X60s with Windows 8.1: standard volume/mute buttons

[dandreye]

Hi All,

Are standard volume/mute buttons supposed to work on X60s running Windows 8.1? I recall having them work with Windows 7 before (due to Lenovo's Hotkey Feature Integration pack I suppose), and now that I'm on 8.1 they don't, at least with Hotkey version 3.81.0100 from 8jvu23ww.exe. The reason for using that particular Hotkey version is that it seems to be the last one with Fn+F5 invoking the old style wireless connectivity menu. Wondering if that effective comes at the expense of the volume/mute buttons in question or perhaps there's still a way to get them working too.

Thanks in advance!

[TPFanatic]

X60s volume buttons are supposed to control a hardware volume level, its generation (T60,R60,X60,Z61) is the last to do this. So I don't know if you will even see an effect from the OS. But I've never tried machines that old with newer Windows than 7.

[dandreye]

TPFanatic: Well I would've happily stayed on W7 but W7 isn't that Bluetooth-friendly while W8.1 is fine for my BT needs. Meanwhile W10 is way too heavy: just gone back down to W8.1 from W10 22H2 because of that.

[TPFanatic]

Do the volume buttons really have no effect on the actual volume output of the laptop? It's supposed to even control the low level power control and keyboard beeps.

You could try verifying all vcredists and .net frameworks are installed, the Hotkey Features are ancient software and I understand newer Windows may not include the older net framework by default. Might have to go into Programs And Features and enable 3.5. I'm speculating tho.

Even with a newer version of hotkey features you can still customize what programs are opened by the key combinations. You can save the older versions of the hotkey executables and just replace new installed versions with the old ones.

[dandreye]

Do the volume buttons really have no effect on the actual volume output of the laptop? It's supposed to even control the low level power control and keyboard beeps.

No effect whatsoever to my surprise, hence wondering what exactly "breaks" them if they're supposed to control the HW directly, thereby bypassing the OS if I got it right...

You could try verifying all vcredists and .net frameworks are installed

I found some CLI to check the .net versions installed yesterday (for an unrelated reason though) and saw a long output incl 3.5 and several 4.x, so I guess this one's fine. Unsure about vcredists though - will have to google it.

You can save the older versions of the hotkey executables and just replace new installed versions with the old ones.

That'd be great if it kept my Fn+F5 and a few more currently working Fn+Fx operational... will try 3.89.100 this way then.

[dandreye]

Do the volume buttons really have no effect on the actual volume output of the laptop? It's supposed to even control the low level power control and keyboard beeps.

Sorry just figured out I shared somewhat wrong observations earlier. All 3 those buttons - at least with HotKey Features Integration package v3.89.0100 installed now - actually do affect the volume and it's just not signalled in any way: no black Lenovo indication (which was there with W7 on this X60s before the upgrade), no OS indication, and even no beeping, which altogether made me think nothing's happening when pressing them. When I bring up the OS volume scale and press those buttons there's no volume indicator movement up/down the scale and no mute box checking/unchecking, which proves that the HW is controlled directly w/o the OS awareness. I really liked black Lenovo indication with W7, so wondering if it can also be had with W81 somehow... Other observations meanwhile:
- adjusting screen brightness with Fn+Home/End works fine: the screen brightness changes and the indication about it shows up in a black vertical bar near the upper left corner, which looks like the OS indication as I recall seeing something more reminiscent of black Lenovo indication with W7
- Fn+PgUp lits the KB downlight in the screen lid but there's no Lenovo indication that was there with W7
- Several Fn+F1-12 combinations work fine: Fn+F2 locks the screen, Fn+F3 calls preso mode menu, Fn+F4/F12 calls sleep/hybernation resp., Fn+F5 surprisingly calls big black Lenovo menu with WiFi/BT radio buttons and airplane mode, Fn+F6 calls Power Manager, Fn+F8 calls Trackpoint settings.

So I guess the hot key functionality as such is fine and just the On-Screen Display for it is broken, right? My current OSD version is 6.73.01.

Does anyone using their X60/X60s with W81 have OSD working properly?

[TPFanatic]

I have 10 Pro 22H2 installed on my X60s. I installed Hotkeys v3.81 and PM Driver, I have the Win 7 style OSD and the Mute button does software Mute.

[dandreye]

I have 10 Pro 22H2 installed on my X60s. I installed Hotkeys v3.81 and PM Driver, I have the Win 7 style OSD and the Mute button does software Mute.

Nice one: thank you. I previously tried W10 22H2 on it too for a while (build 19045.2846) but it seemed somewhat too heavy for this HW and started giving BSODs at some point, so it had to go. Can't remember if I had any OSD there unfortunately... but the fact W7 style OSD is possible even with W10 is very encouraging.

