I can't deal with the 64bit Windows 7 driver issues anymore

[proaudioguy]

Someone tell me what to do please. Windows 7 32 bit? Windows XP Pro? How do I get a copy for my machine? I should have downgrade rights. I have no warranty with Lenovo so what are my options? All my software will run flawlessly on Windows XP Pro. Will the quad core be supported? I only have 4GB of ram so I'm not too worried about losing access to some of the Ram. I have 1GB video ram which I need to work. In fact the video drivers are the number one problem, with the other hardware drivers right behind. This machine is supposed to be faster and more reliable than my X32. Not the case.
I need help! If I can get the media, I can get it installed and get licensed from MS with just a phone call I think. I have a Windows 7 32 bit disc (not lenovo), wonder if my 64bit license would work with that.

[ZaZ]

I guess whether you Win 7 32 bit discs works would depend on the disc. If it's an OEM disc, it should work fine. I would suggest installing Win 7 without activating it during the install, then entering the and activating it after it's installed.

[proaudioguy]

I guess whether you Win 7 32 bit discs works would depend on the disc. If it's an OEM disc, it should work fine. I would suggest installing Win 7 without activating it during the install, then entering the and activating it after it's installed.

It's an OEM disc I got from NewEgg, when they had a sale. It's not a Lenovo disc. The lenovo 64bit disc isn't anything special either. Just looks like an off the shelf OEM disc as well. Perhaps I'll use one of my spare drives and test the install.

I ordered the Windows XP Pro restore disc set for $51.xx. I figured what's another 50 bucks on a 6k machine that BSODs and randomly restarts. I have a spare 320GB HDD which I'll use with XPP. I'll leave the existing Windows 7 install on the SSD. I plan to get the HDD completely up to date and show ready. If the machine works flawlessly at that point I'll be pretty happy, although I'll be disappointed I had to "downgrade" the OS. I'm not even certain Windows XP will support the quad core (???). I'm surprised there isn't already a class action lawsuit against Lenovo for these crippling driver issues. I would certainly join. Toshiba had similar issues and lost. The Toshiba issues were strictly hardware (overheating), which they "fixed" by crippling the system (slowing it down to a crawl). When these manufacturer's build these machines, do they really think we will pay huge money and not expect everything works?
I have had numerous recommendations from members of this community telling me to disable hardware devices in order to minimize the problem. Seriously? I'm supposed to shut down the networking hardware and cripple the video drivers just so the machine will stream audio without stuttering? Since trying newer nVidea drivers, the BSODs have increased dramatically. I've started using the Express 34 slot, and have also noticed BSODs related to that. I can't blame microsoft due to lack of info. The 32bit Windows 7 install (newegg OEM) on the tablet seems fine.

My Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit OS SHOULD be made to work by Lenovo. Until they are either forced to by litigation, or decide to do the right thing, I will have to sacrifice some of the performance I paid so dearly for by using a less capable OS.

Still looking for advice/ comments.....

[ZaZ]

Sorry to hear about your troubles. I know it can be exasperating. I don't have any answers for you. I do know XP service pack three has some nice updates for managing multiple cores. Your quad core should run well on it. I run XP on my main desktop, which has an AMD quad. It runs quite well.

If your machine is BSODing all the time and you haven't been able to get anywhere with support, you might want to contact Mark@Lenovo over on the Lenovo forums if you've not done so already. He's pretty good at cutting through the red tape and getting help for those who can't seem to find an answer. If that fails the Better Business Bureau is another option. They take that stuff fairly seriously over there.

Lawsuit? Nah, all the lawyers end up arguing and making a bunch of money. What does the end user like you get? Some $50 voucher on your next purchase, which is almost a slap in the face considering the trouble you've had with it. Good luck getting it straitened out nonetheless.

[johnvndnbrk]

My Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit OS SHOULD be made to work by Lenovo. Until they are either forced to by litigation, or decide to do the right thing, I will have to sacrifice some of the performance I paid so dearly for by using a less capable OS.

Still looking for advice/ comments.....

