X61s w. Vista Ultamte freezes regularly once battery powered

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gerdh · #1 Post by **gerdh** » Sat Feb 09, 2008 3:22 am

One of our X61s (7667-CTO) freezes regularly during operation in any of the battery powered power modes.

First, the respective application freezes (e.g. Office) and the task bar continues to react to mouse clicks for a while (however, the chosen app does not open its window and focus), then, the task bar itself freezes. Ctr. alt del never works at this stage and does not bring up the "security screen" and link to start task manager - the only chance is a hard reset by long-pressing the power button and rebooting the machine. (Vista: Grrr $%&@@!. XP ALWAYS launches task manager and allows to kill the hanging app. MS definitely used monkeys to code Vista.)

This behavior is not shown at all once powered by power supply in any of the power modes. Everything from BIOS to Lenovo apps to OS is "latest greatest" update status.

Frustrating. Any comment appreciated on where to start troubleshooting.

Gerd

#2 Post by **ryengineer** » Sat Feb 09, 2008 4:09 am

Do you have turbo memory installed on your machine by chance?

gerdh · #3 Post by **gerdh** » Sat Feb 09, 2008 8:09 am

actually, yes, the machine has turbo memory installed including the proper driver.

Gerd

timendres · #4 Post by **timendres** » Sat Feb 09, 2008 1:36 pm

I have seen this problem myself, and I find it very interesting that it only occurs when I am running Skype! Does the laptop in questoin run Skype?

gerdh · #5 Post by **gerdh** » Sat Feb 09, 2008 4:17 pm

Actually, I have skype installed, but use it rarely. the effect was aparent before I installed skype - so, I do not believe this is the culprit.

ryengineer brought up the question of turbo memory, is this an issue?

Gerd

spaznrq · #6 Post by **spaznrq** » Sat Feb 09, 2008 6:01 pm

I am experiencing the same issue as you describe with my friend's X61T (7764-CTO) with Vista Ultimate, though I believe it also happens when running on AC power.

Skype is not installed. It freezes with only Microsoft Office Word opened from a fresh reboot and wouldn't respond to the ctrl+alt+del. Intel Turbo Memory is part of this system, and I believe there is another thread in this forum with a fix to that issue that I am going to apply (though that one is described to having the BSOD popping up, which is what we're not experiencing here).

It would definitely help if there was a one-stop sticky with ALL the links and resources to Vista fixes that I can go to right after a fresh reformat, since this is what I do quarterly.

immaculate · #7 Post by **immaculate** » Sun Feb 10, 2008 1:13 am

i am experiencing the same issue with an X61s (7668CTO) w/turbo memory running Vista Ultimate. i am usually running firefox when the machine crashes. any ideas?

aaron

spaznrq · #8 Post by **spaznrq** » Sun Feb 10, 2008 2:54 am

Here's my update:

I ran the System Update and made the updates that seemed necessary without adding bloatware, installed updates from the Lenovo support site, and applied the turbo memory fix located in one of the threads in this forum. The system now runs smoothly with no hiccups.

Additionally, I disabled Vista's Defender and a few other things because the hard drive was constantly being accessed. After that, as well as a nice disk defragment using the Defraggler utility, the system runs quite smoothly... for now.

gerdh · #9 Post by **gerdh** » Sun Feb 10, 2008 3:19 pm

.. and it did it again... Following the comments in threads mentioned I manually installed the Turbo Memory Driver again despite Lenovo System Updates status "installed".

After some time, and, with Office Outlook running, the system hung again while editing an email. Word is the email editor. Frustrating.

How can a company provide XP / Office 03 for so many years and then ship the combination of Vista and Office 07? We all work for money to actually [i]improve [/i]things, right?

