Thinkpads Forum

RE: W500 running XP Pro

Periodically my TrackPoint freezes up, just stops working, along with the TouchPad and Keyboard. It just locks up. I've noticed on the Lenovo Community forum this is being reported with other W500 models. Mines running XP Pro, yet others are experiencing this with Vista. It doesn't seem to follow any particular pattern. About the only thing I've noticed is that when it happens I have Firefox open. Offline I have yet to experience this. In lieu of a working keyboard at that point, I hold the power button down until the computer shuts off, wait ten seconds and perform a boot up. All works well at that point. This is very intermittent. Having only happened twice so far in a week, the first event with the original keyboard and the second event today with the replacement keyboard.

Cheers...

Any red/yellow flagged events posted in the XP system log around that time?

Harryc wrote:Any red/yellow flagged events posted in the XP system log around that time?

Here is the what my event viewer shows for the three days I've used my W500 5048-CTO

Type Date Time Source Event User Category Computer
Warning 3/15/2009 12:17:21 PM Dhcp 1007 N/A None LCH-W500
Warning 3/15/2009 12:17:19 PM Dhcp 1003 N/A None LCH-W500
Warning 3/15/2009 11:43:49 AM Dhcp 1007 N/A None LCH-W500
Warning 3/15/2009 11:41:49 AM Dhcp 1007 N/A None LCH-W500
Error 3/15/2009 11:40:47 AM Dhcp 1001 N/A None LCH-W500

Warning 3/14/2009 7:01:34 PM Tcpip 4226 N/A None LCH-W500
Error 3/14/2009 2:15:55 PM cdrom 15 N/A None LCH-W500
Error 3/14/2009 2:15:55 PM iaStor 9 N/A None LCH-W500
Warning 3/14/2009 2:14:34 PM Server 2504 N/A None LCH-W500
Warning 3/14/2009 2:14:25 PM Dhcp 1007 N/A None LCH-W500
Warning 3/14/2009 2:14:15 PM Dhcp 1003 N/A None LCH-W500
Error 3/14/2009 2:10:54 PM cdrom 15 N/A None LCH-W500
Error 3/14/2009 2:10:54 PM iaStor 9 N/A None LCH-W500

Warning 3/13/2009 1:42:53 PM Print 20 SYSTEM None LCH-W500
Warning 3/13/2009 1:42:50 PM Print 3 SYSTEM None LCH-W500
Warning 3/13/2009 1:42:47 PM Print 4 SYSTEM None LCH-W500
Warning 3/13/2009 12:42:26 PM Print 20 SYSTEM None LCH-W500

You make it sound as if only the keyboard/touchpad/trackpoint stop working; i.e., the display/HD/CPU/sound all still work? E.g., if you were playing a video or audio you could still see/hear those, despite the keyboard locking up. Is that correct? If so, have you tried an external keyboard/mouse?

basketb wrote:You make it sound as if only the keyboard/touchpad/trackpoint stop working; i.e., the display/HD/CPU/sound all still work? E.g., if you were playing a video or audio you could still see/hear those, despite the keyboard locking up. Is that correct? If so, have you tried an external keyboard/mouse?

As I stated the TrackPoint, TouchPad, and Keyboard locked up, and stopped working. Therefore in lieu of being able to register any input to control the computer, a restart was in order. I installed another new keyboard only to have the same result. This is rather infrequent (less than once daily) , so I'm not sure what is causing it just yet.

Cheers...

welcome to the world of W500 freeze ups....

There are a few things you can do for me, check if some of the keys work next time. When my W500 does it, the thinklight at the top of the screen can still be turned on and off (fn+ PgUp) . Usually ( maybe always ) the hdd light is stuck on too. Let me know if you are experiencing this too....

bojangles wrote:welcome to the world of W500 freeze ups....

There are a few things you can do for me, check if some of the keys work next time. When my W500 does it, the thinklight at the top of the screen can still be turned on and off (fn+ PgUp) . Usually ( maybe always ) the hdd light is stuck on too. Let me know if you are experiencing this too....

I will be happy to keep you posted and the next time it freezes (if it does) I will report back after trying the things you've asked me to do.

