Problem using X61t in tablet mode - becomes unresponsive

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noetus · #1 Post by **noetus** » Mon Nov 17, 2008 5:18 am

HELP!!

So i had a weird problem with my 32 bit install of Vista on my X61 tablet. The machine stopped responding properly to input and seemed to get progressively worse, eventually not even logging me in, just hanging at the login screen.

So I decided the Vista installation must have gotten corrupted somehow, so took the opportunity to upgrade the RAM (replaced it with 2x2GB), replaced the HDD, and installed a retail copy of 64-bit Vista.

Same thing happened. After using it for a while, system would become unresponsive, the mouse cursor would still move around but the HDD would stop working and the apps would stop working. Attempting to start the task manager via CTR-ALT-DEL would just result in a blank screen, and no further responsiveness (mouse cursor still moving around though). Recycling the power the first time might log me in, but pretty soon the machine would stop logging me in and just sort of hang (still with a responsive mouse cursor) at the logon screen.

I reinstalled Vista AGAIN, and this time noticed that the computer works fine as long as I don't attempt to use it in tablet mode. As soon as I put the machine into tablet mode, 5-10 minutes later it starts to stop responding, first with the application I'm currently using, then progressively with other applications, until finally the entire system is no longer responding. If I power-cycle and try rebooting, it now appears that the Windows installation is corrupted - desktop has disappeared, quick launch bar is stuck and taskbar won't unlock, and many other things. After a few reboots, the system won't even log me in any more - just hangs on the logon screen (though all the time, the mouse cursors still moves around the screen). Reinstalling Windows doesn't help - I just get a repeat of all this.

I tried calling EZ-Serve, and they said, 'reimage the machine'. When I said I had done that and it had made no difference, they said 'I find that hard to believe. Try again.' When I let on I was using a retail copy of Windows, they said "We don't support that' and that was the end of the support call.

I am really puzzled by this. Doesn't sound like it could be hardware fault, but then what? Note again - machine works fine after a fresh install of Windows (or a system restore) as long as I don't try using it in tablet mode, after which the Windows installation seems to slowly self-destruct.

gpvillamil · #2 Post by **gpvillamil** » Wed Nov 19, 2008 8:27 am

I had something similar and it turned out to be a bad hard disk.

Open the Event Viewer (tap windows key, then type 'event viewer'), look at Windows Logs, then System.

Look for any errors, especially errors 51 or 55. If you get any, chances are that this is your problem. On my system I had a bunch of these all together. I had a BSOD as well.

Also download Passmark DiskCheckup and see what the SMART info is like on your drive. DiskCheckup was predicting a failure within a month on the system drive.

Ironically, Vista seems better able to handle disk failures than XP - XP would just have crashed or thrown a BSOD, whereas Vista just gets slower and gradually loses functions.

noetus · #3 Post by **noetus** » Wed Nov 19, 2008 8:11 pm

Thanks for this - I will check those logs, but as I just replaced the hard drive, and had this problem before the replacement (with a 32 bit version of Windows) I don't think that is the problem.

Also, I have tried keeping the machine on mains power and the problem didn't arise. It seems to arise only when on battery power, and in tablet mode. (I have Turbo Memory turned off, though through the Intel program, not through device manager.)

gpvillamil · #4 Post by **gpvillamil** » Fri Nov 21, 2008 9:45 pm

You know, I'm starting to have a similar problem with my X61 Tablet.

Every so often (twice already today), applications will stop responding. The mouse cursor will move, and at least initially the Start menu responds, but can't bring up the Task Manager with Ctrl-Shift-Esc or anything else.

Gradually everything will stop responding, until the system is frozen.

After restarting by pressing the power button, I don't get the usual "unexpected shutdown" message, and the system boots normally.

I don't see anything odd in the Event Viewer either - no errors, and the last info messages before the crash seem quite innocuous.

This seems independent of tablet activity, and of applications. Mostly I notice it when using a browser, but that is my most commonly used application.

I'm using an X61 Tablet, 2GB RAM, newly installed 320GB Hitachi drive, Windows Vista 32-bit. I did have a Seagate drive in there which was giving me problems, so I cloned everything to the Hitachi. Perhaps the initial install was corrupted?