Gerd

faelnor · #10 Post by **faelnor** » Tue Feb 12, 2008 5:39 pm

I have the exact same problem on my X61t (7764 CTO).
Firefox would seem to be involved more than often but I'm positive that it happened last time with only PDF Annotator open.

noetus · #11 Post by **noetus** » Tue Feb 12, 2008 5:54 pm

I also have this problem with my Thinkpad X61 tablet. I mostly use it for annotating pdf files (the point for me of having a tablet) and it usually crashes in a sort of progressive way (first the app, then other apps, then the entire windows system, requiring hard reset) as described above.

This happens several times a day, though I have only noticed it while using the pen input on pdf files using either Bluebeam Revu or PDF Annotator. I have never had it crash when using some other application, but then I hardly use any other applications on this particular machine.

The problem is made a WHOLE lot worse by the fact that neither of these programs has an autosave feature, so all unsaved changes are lost. The first couple of times it happened I lost hours and hours of painstaking work. I am a bit wiser now, but it is horribly aggravating to remember to save literally every two minutes, all the time, and then hard reset every hour or two on top of that.

Hey Lenovo and Microsoft people, can't you please make a computer for $2,000 that simply works? I am really tired of this C**P.

I also use a MacBook Pro for work, and let me tell you I am FAST running out of patience with annoying Windows quirks and "features".

If Apple made a tablet, I'd be out of the Windows world as fast as you could say "Mac OS".

XIII · #12 Post by **XIII** » Tue Feb 12, 2008 9:31 pm

Why don't you search the forum first for this issue before blaming it on Microsoft and Lenovo?
The one at fault here is Intel. It is a problem with Intel Matrix Storage Driver. Search the forum for it and you should find it.

faelnor · #13 Post by **faelnor** » Wed Feb 13, 2008 4:19 am

Lenovo version of the Matrix Storage driver was correctly installed with a SATA controller set up in AHCI mode. I'm not sure it's what we're dealing with here.

Turning off the Intel Turbo Memory, though, seemed to do the trick for the time being. I'll post again if it turns out that I got my hopes high a bit too soon.

gerdh · #14 Post by **gerdh** » Wed Mar 05, 2008 8:49 am

The recent matrix driver update distributed by System Update at the beginning of this week did not help: the system hangs while using Office 07 on Vista U on battery power.

Disabling the Turbo Memory seems to help, no "hangs" so far.

What is Turbo memory good for?? WHY did MS entertain to create Vista? Where is even a small benefit compared to XP with wellknown Lenovo notebook tools such as Productivity Suite??

Gerd

NikkiBelle · #15 Post by **NikkiBelle** » Wed Mar 05, 2008 9:31 pm

Read the Thread about Turbo memory, You don't have the disable turbo memory. All you need to do is to disable Window hybird hard disk power saving mode on battery power and disable that for all the power settings. Go to POWER OPTIONS THEN GO TO ADVANCE SETTIN THEN GO TO HARD DISK then Windon hybird power saving mode.

that is the answer to your problem

gerdh · #16 Post by **gerdh** » Thu Mar 06, 2008 9:33 am

NikkiBelle,

thank you very much for your clear advice. I have disabled the HDD hybrid mode.

I do actually have Turbo memory installed, disabled by now. Can I use it or does it need to stay disabled?

thanks for a note
Gerd

NikkiBelle · #17 Post by **NikkiBelle** » Thu Mar 06, 2008 10:26 pm

use turbo, don't disable anything in turbo memory. just disable hybird hard disk and problem solve. That is a freebie. It will cost you next time for I.T. HELP...Hehehehe

gerdh · #18 Post by **gerdh** » Fri Mar 07, 2008 3:21 am

NikkiBelle,

thanks a lot - I owe you a beer, certainly.

Gerd

gerdh · #19 Post by **gerdh** » Sat Mar 08, 2008 12:48 pm

Actually, it remains to report that the machine no longer freezes in battery mode once I disabled the HDD hybrid power saving mode as listed above by Nikkibelle...

Gerd

X61s w. Vista Ultamte freezes regularly once battery powered

X61s w. Vista Ultamte freezes regularly once battery powered

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