Shamed by my X41

[vts]

Recently, when giving some talks, my X41 has shamed me. I have always boasted at how great the presentation software is but recently, on two occassions when connecting an LCD projector to my laptop, the laptop crashed. I can't remember the specifics of each time, but do have a few details. the projector may have been powered up already at the time of connection once, but not the other time. One time, it appeared that the projected screen was skewed, but "behind" it was a normal screen. The monitor on the laptop had a normal display. Moreover, it appeared that the projector kept cycling on and off...looking for the right signal. This has occurred on two separate occassions.. about two months apart on two separate projectors. BUT... when the computer crashes, it takes FOREVER to reboot. I know that I could reinstall the OS.. but this seems like a pain and I am not sure about the performance gains.
Moreover, I get heckled by some Mac afficionados that I should make the switch to Mac.

Anyway... has anyone had any problems w/ LCD projectors causing their system to crash?

Anyone have any suggestions?

Should I bite the bullet and reinstall the OS?

Thanks

[K0LO]

vts:

I know that my comment won't win any friends around here, but your experience with the X41 is similar to mine with the X41T. The factory preload on the X41T was - and I don't know how else to say this - defective. All of them are; we have more than a dozen at work, and they are horribly unreliable (I'm talking about software reliability; the hardware has been superbly reliable for me at least). The machine would lock up on me about once per week, and for some reason it seemed to know when I was standing in front of a group giving a presentation because it would always pick those moments to lock up or crash; never when I was alone in the office.

Absolutely, yes, you should reinstall Windows. I did that 2 years ago and the machine has been 100% reliable since then, and it boots 5 times faster and it runs a whole lot better. Reinstalling Windows and avoiding most of the buggier Lenovo apps (Presentation Director, Access Connections, Client Security, Rescue and Recovery, etc) made a huge performance improvement on my machine. Don't think twice; just do it. You won't regret it.

* Don't forget to make those recovery disks first in case something goes wrong or you want to restore to factory condition before selling.

[vts]

Thanks Mark,

I had read your post years ago and actually made the discs.... but never got around to it. I actually did unistall alot of the thinkpad software though (client security, resucue and recovery). I kept access connections b/c I thought it worked reasonably well and also presentation director since it (previously) never failed to make a good video connection to a projector. But, perhaps I'm just in a bad relationship, where I really don't want to admit the abuse I'm taking.

Do you have a current location for your re-install directions? Still at Tabletpcbuzz or now at gottabemobile?

[K0LO]

vts:

The instructions are currently maintained at GottaBeMobile.com.

[BobA]

Does this apply to the X41 as well as the tablet? Thanks.

[K0LO]

BobA:

Yes, sort of. Since Windows XP CDs are considerably easier to acquire than XP Tablet Edition CDs you could just clean install XP on your X41.