

If you have Intel 3945ABG, your best bet is to replace it.

As for the parity error...RAM or VRAM are the most likely culprits.

Good luck.[/quote]

I can't explain it, but I did have a memory parity error caused by an incompatible wi-fi card. First, I tried the usual RAM swapping and testing with no improvement. Then, I did a little research and found some reports of a wi-fi card causing this error on a T60, and I remembered that the last change I made was swapping an Intel N wi-fi card for a Broadcom N card. I swapped back the Intel card, and the parity errors went away.

andy2000 wrote: I can't explain it, but I did have a memory parity error caused by an incompatible wi-fi card. First, I tried the usual RAM swapping and testing with no improvement. Then, I did a little research and found some reports of a wi-fi card causing this error on a T60, and I remembered that the last change I made was swapping an Intel N wi-fi card for a Broadcom N card. I swapped back the Intel card, and the parity errors went away.

What a great forum... thanks to Bill.

Anyway, Andy 2000, I do really appreciate your post. It so happens that over the last few days I traced the memory parity error to the WiFi card. As soon as I disabled it in device manager, the error went away.

I then found out from Lenovo that they had had a problem with drivers on the Intel card, and issued a fix...originally for Windows 2000, Windows XP, and then for Vista:
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-67256

This last document refers to 11.05.0 API in the download... and I'm not sure whether that refers to the driver version. The earlier fix for Windows 2000/Windows XP referenced 10.5.1.89.

I have 11.5.0.32, which would appear to be the newest driver. Whether it is the appropriate driver, or something downloaded by Windows update in error, I do not know. But this current driver is not what caused the crash (this from 2006) but a 2010 driver from Windows Update, which I rolled back. (One vote here for updating rather than uninstalling-installing drivers).

I changed Windows Update for permission to install...so no more surprises. No more crashes now, but the wifi card works inconsistently, so I have definitely been thinking about a new card.

IBM/Lenovo (the same company that told me I could not install a 500 GB hard drive... ha ha) insisted that only the Intel 3945abg is appropriate for my T60P 2623 DDU.

I only have a g router, but I do want a card that will definitely work in my machine, whether it is a g card
or an n card... just one that works.

But the lesson here is that mpcie wireless cards CAN and DO cause memory parity errors, evidenced by my own experience, and the confirmatory information given to me by a Lenovo/IBM technician. This was a known issue.

Any advice about a trouble free card for my machine, and a source for it would be greatly appreciated.

So once again, thank you very much Andy2000. Your post was perfectly timed, as I was making calls about a new card as you posted.

And thanks to Bill Morrow for his website, one of the best run and useful forums of which I know.

Before I go any further into dissecting what has been written in this thread so far, here's what Lenovo themselves had to say at the linked page:

Note: There are many possible different sources for the same blue screen error message under the Microsoft Windows operating systems. Not all "NMI Parity Error" problems are caused by this one specific wireless driver issue.

It is a part of human nature to look for simple solutions, even when the problem at hand might be complex...here's my final take on this issue:

a) As much as andy2000's post is an interesting testimony of how he resolved his own (seemingly similar) problem, it is not really applicable to what was being discussed in this thread for the following reasons:

1) The initial problem came from dealing with a Broadcom "n" card and was resolved by switching back to an Intel "n" card, none of which were addressed by Lenovo's driver fix referenced above.

2) He was obviously using a "modded" BIOS since none of these cards is white-listed for T60/p. Once you enter that arena, all bets are off.

b) Google search shows an interesting thread on this very forum:

http://www.thinkpads.com/forum/viewtopi ... 6&start=30

If you read through archer6's posts, you'll see that the problem came back even after installing the suggested driver. You will also see that there are people who claim that they fixed the issue by installing the newer driver on Atheros-chipped (!) cards.

A lot of different threads/post can be found on a variety of forums concerning the given error, but not too many "one size fits all" solutions, even if one narrows the problem down to T60/p generation.

Why?

Because the solution is not so simple and obvious as people would like to believe. Swap the card and/or update the driver and you're good to go.

I'll be the first one to state that a defective card can cause BSOD, freeze the machine or prevent it from booting altogether. We've been seeing different guises of the same problem since the A2x/T2x generation.

However, a "memory parity error" by its very definition has nothing to do with an external (so to speak) device such as wireless card.

And it most certainly will *not* prevent the machine from completing the Freestone test you and I were talking about outside of this thread.

Bad video or chipset driver? Absolutely.

GPU in the early stages of failure - let's not even go there.

Tired, simply dirty or improperly seated fan - especially on a T60/p - any day of the week.

And there's more, in the RAM department.

Pick your culprit. Carefully.

It will not be the wireless card.

As for Lenovo...they say what they have to, for liability reasons. Your machine was shipped with 3945ABG, they are not allowed to suggest another option, although any card on the list that I linked in one of my previous posts will work. The same goes for 500GB hard drive - no T60/p was ever shipped with one, so they're not allowed to claim that it will work. IBM used the same approach back in the days...

Good luck.

ajkula66 wrote:...

And there's more, in the RAM department.

Pick your culprit. Carefully.

It will not be the wireless card.

...

I wouldn't have believed it either, but I saw it for myself, and the OP seems to have confirmed it. Somehow a defective, or incompatible wi-fi card (or driver) can cause this misleading Windows BSOD.

With the wifi card enabled (which I suspect may be failing) running the rolled back driver, I had my first memory parity error crash in days. At the time it happened my wifi icon went out, and when I restarted it was still off.

I disabled it in device manager, booted with no problem and reran the freestone video stability test, since the gpu was raised as a possible source of the problem.

When I first ran the stability test days ago, the computer crashed after 4 1/2 minutes, but I pondered the fact that my wifi card had been on and flickering during the test, and hence may have been the cause of the crash. So I decided to rerun the test today with no wifi enabled.

The freestone publisher says that if you run for 15-30 minutes with no artifacting that the card is okay. I ran it for 25 minutes just now, with no problems.

A mini pcie card is, I believe, connected to the system bus, and is not external like a USB wifi adapter. Moreover there are many other posts of people with non-Intel cards (and not running Thinkpads) who ran into the same error, until they disabled or replaced their cards.

I cannot believe that the IBM/Lenovo tech bulletin, detailing how mpcie card irregularities can trigger memory parity errors, is completely off the mark.

So I am looking for a new card replacement...either the IBM or Intel variant.