It seems like I should try to repair Vista from the install disks, and if that doesn't help, go through the hassle of reformatting and reinstalling from scratch.

noetus · #5 Post by **noetus** » Sat Nov 22, 2008 9:07 am

I have reinstalled Vista a couple of times, and it hasn't made any difference. So far, the problem just comes back.

gpvillamil, do you notice any correlation between getting this problem and having the machine on battery power? I have concluded that the problem might be the Windows Hybrid Hard Disk Power Savings Mode. I haven't seen any people reporting this for the X61, but I have seen it reported for the T61:

T61p - battery freeze problem

Re : T61P freeze - Hangs up

T61 BSOD

T61 Freeze on battery

Windows Hybrid Hard Disk Power Saving Option not available!

BSOD's and Freezes due to Turbo Memory

gpvillamil · #6 Post by **gpvillamil** » Sat Nov 22, 2008 12:53 pm

That makes sense. I believe all my lockups have occurred on battery power, and the nature of the lockup is consistent with a disk (or storage device) timing out.

The Hitachi disk that I installed does have NV Cache on board, which the Seagate did not.

I also have the Intel Turbo Memory installed as well.

I've gone ahead and disabled hybrid power saving in the Windows Power Plan settings, and will see how that works.

I will also try disabling the NV Cache on the Hitachi, and see if that helps, via gpedit.msc.

gpvillamil · #7 Post by **gpvillamil** » Sat Nov 22, 2008 1:45 pm

Interesting: the Intel Turbo Memory console identifies the flash cache as being located on the Hitachi drive, not on the Intel flash cache.

I suspect this is getting to the root of the problem: I have two devices installed that support ReadyDrive.

noetus · #8 Post by **noetus** » Sat Nov 22, 2008 3:04 pm

You could also try updating the intel turbo memory driver to the latest one. The one Lenovo supplies is older and is possibly buggy. I did this this morning and so far the problem has not recurred, though it is too early to tell if it is really now fixed, though I have been using it for several hours now on battery, without incident.

I also use an aftermarket drive I installed myself (a 320 GB 7200rpm one, I believe a Seagate). It is possible this problem only affects people who use aftermarket HDDs, which may explain why it isn't reported very often and why Lenovo haven't updated their driver.

gpvillamil · #9 Post by **gpvillamil** » Sat Nov 22, 2008 3:15 pm

Interesting. So you now have Turbo Memory enabled, and have not seen the problem?

Did you also update the Intel Matrix Storage Driver?

Also, did you try disabling the Windows Hybrid Disk Power Saving mode at all?

noetus wrote:You could also try updating the intel turbo memory driver to the latest one. The one Lenovo supplies is older and is possibly buggy. I did this this morning and so far the problem has not recurred, though it is too early to tell if it is really now fixed.

I also use an aftermarket drive I installed myself (a 320 GB 7200rpm one, I believe a Seagate). It is possible this only affects people who use aftermarket HDDs, which may explain why it isn't reported very often and why Lenovo haven't updated their driver.

noetus · #10 Post by **noetus** » Sat Nov 22, 2008 3:23 pm

I used the download I linked to, nothing else. If that didn't update the Matrix Storage Driver, then no I didn't. On the other hand, I discovered a new program 'Intel Matrix Storage Console 8.5' that wasn't installed before, so perhaps it also updated the Matrix Storage Driver as well. I suppose I could check in device drivers, but I don't know what the old version is.

At the moment, with updated intel drivers:

Hybrid Hard Disk Power Savings Mode
On battery: Disabled
Plugged in: Disabled

Windows ReadyBoost: Disabled
Windows ReadyDrive: Enabled

With no problems after several hours of real-world use on battery power.

Now I'm going to try re-anabling the Hybrid HD Power Savings Mode and see what happens (with the updated Intel driver installed).

(Incidentally, this got so bad with a previous install of Windows, after many many power-button power cycles, that Windows would no longer boot past the logon screen, and then finally would not boot at all, complaining of a missing critical file.)

gpvillamil · #11 Post by **gpvillamil** » Sat Nov 22, 2008 3:49 pm

Yep, the Intel Turbo Memory installs the updated Matrix Storage driver as well.

