T500 won't recognize USB devices after sleep (Vista x64)

[NJ_Dave]

I've been having an intermittent, but recurring, problem with a nearly new (refurb) T500, running Vista Business x64. Sometimes after the system wakes from sleep (not hibernation), it no longer recognizes newly plugged USB devices -- the device powers up, but the system doesn't recognize that a device has been attached. (I don't know what happens to any USB devices that were attached before sleeping; when the error has occurred, no such devices were attached.) When I try to reboot, the system displays the message "Shutting down..." indefinitely; I must forcibly power the system off. When I reboot ("Start Windows normally"), the problem is gone, for now... but it's happened three times in the past few days. Like a sufferer of recurring nightmares, I fear to go to sleep.

This is the state of the system software: just a week ago or so I

- installed Vista Business x64, from the recovery CDs
- added the switchable graphics driver
- upgraded to the latest version of Power Manager

Of course I've installed various additional software as well. I did install the new Power Manager over the old one; maybe I should have uninstalled the old one first? Has anyone else seen a problem like this?

[NJ_Dave]

Guess not, huh? Well, I haven't seen it in the past few days either, so never mind, I suppose...

[cachong]

NJ_Dave,

When you

"- installed Vista Business x64, from the recovery CDs"

Were these created using Think Vantage or were these provided with your order.
After installing from the recovery CD's were the receovery partitions created so you could perform a recovery from the hard disk or did you end up with one C dirive partition?

[NJ_Dave]

cachong,

Thanks for your reply! I'm not sure whether you're writing to offer a potential solution, or because you're experiencing a similar problem. The truth is, I should have updated this thread awhile ago, since I think I've solved the problem.

First, to answer your question, I initially used the Lenovo recovery disks, which create the two extra partitions on the hard drive, just like it comes from the factory. This was in May, when System Update was inoperative, so I manually installed only a few driver updates/patches, but the problem persisted. I installed Vista SP2, which didn't affect the problem.

Here's what I think the problem was: even though I had the latest Power Manager installed, I wasn't really using it properly. I was using the "Balanced" power plan from Microsoft's Vista presets, and I was using the Power icon in the System Tray to access Vista's Power Options application. I eventually noticed that the listed plans in Vista's Power Options and Lenovo's Power Manager didn't match. I suspect some important (for ThinkPads) settings are missing from Vista's settings. I started using Power Manager plans exclusively -- both the Lenovo presets and custom plans created in Power Manager -- and since then I have seen no recurrence of the sleep problems. Soon thereafter I was able to install the new System Update with the patch for SP2, which has recommended a bunch of new updates, but I think banishing Vista's Power Options was the key. I'd certainly recommend doing both!

I hope that helps,

Dave