I could not agree more but I have not had any issues worth mentioning using Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit and the drivers required for the hardware support. I normally use Lenovo's drivers for the relevant notebook hardware and have had good success with various periphal devices, such as can be connected via USB.

I don't think that there is a "major" difference running Win7 64-bit or Win7 32-bit from a performance point of view (there are the exceptions and some 64-bit programs such as SQL Server 2K5/2K8 64-bit will run better and can use memory above and beyond the 3Gb threshold of 32-bit OS'es). I also like and still use WinXP 32 (forget WinXP 64). I would recommend contacting Microsoft for a Windows 7 32-bit OS or Windows XP 32-bit. I have had good success installing clean versions of Windows 7 as provided direct from Microsoft. It picks up the Wireless NIC card and I simply install the Thinkvantage System Upgrade, apply Windows 7 patches and pick up the stragglers, if any. Good luck.

[proaudioguy]

Been there done that. Not new to any of this as I've owned Thinkpads since 2001.

At this point I have got XP Pro installed from restore media on a 320GB 7200 Seagate. I am going to clone my Windows 7 64bit install over to a spare 80GB I have left over. At that point I am going to attempt to install Window 7 32bit on my SSD. If the serial won't work, I'll call MS and ask them if they would consider helping me out. If I can get that working I'll start experimenting.

As it stands now with XP Pro, I can only see 2.49GB of my Ram. Glad I hadn't got around to upgrading to 8GB yet. I must say XP Pro is working flawlessly so far. No hiccups, no BSOD. It's almost as fast on the HDD as Windows 7 64bit was on the SSD. WOndering if the Intel SSD has a good disc utility designed to work with XP. The main issue with SSD and XP is the OS doesn't clean up the drive so it eventually starts crapping out. I'll run DPC Latency Checker tonight and see how well behaved XP is. If I find any issues, I'll let you guys know.

FYI, I never like the XP "feel" and always used the classic start menu and windows. I loaded the Royale Noir theme, which is a little easier on the eyes. It's still not as nice as Windows 7 with everything black, and Aero turned on.

[proaudioguy]

As promised. I do not have full power cranked up in power manager. In fact I'm about half way up on the slider. I am playing 3 streams of the same song from 3 different players, synced as closely as possible. So far no drop outs. Furthermore, DPC Latency Checker is running and there have been NO yellow or red spikes. The green is even at a lower level than I've ever seen on this machine. I am surfing the internet AND iTunes is updating the media folder (since I am essentially changing systems as far as iTunes is concerned) at the same time. iTunes was not one of the players I was using. It is VERY clear to me the 64bit drivers from Lenovo for Windows 7 were to blame for all my problems over the last 8 months. I wish I had not wasted my time. Anyone that is a professional dealing with video or audio streams using this machine should be using XP Pro. I will install the printer software next and see if there is any change.

I should also mention the player I use has a misbehaving windows size/resize. With Win7 as I dragged the window to move it, it would flake out blinking and flashing. Not the case in XP. It's rather stable.

[proaudioguy]

Finding some strange DPCs after coming out of sleep. The DPCs were all the way up. Playing a youtube video seemed to move them into the high yellows. Played iTunes for about 20 minutes and had 1 dropout which coincided with a complete drop in DPC Latency Checker, so I'm thinking the entire machine burped at that point. I made the mistake of installing MS Desktop search, although I'm not certain that's causing an issues. I have it setup to only search outlook. In Windows 7, I was able to search my mail, but in XP it would not allow that feature unless I installed this bloatware. If anyone has any idea whether this will cause problems, please let me know. One interesting thing I've noticed is when moving the mouse cursor OVER the power manager (green box says 100% and shows a PLUG) on the taskbar, the DPC spikes go through the roof. This doesn't happen anywhere else on the taskbar. Lenovo has taken a useful utility and rewritten it to appear to resemble what it once was, but the code is clearly different which is obvious based on the way it reacts and appears to be redrawing itself when you put the cursor over it. The addition of the DPC spikes confirms it's misbehaving. Hey Lenovo, PLEASE get it together man!