It seems to be working well for me so far.

In the Intel Turbo Memory console I have:

ReadyBoost: enabled
ReadyDrive: enabled

In Power settings, I have Windows Hybrid Hard Disk Power Saving Mode disabled in all power plans.

This is all very confusing. It's difficult to understand what ReadyBoost, ReadyDrive, Turbo Memory and NV Cache all do, and how they relate.

My understanding is that ReadyBoost and ReadyDrive are Vista features that use flash memory present in a system.

Turbo Memory is an Intel product that basically adds an "invisible" 1GB flash drive to your system.

Hybrid hard disks contain flash memory (in addition to the disk itself), that can be used to provide ReadyDrive functions (but not ReadyBoost apparently).

The NV Cache referenced in the properties of a hybrid hard disk, and in the Group Policy Editor seems to be another name for any kind of flash used to accelerate the system.

What I am not clear on is how the flash on the hard disk works if there is also a Turbo Memory unit installed - the Intel Turbo Memory Console reports the Hitachi drive as the location of the flash, and correctly identifies the amount of flash memory.

Also not clear if disabling the NV Cache by using the Group Policy editor in effect disables ReadyBoost and ReadyDrive, or if these features are independent of the hybrid hard disk.

What's disturbing is that searching Google for info mostly turns up information on people having trouble with it! Very little good official info from Microsoft...

noetus · #12 Post by **noetus** » Sat Nov 22, 2008 3:59 pm

I agree, it is all very confusing.

l now have the hybrid disk power saving on with no issues so for.

The Intel Turbo Memory also controls the Ready Drive cache, 1 believe - I don't think my dive has an on-board cache.

noetus · #13 Post by **noetus** » Sun Nov 23, 2008 12:00 pm

So it seems like having Hybrid Hard Disk Power Saving Mode ON can still cause problems even with the updated Intel drivers. At least that's what I discovered.

But I also discovered something else of possible interest. The problem might be caused by the fact that BOTH Windows and Lenovo Thinkvantage try to impose their own power plans, and that with self-install of Windows (i.e. not from the Lenovo disks) WIndows wins and this might allow the Windows power plan to impose the setting of ON to the Hybrid Disk Manager Power Saving Mode.

Going back to an earlier restore point I noticed that Windows had its OWN power plan called 'Balance' and that all the Thinkvantage power plans were 'greyed out' though it is hard to see at first glance, when you open the Thinkvantage Power Manager that you can't select any of the power plans there. But you can't, even though you can create new ones and change the global settings.

Going back into the Windows 'Power Options', through the Control Panel, I discovered I had to select 'Show additional plans' (a link at the bottom of the panel) to show all the Thinkvantage ones - these are NOT visible bydefault.

Now once I selected a Thinkvantage power plan from the Windows Power Options they were no longer greyed out in the Thinkvantage Power Manager AND the default setting in the Windows Power Option for the Hybrid Hard Disk Power Savings Mode is OFF!!

Could it be that the Lenovo supplied power plans ALL have this setting to OFF in default installs of Windows from the Lenovo install disks (or when the machine arrives new) because they know of this problem (and don't have another fix - and also don't think to check this when you call their support line) but that when you install Windows from a Windows install disk and then install Thinkvantage Tools afterwards, the Thinkvantage setting doesn't get made (because Windows keeps its own 'Balanced' power plan and doesn't even SHOW you the Thinkvantage plans by default so you could select one of those instead).

If this is the right explanation, then only those people who use Vista on a tablet and have installed windows from their own 'clean' install disk and use the machine on battery power would be affected. And it would have nothing to do with whether you've installed an aftermarket HDD - except that if you have, it's more likely you've made your own clean install of Windows.

gpvillamil · #14 Post by **gpvillamil** » Mon Nov 24, 2008 8:31 am

Yep, I had the hanging issue with Hybrid Hard Disk Power Saving mode enabled.

I've disabled it for all the power plans, no problems now.

Problem using X61t in tablet mode - becomes unresponsive

Problem using X61t in tablet mode - becomes unresponsive

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