[TPFanatic]

I agree, 10 is very heavy. I find most of that weight/bloat is in the automated updating and telemetry services, not just in Windows but also in all the contemporary consumer apps built around this model, including Lenovo Vantage which is the only way I found to get charge thresholds in Windows 10 32 bit on this hardware. I have turned most(/all?) the telemetry off but there's still so much CPU utilization. A lot of it is in software rendering of the Desktop, such a massive and unnecessary power draw for an ultraportable. Even with Chell 1.8b drivers, GMA 945 must be missing something for Metro. And I thought Ubuntu Unity was bad.

I read Windows 8.1 is one of the fastest, lightest, and most stable Windows releases. I believe it also works with Wifi 6e, while 7 doesn't. Best of luck with your experiment. I'm going to stick with Windows 7 on my X60s and/or Linux.

[dandreye]

Wondering if something like Broadcom BCM(9)70015 aka AzurWave AW-VD920H would help X60s with the graphics unless it's targeted purely at video? I tried such card in one of my X61s's (not X60s) in the past and eventually managed to see some CPU load improvement when watching video(s) that were advised in my thread on it here: https://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=122323. Unfortunately my X60s is lacking the "WWAN" connector on the MB and I'm not good at soldering electronics that tiny, so can't give it a try myself.

Will report here on my progress with the OSD for W81 if I get anywhere with it. Perhaps rolling the HotKey package back down to v3.81 to match yours is a good starting point. Any chance to confirm yours comes from Lenovo package 8jvu23ww mentioned in the table at the end here? https://support.lenovo.com/gb/en/downlo ... 0-thinkpad

[TPFanatic]

Yes, that's the version 3.81. 8jvu23ww.exe I find that is the optimal version for ThinkPads with the 7 row keyboard.

Even if our X60s had the WWAN port, be advised there is no PCIE lane in that port on X60s, only USB. Maybe the Azurewave would work in the WLAN slot, which has PCIE, but then you'd need an alternate WLAN (for example Cardbus).

Just best not to use too graphical an OS.

[dandreye]

Yes, that's the version 3.81. 8jvu23ww.exe I find that is the optimal version for ThinkPads with the 7 row keyboard.

Thank you for checking it. I have the same one on my T42 and T43 (with W7 on both) and it's working fine there incl OSD. According to my research that's the last version before W8.x support was added.

Even if our X60s had the WWAN port, be advised there is no PCIE lane in that port on X60s, only USB. Maybe the Azurewave would work in the WLAN slot, which has PCIE, but then you'd need an alternate WLAN (for example Cardbus).

I thought X61s has no PCIe lanes either (many wanted to use SSDs in their WWAN port/slot) but can now see it mentioned specifically wrt X60s in that thread: https://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.p ... 09#p789909 . Looks like X61s is still different as the card did work in the WWAN slot/port of mine back then.. (MT 7667-Y24)

[axur-delmeria]

I thought X61s has no PCIe lanes either (many wanted to use SSDs in their WWAN port/slot) but can now see it mentioned specifically wrt X60s in that thread: https://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.p ... 09#p789909 . Looks like X61s is still different as the card did work in the WWAN slot/port of mine back then.. (MT 7667-Y24)

The X61 and its variants (X61s and X61 Tablet) has a single PCIe lane on the WWAN slot because the Turbo Memory card requires it.

[dandreye]

The X61 and its variants (X61s and X61 Tablet) has a single PCIe lane on the WWAN slot because the Turbo Memory card requires it.

There we go: thanks for the clarification!

[TPFanatic]

wanted to share that I don't believe 10 22H2 at all uses GMA 945 acceleration. Running the vintage DX7 3D game (Airfix Dogfighter) stutters and drops frames in Win 10, while it is fully smooth in Win 7, as expected for fully supported OS/hardware combination. I think this ties into dwm high CPU utilization in Win 10 compared to normal/low utilization in Win 7. I can't speak for 8.1 as I've actually never used the OS on anything. For those who have, like OP, I am curious how does 8.1 compare to 7 with graphics acceleration on this ancient hardware?

[dandreye]

I am curious how does 8.1 compare to 7 with graphics acceleration on this ancient hardware?

I could run some graphics test on my W81 if that helps at all? Please just let me know which particular one, ideally something with numerical results: being 0% into gaming and movie watching I have no references to compare it with. If such test uses nothing else like the disk (mine's an X25-M G2 with seq read speed capped at SATA1 by the 945GM chipset if it does) then comparing your results and mine should be meaningful.

