Thinkpads Forum

Hi,

I am currently a new owner of an x60s. There are a few problems with it. When I close the lid, the machine goes into some sort of suspend mode. Once I open the lid the machine takes time to go back to normal. The screen will flash(blink) and then pause for a while. Is there anyway to get rid of this phenomenon ?

Secondly is the active protection system really necessary. Are there any reviews on the web on how effective it is( i tried googling but i couldn't find anything useful). Is it actually sucking more energy out of the laptop?

restore to its factory setting using R&R or Press "ThinkVantage" button during Startup Screen.

tyanlion wrote:When I close the lid, the machine goes into some sort of suspend mode. Once I open the lid the machine takes time to go back to normal. The screen will flash(blink) and then pause for a while. Is there anyway to get rid of this phenomenon?

In "Control Panel -> Power Options", there is a setting that determines what a laptop does when you close the lid. Is it set to "Do nothing"?

tyanlion wrote:Secondly is the active protection system really necessary. Are there any reviews on the web on how effective it is( i tried googling but i couldn't find anything useful). Is it actually sucking more energy out of the laptop?

I don't think it sucks significantly more or loads the CPU too much. I'd just leave it on, for the extra safety.

tyanlion wrote:<snip>Secondly is the active protection system really necessary. Are there any reviews on the web on how effective it is( i tried googling but i couldn't find anything useful). Is it actually sucking more energy out of the laptop?

Given 2 choices, do you rather want to risk your HDD to crash or failure when it received some unknown shock or do you want to save that bit of electricity/energy?

That Active Protection System will NOT suck 10% or more electricity from your thinkpad. It only uses up to 1-2% of the electricity. I have no problem with my X60.

If you are using your thinkpad on public transport: NEL, SBS Transit or SMRT, you need that active protection system to protect your thinkpad HDD from shock. All HDD are prone to failures or crashes if not handled in a stable manner. Especially when some of the SBS Transit bus captains do not drive smoothly and like to step on gas and brake continuously and make the bus rock here and there. And the worse senario is when the bus captain keep stepping on the gas and make the bus go so fast like a shooting rocket and suddenly step on the brake because there is a traffic police or red light. Your HDD will not like this kind of shock!

If you are using your thinkpad at home/in the office on a stable table forever and not planning to use it while travelling, then it is fine for you to remove that protection utility.

Welcome to Thinkpad Forum, fellow singaporean...

HTH

Well i used my last acer laptop quite frequently on buses without the shock protection and its hd lasted for at least 1.5 years(infact it was ok when i sold it) so i was wondering if someone had a definitive test to see if this it really benefits. its not so much electricity cause music and videos will pause when aps is put into effect.


Going back to the lid issue yeah it is set to do nothing. either i install a new op system from scratch(i think not) to test out if it is a thinkpad software problem. When i close the lid on the bus and there is a jolt, winamp suspends operations and the only way to get it to operate again was to open the lid. so i am thinking a closed lid think pad is in some sort of weird semi suspend state

You can set the APS sensitivity to Low. But i will not advise you to use your thinkpad on the bus.

When I (very rarely) used my Thinkpad on the bus to play videos, the APS would cause stuttering, so I disabled it temporarily and reenabled it later.

Yeah i did that too but if aps is kicking in to the system that means the damage that is being done to the hd is substantial

Apparently after fidling around with it a lot i found the problem. the graphics driver is the cause of it. it has some sort of function to refresh the desktop when u open and close the lid of the x60s. On windows vista however the problems is not there. I tried to install the original intel drivers but it made the effect worse , now the desktop goes black instead of blinking when it returns

Please don\'t remove the APS utility. The amount of electricity used is so little. I prefer you to save that thing to protect your HDD with your important documents in it.