However that said, I may have fixed it. I did some extensive research using web crawler, after exhausting all possibilities on Google and found a report of the same problem. The user found that it was the default version of Adobe Reader that comes preloaded on the machine. Well that reminded me that each time I experienced a freeze I too was in Adobe Reader. So I promptly removed version 8.xxx and replaced it with the latest version 9.1.0 and have not had a freeze since. I have purposely tried to freeze it by replicating what I was doing with Reader at the time and version 9.1.0 has not caused any issues. I have about 50 working hours on it since and so far it's been completely stable.

Cheers...

bojangles wrote:welcome to the world of W500 freeze ups....

There are a few things you can do for me, check if some of the keys work next time. When my W500 does it, the thinklight at the top of the screen can still be turned on and off (fn+ PgUp) . Usually ( maybe always ) the hdd light is stuck on too. Let me know if you are experiencing this too....

I believe those W500 freezes are not specific to W500 series (even though many W500 users seem to experience them). In fact, they can be found on T500/T400 machines as well as on T61(p) machines (and probably even on some T60s), the exact reasons for those freezes might be different on the different machines though. To my best knowledge this is an issue with Windows XP and I remembe having read a thread on this long time ago. The thread in question was featuring T61 and fresh install of XP (no SP3) and touchpad/keyboard freezes and some solution to these. Unfortunately I fail to find this thread.... It was really long time ago. I believe since then there were quite a few threads describing similar problems, but I don´t see any reference in any of them to that thread I´ll keep looking.

OK, well I am on Vista at the moment, and when my W500 freezes, I can still turn the think light on and off.

The keyboard is 99% frozen.. but not 100%

bojangles wrote:OK, well I am on Vista at the moment, and when my W500 freezes, I can still turn the think light on and off.

The keyboard is 99% frozen.. but not 100%

Oh, ok, then this must be some different problem and could be indeed specific to W500 (or the new ThinkPad line). What did Lenovo say to those keyboard freezes you are experiencing?

lenovo said to remove turbo memory card.....
but to me the whole machine is frozen.. I dont know how you can tell the difference between a keyboard freeze and a machine freez...

Lenovo sent me a new keyboard for my W500 and within an hour after installing it, I had the same experience. So in my case the keyboard replacement made no difference.

lenovo sent me 2 replacement W500s I have swapped parts and tried many combinations of things.. they all freeze... Very anoying.

bojangles wrote:lenovo sent me 2 replacement W500s I have swapped parts and tried many combinations of things.. they all freeze... Very anoying.

Simply amazing, in the most frustrating way.....what's your next move?

I really dont know... tech help is tired of me.. so is customer service.
They dont seem to be able to combine my issues to understand what my experience has been. They will only acknowledge them one at a time.

since they sent me a replacement hard drive... - a USED one mind you ( no sympathy from them) it had no software on it.
So I had to beg for Recovery discs.. which are much different than what the original HDD came with.

I cant seem to convince them to give my my Norton back... and Just on the weekend, my Office software key expired.. too many installations.

Sheesh.. and not a day goes by that the machine does not mess up.

It has been since October. They tell me I cant return it because it is an "employee purchase Program" machine. I am not an employee, just there is a site for friends and family with a small discount.

Been now 3 weeks on the Norton issue, and I cant seem to get in touch with them, The person who has the case will not return calls.

seems like it's been a while since this topic was updated

however, my machine w500 40623nm - vista business
experiences either its touchpad(along with 2 buttons) or trackpoint(along with 3 buttons) locks/freezes up, one at a time not both.
after booting up, either one starts to freeze immediately

-keyboard, fingerprint reader, is fine.
-ultranav options shows 'devices are working fine'

what i've done:
-have the latest ultranav driver and ultranav util installed. - prob not solved.
-trying to disable and re-enable using ultranav util - prob still not solved.

Is there any w500 or any other thinkpad model experiencing this problem? (my other thinkpad never knows this problem). if yes, any fixes yet?

it seems to me that this is a driver issue, however i have the latest installed.
What else should i try to fix this?

cheers

*update* solved by installing pre 13.2.4.12 driver for me.

I have the same problem with my Z61t............no solution but external mouse