[TPFanatic]

Well this is hardly a scientific test but I ran 3dmark2000v11 (did not register) once on Win 7 (connected to network) and then once on Win 10 (disconnected from network to avoid any telemetry skew).

Win 7 scored 6414 3dmarks while Win 10 scored 1076 3dmarks.

During the Win 10 tests there was excessively bad frame loss.

Both OSes have the Chell 1.8b drivers installed if that makes things better or worse.

edit for images:
Gallery: https://postimg.cc/gallery/PkqtYyQ/ac340cf5

Win 7 result:


Win 10 result:


Downloaded 3dmark2000 from here: https://www.guru3d.com/files-details/3dmark-2000.html


edit to elaborate what I'm even trying to seriously do with my X60s laptop:

I desire a compact machine for mobile office tasks (email, document writing, and document editing). This is my most compact machine with its 4 cell, so I favor it. I will be upgrading the X60s to 1400x1050 IPS because the 768p TN hurts my eyes. My alternatives are an X200s with 1440x900 and 6 cell or my X330 with 2560x1600 and 9 cell. X200s is lighter, X330 is heavier. X60s gets the worst battery life and it will get worse with the IPS upgrade. X200s has broken latches and X330 has no latches, and due to the screen mod is the most fragile. X330 is the fastest with i7 quad and seems to handle everything. X60s is slow, but usable. Due to scarcity these all wind up being somewhat valuable laptops with X330 being the one I would prefer the least to get stolen. But my tastes are too fine to use anything other than a classic ThinkPad (I had a cheap Yoga 260 and I didn't like it). I need my IBM engineering!!!

The other use case we're attempting is to use the Ultrabase serial port to talk to our car.

Big appreciation to Mozilla for keeping Firefox supported on Windows 7 and supporting extensions.

[dandreye]

My W81 with standard video driver scored 5344 in turn, and I didn't notice any issues whatsoever while it was displaying all those games:


W10 is too bad for this kind of stuff then..

[TPFanatic]

Well that looks mighty excellent. I know midway through 10's life cycle, Metro graphics were reworked which killed 3rd party themes, I conject if the graphical incompatibility with ancient hardware coincides? In any case I will definitely consider 8.1 if I want to take advantage of 802.11ax in Windows.

Thank you!

[axur-delmeria]

I read somewhere that later builds of Windows 10 removed support for some legacy drivers. Either this is what causes the lower score with the X60s, or just additional bloat (telemetry, excessive background processes, etc.).

[dandreye]

Hi @TPFanatic, All:
Looks like once I manually start tposdsvc.exe under C:\Program Files\Lenovo\HOTKEY my OSD starts working (until shutdown/reboot) for all actions: volume up/down/mute, brightness up/down, keyboard downlight on/off. I guess the root cause in my case is just some kind of failure to autostart tposdsvc.exe during boot up assuming such attempt is ever made. Could anyone with working OSD please check how exactly it autostarts in your Windows? I suppose I can mimic that in mine somehow as a workaround.

[TPFanatic]

Just took a look in services.msc on my X230 running Windows 7:

"On Screen Display" Service is set to start "Automatically" (no further elaboration) and it has a "Dependency" on the "Lenovo PM Service".

The path to executable is "C:\Program Files\LENOVO\HOTKEY\TPHKSVC.exe"

"Lenovo Hotkey Client Loader", "Lenovo Microphone Mute", and "On Screen Display" are the Services that Depend on "Lenovo PM Service".

The path to executable is "C:\Windows\system32\ibmpmsvc.exe"


For Hotkey Features Integration I have currently installed:

Lenovo Auto Scroll Utility 1.11
Lenovo System Interface Driver 1.05
On Screen Display 6.71.00


For Lenovo Power Management Driver I have current installed:

1.67.04.05 (from Programs and Features)
Driver Version 1.67.16.42 (from Device Manager)


X60s is put away I'll take a look what it's doing in its Win 10 environment next week.

[dandreye]

Just took a look in services.msc on my X230 running Windows 7:

Thanks much! My X60s-W81 services look exact same wrt HotKey/OSD then. I also noticed that when the issue is there the following processes are missing in my Task Manager > Processes view:
- "On screen display drawer" (pointing at file TPONSCR.exe under C:\Program Files\Lenovo\HOTKEY\)
- "On screen display message generator for ThinkPad "(pointing at file TPOSDSVC.exe under C:\Program Files\Lenovo\HOTKEY\)
As soon as I start tposdsvc.exe the latter of these 2 makes it there first, followed shortly by the former one, and the OSD starts working.
I bet your X230-W7 already has them both up and running in the Task Manager > Processes: e.g. my T42-W7 with the working OSD does.