[Greg Gebhardt]

New OS releases always have these same problems. Drivers will come but it is mostly the responsibility of the hardware/software people and they, sometimes, are more interested in selling new rather that supporting new.

My move to my current W510 with Win7 64bit has been pretty well without a problem. CS, Light Room, AutoCad, Quickbooks and the Office software packages work without a glitch. Heck, I ever found the old software for faxing, WinFaxPro supported by a new company and works perfectly.

I feel for your problems but all is working great for me and I love Win7, it is so "clean" in comparison to the older OS with it's multiple updates. My laptop boots in less than 45 seconds with the 256gb SSD and shuts down in only a few seconds.

[proaudioguy]

New OS releases always have these same problems. Drivers will come but it is mostly the responsibility of the hardware/software people and they, sometimes, are more interested in selling new rather that supporting new.

My move to my current W510 with Win7 64bit has been pretty well without a problem. CS, Light Room, AutoCad, Quickbooks and the Office software packages work without a glitch. Heck, I ever found the old software for faxing, WinFaxPro supported by a new company and works perfectly.

I feel for your problems but all is working great for me and I love Win7, it is so "clean" in comparison to the older OS with it's multiple updates. My laptop boots in less than 45 seconds with the 256gb SSD and shuts down in only a few seconds.

The software you are using is about as common as sliced bread, and pretty low on real time streaming requirements. In the audio industry we connect to a lot of external devices. There are usually not more than 1 or 2 people per manufacturer writing code. That's a far cry from the size of the "team" working on photoshop. I will say "most" of them have connected fine with Windows 7 whereas Vista had a lot of issues initially. The real issue has been with streaming. Youtube videos and wavs, and mp3s would stutter. It's a well known issues with network drivers and in this case the FX3700m. It's nothing you'll notice until you have a problem and start doing searches.

I will agree that Lenovo is more interested in selling new machines than they are in supporting the ones from last year.

I have Windows 7 32bit on my tablet and so far it's flawless.

[Greg Gebhardt]

My plain sliced bread works fine for me and the majority of Win7 64 users are quite happy

For you . . . well there always is Linux!

Enjoy!

[proaudioguy]

My plain sliced bread works fine for me and the majority of Win7 64 users are quite happy

For you . . . well there always is Linux!

Enjoy!

Point being those companies with a large customer base can afford to throw money at programming time to fix issues. IOW, you aren't dealing with the same issues. Still, it's no excuse. Think of it another way. MS released Windows XP (and several other OS's) with horrible security flaws. If you were never personally hacked using these flaws, does that make the OS OK? I'm not talking about Windows 7, I'm talking about Lenovo and it's hardware vendors. I'm pretty sure at this point if MS had written the drivers for that hardware it would work. I'm not an MS fan, just after the whole Vista mess, they appear to be on the ball. Lenovo should have verified every piece of hardware and every driver was compatible and problem free with the OS's they offer before offering it. Just because you and others are happy with mediocre support doesn't make it OK. Still I'm glad you are not having any issues. I dare you to run DPC Latency checker and see what the truth is. I'd be curious of the outcome anyway. Be sure to try different things. Be sure to run your mouse cursor over the power manager battery icon on the task bar. Let us know what that does. I don't have your system so I can't test it. I'd like to compare notes.

Now that I don't have to depend on my Windows 7 install, I'm going to work on trimming it all down. If it somehow becomes corrupt or unstable, it won't be a show stopper, but perhaps I'll come to some useful conclusions abotu which drivers are causing problems. Perhaps I should uninstall all the lenovo drivers and see how it performs then.

[proaudioguy]

Update,....... after 3 days of updates, I pulled out the Windows XP drive (something I've done more than once, and have also done with multiple computers over the years) and stuck the Win 7 drive in so I could load up the ipod with all the apps so I'd be able to back them up on the new drive. When I put the XP drive back in, right at the point the screen goes black after the startup BAR, I'd get a BSOD, then it would restart and I'd get the same BSOD, over and over. I tried safe mode (all 3) and start with last known good config, but nothing made a difference. I finally reinstalled from the recovery partition that was created the other day.