Thinkpads Forum

I have an x200T that I bought secondhand, and which has some small "issues" caused, I think, mainly by the history of how the Lenovo upgrade from Vista to W7 was done originally.
Because it is so good, and because a family member wanted one, I've just lashed out a small sum on ebay for a second machine, which looks in good shape generally. However, on arrival it blue screened when the pen was brought up to the screen.

It appears to have all the drivers installed and the seller says it was working when it left him. I've re-installed the Wacom and Lenovo various pen drivers and the chipset drivers, and this has stopped the BSOD's, but the pen still doesn't work. The pen itself is fine on the other machine, so that is OK.

My thought now is that some connector might have been disturbed in transit, so I'd welcome any guidance about where to look so as to cause the least disturbance to the machine (in case it has to be returned). The service manual doesn't seem to have much on this.
Also, is there any way of checking the Wacom drive signal? Is this a specific frequency that can be detected by something?

Both machines are running W7 64-bit.

Apologies for replying to my own post, but I have some more information.

The original "good" machine sees and responds to the pen when running Ubuntu live. The new machine doesn't, so this is pointing to a hardware fault.

It seems likely that the Wacom system works at 531kHz, which is within the European medium wave AM radio band. I only have a cheap Chinese old Radio Shack AM/FM receiver. The tuning is vague and may only go down to the US lower AM limit, but it seems to pick up something at the bottom end of the band.

The good machine sends out a clicking noise until just before the OS starts up, then gives a loud buzz on the radio when the machine is running. Bringing the pen up to the screen changes the buzz dramatically.

I also have an old X60T which behaves similarly.

The "new" X200T produces the same clicks, but seems almost to produce the inverse of the normal buzz, in that the buzz increases from a quiet start as the pen is brought up to the screen.

The other weird thing is that if I bring the small radio with its internal ferrite rod aerial right up to the screen on the good X200T, the machine blue screens.

I can't see anything obviously loose beneath the keyboard on the problem machine, but would really appreciate any guidance on not-too-invasive fault finding on the Wacom system, or any pointer to a source of more detailed info.

Well, it wasn't hardware at all. I reset the bios to default and re-installed the pen driver and it all works.

The only thing left is that Computer Properties says Pen and touch available, but Touch in Control Panel says no suitable hardware found. This doesn't matter to me, so no problem.

I hope this monologue has entertained someone!

If you have a pen only setup, the correct driver reports "Penabled mini driver"

I had fun with the BIOS on my X200T as well, would not work with the most recent (at the time)
Went ahead and installed a version with the whitelist removed anyway, no issues.