W500 Vista x64 clean installation - Inst Turbo Mem the last!

[cn487311]

Since I do not like the bloatware comes with the new ThinkPad W500, I did a clean installation of Vista x64, then I installed Lenovo drivers and applications. I tried both manually and through System Update. However, I always had a lot of issues, particularly with the sleep/hibernation function:

Cannot resume from sleep or hibernation. Many times system died when transiting from sleep to hibernation: blank screen, all indicator lights on but no response at all. Other times system simply died. Have to press the power button for 4 seconds to reboot the computer.

Network connectivity is lost when resumed from sleep / hibernation. Both wireless and wired. The network icon shows connected but no connection at all. Cannot browse workgroup, Internet connection is lost. Cannot ping any IP address. Repair most time does not solve the problem. Only reboot can get it back to normal.

And many BSODs, reasons vary, all kinds of reasons. Apparently there is a hidden cause behind them.

I was indeed frustrated as a long time ThinkPad user. I even don't know who should be blamed, Microsoft or Lenovo.

It seems I finally saw some light at the end of the tunnel, probably just be an accident. A few weeks ago, I was telling myself that I am going to do a final re-installation or I should sell this computer. Once Vista x64 is installed, I followed the following manual installation order (pretty much the same as the Clean installation guide” posted at notebookreview.com):

Intel Chipset
Intel Turbo Memory
Power Management Driver
Video driver
Audio driver
Power Manager
...

A problem occurred with Switchable Graphics Video driver. The installation of the video driver is fine, however, after reboot, it has an assessment procedure. The procedure failed at the last step while it was trying to assess the performance of the storage system. After hard reboot, the computer still had all the problems I described above.

So… what caused the problem? It turns out to be the Intel Turbo Memory driver. It looks like the included Intel Matrix Storage Manager driver changes the storage system in some way.

Well, I gave it a last try, I totally skipped the Intel Turbo Memory and installed all the drivers and applications that I need. The system was fine for a week without any issue related to sleep / hibernation. It was a perfect system. So I installed Intel Turbo Memory driver to see what will happen. The system died upon reboot but did not display any problem after a hard reboot.

I don’t have any scientific explanation for such a weird phenomenon. I can only say that Vista is truly a crap: Even the order of the installation of driver now becomes a problem. And Lenovo should also be blamed for not doing a thorough test on releasing these drivers.

Anyway, enough rant, hope this can be of some help to those who may suffer similar problems.

[Greg Gebhardt]

I did the same but called Lenovo and had the send me the Vista64 restore disks for my W500. Still had the bloated but worked perfectly and I have become good a getting rid of what I do not want!

[Crunch]

Someone mentioned Turbo Mem. Did any of you get that option? I did. I've heard both good and bad things about it, but at $20 after discounts, naturally I got those 2 gigs, too.

My new W700 boots up in like 1-2 seconds, and takes another 1-2 secs. to populate the desktop. This is on Vista 64-bit and SP2 installed. My Windows 7 x64 RTM is even faster. A few seconds. Almost instant-on.

Are we able to configure anything with that? And what is Intel AMT lol...I've got v4.0 if it makes a difference. Man, I love this machine.