As a w/a I just placed a shortcut to tposdsvc.exe under C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\StartUp\ to have it autostart by the OS for all users: this way it autostarts fine.
That'll do for now, although it'd still be nice to find out one day why it won't autostart on its own like in W7 (and earlier ones).

[TPFanatic]

I had a chance to look at the X60s' Win 10 22H2 environment as well and here's how things look:

under services.msc:

Lenovo PM Service
Path to executable: "C:\Windows\System32\ibmpmsvc.exe"
Startup type: Automatic
Dependencies: none
Services that depend on Lenovo PM Service: Lenovo Hotkey Client Loader, On Screen Display

Lenovo Hotkey Client Loader
Path to executable: "C:\Program Files\LENOVO\HOTKEY\TPHKLOAD.exe"
Startup type: Automatic
Dependencies: Lenovo PM Service
Services that depend: none

On Screen Display
Path to executable: "C:\Program Files\LENOVO\HOTKEY\TPHKSVC.exe"
Startup type: Automatic
Dependencies: Lenovo PM Service
Services that depend: Lenovo Microphone Mute


Hotkey Features Integration Setup shows:
Lenovo Auto Scroll Utility version 1.11
Lenovo System Interface Driver version 1.05
On Screen Display version 6.62.01 (this is older than what my X230 uses)
ThinkPad FullScreen Magnifier version 2.40


Lenovo PM Device Driver Properties:
Driver Date 11/6/2019
Driver Version 1.67.16.42


What happens if you reinstall Lenovo PM Device? How about Net Framework 3.5? And after everything, what about an uninstall and reinstall of Hotkey Features 3.81?

[dandreye]

I had a chance to look at the X60s' Win 10 22H2 environment as well and here's how things look:

Thank you - here are mine meanwhile, from package v3.89.0100 not v3.81.0100 though (as I decided to move up to 3.89 after getting Fn+F5 to work with it somehow):

Hotkey Features Integration Setup shows:
- Lenovo System Interface Driver version 1.05 (same as yours)
- On Screen Display version 6.73.01 (vs your 6.62.01)
- ThinkPad FullScreen Magnifier version 2.42 (vs your 2.40)

Lenovo PM Device Driver Properties:
- Driver Date 15/02/2017
- Driver Version 1.67.12.23 (vs your 1.67.16.42)

Reinstalling the above Lenovo PM device didn't help. Checked NET 3.5 again - this time in the registry, and can see a few signs of its presence such as Install=1 and version 3.5.30729.4926 (3.5SP1).
I had previously checked for its presence at the beginning of this thread using some CLI in cmd.exe or Powershell and saw several entries with 3.5 in the rather long output. Could try reinstalling it too, just thinking if it were corrupt how would it possibly work with my w/a. Will try reinstalling the HotKey itself hopefully tomorrow as I wanted to re-test its clean install myself anyway.

I also checked in my T42-W7 the following registry entries mentioned here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windo ... istry-keys:

Code: Select all

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce

and didn't find any signs of HotKey/OSD in any of them (one post on the Internet claims that tposdsvc.exe starts from there). So I'm now somewhat at a loss for how exactly tponscr.exe and tposdsvc.exe are started on a working platform. One particular surprise is that on my T42-W7 they're both showing up in Task Manager as started from under my user name and not SYSTEM, while neither of them can be spotted in those registry entries and at the StartUp path for my user and all users. My only guess is that they're started by one of those 2 services - Lenovo Hotkey Client Loader (TPHKLOAD.exe) or On Screen Display (TPHKSVC.exe).

[dandreye]

It turns out Hotkey v3.89.0100 was the culprit. My observations:
- Installing v3.89.0100 from scratch goes seemingly successful (no warnings or errors) but neither Fn+Fx nor OSD works
- Installing v3.81.0100 from scratch goes truly successful despite an initial compatibility warning: both Fn+Fx and OSD work fine out of the box

I now recall that I had previously managed to make v3.89.0100 work purely by chance: installed v3.81.0100 first, and only then v3.89.0100 (IIRC the latter one forced me to uninstall the components of the former before installing its own ones). And while the trick did make the v3.89.0100 Hotkey itself work (e.g. Fn+F5 with Airplane Mode atop the menu) it didn't help make OSD work before that easy w/a was found. Perhaps those who really want that Airplane Mode and slightly higher HotKey component versions can try following the pattern, but as I'm fine with Turn Off All Radios I'll stay with v3.81.0100 for now.

[TPFanatic]

Glad you got it sorted out!

Your experience mirrors mine with any machine older than the 6-row/**30/cs12 generation, I need to install 3.81, the newer versions don't work properly. Including on Windows 7.

[dandreye]

Glad you got it sorted out!

Thanks for all your help!