serious Windows 7 problems on R61

[charlienyc]

hi,
i recently did a clean install on Windows 7 32 bit on my R61 (see sig. for details) and am having some serious woes. i've been using Windows 7 64 bit that came pre-installed on my mini Acer laptop and it quickly converted me into a believer in the OS. running on the ThinkPad has been much the opposite experience thus far. what gives?

i use this machine for audio work only. here's a list of problems. any help or suggestions would be much appreciated!

#1 my firewire-based interface drops communications at-will. this has happened while recording a live concert, accompanied with a BSOD - obviously a huge concern. i thank my stars i was running a backup recorder!

#2 that same interface will not connect (i.e. drivers won't load) unless it is powered on and connected to the ThinkPad's 4-pin port PRIOR to up starting up.

#3 if i connect a cardbus (PCMCIA) I/O card - either firewire or eSATA - while the computer's running it will give an instant BSOD looking through the event viewer, it appears there's a "kernel 41" error associated with this. it's honestly hard to tell because so many problems exist with this machine! anyway attaching either card before powering up the laptop works fine. they also work if i startup with one connected, eject it (using safely remove hardware), then re-connect.

#4 my main DAW program is very sluggish. clicking on a region of audio causes it to select that region about 1s later. adjusting edits is also very slow. 1s is a long time when you're recording, editing or mixing audio or video.


there are plenty more concerns but these are my main ones. none of these problems existed when i was running a clean install of Windows XP Pro, for years! i kept my XP install on another drive and can swap between them, but i've added a lot of plugins since committing to Windows 7 and none of those will operate under XP. i should also admit to tweaking my services per BlackViper's Windows 7 SP1 page at http://www.blackviper.com/2010/12/17/bl ... gurations/, though all of the above problems existed before i did that. i've been updating drivers from Lenovo as they become available but still have yet to see a specific 1394 driver.

please let me know if you need more information to answer or guide me with any of these problems. i'm very eager to get it all working smoothly!

cheers,
-charlie

[charlienyc]

41 views but no replies, eh? should i have posted this in a different sub-forum
even if you can help with one problem from the list, please chime in.

[GomJabbar]

Unless you have a Windows 7 SP1 disk, try installing SP1 via Windows Update. Also try installing whatever else is offered by Windows Update. You may have to update, reboot, and update again several times before you get all the updates. Be sure and check optional and hardware updates as well.

You can install some Lenovo Windows 7 drivers from the following link. I would install at least Chipset drivers and the Hotkey Features driver to get the Lenovo Interface Driver included in that package. Many of the Windows Install Supplements should be included in SP1.

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... 67856.html

[charlienyc]

try installing SP1 via Windows Update. Also try installing whatever else is offered by Windows Update.

You can install some Lenovo Windows 7 drivers from the following link. I would install at least Chipset drivers and the Hotkey Features driver to get the Lenovo Interface Driver included in that package. Many of the Windows Install Supplements should be included in SP1.

thanks for the suggestions. i've been running SP1 for a while, and try to keep updating all of my drivers at the Lenovo site. i fixed another problem (on screen display crashing at bootup) just today by re-enabling my onboard audio, which when disabled somehow trips up the Hotkey program. maybe some of the other issues will be resolved now...

[Bánh mì]

Your firewire device could be incompatible with W7 and/or 64-bit software. I ran into a similar problem using a device which works majestically on XP but no dice on W7 in either 32 or 64-bit flava. Ditto for Vista 32 flava. I tinkered with drivers, changing settings in Windows to no avail in terms of getting it to function properly.

[charlienyc]

i think the PCMCIA card crashes are gone now. i'm curious what changed but glad that problem is fixed. i'm wondering if my firewire device is fixed now or not too.

Your firewire device could be incompatible with W7 and/or 64-bit software. I ran into a similar problem using a device which works majestically on XP but no dice on W7 in either 32 or 64-bit flava. Ditto for Vista 32 flava. I tinkered with drivers, changing settings in Windows to no avail in terms of getting it to function properly.

oy, i hope that's not the case. i suppose i can experiment and see if it works with the aforementioned firewire card (instead of the on-board 4 pin connector).

i've recently bought my first desktop computer in over 10 years, and i have to say all of these things just work (also Win 7 / 32). this will help my production flow to run a lot smoother!

[Bánh mì]

The simple conclusion (at least mine) is your card is out of date and there are no native drivers for it on W7 32 or 64 bit flavas. Have you send the manufacturer of your device an email? BTW I had this problem and they refused to support it.

[charlienyc]

the device in question isn't a card, it is a full-blown interface. anyway yes the company offers an updated driver that is compatible with Win 7.

[Bánh mì]

They may offer drivers but are those drivers basically beta or are they W7 certified? I mean hacked drivers to accomodate the OS switch isn't really going to cut mustard with a modern efficient OS like W7 in 32 or 64 bit flavas.

[ozzymud]

beta? hacked? certified?

Those words are all meaningless if the driver works. I dunno bout you, but I've had "certified" drivers that were crap on several occasions, and beta/hacked that are awesome.

I'm not generally one to buy into certifications, release versions, must run this or else mindset. I run old or new OS's, hardware, software, sometimes REALLY new, sometimes REALLY old... and a lot of the times OLDer is better.

nVidia video drivers are a prime example, a newer (certified or not) version can cause all types of hassle, the fix is sometimes to move back to an older (possibly even uncertified) version.

Certification is just a company paying some $$ for MS to test it on SOME (not ALL) hardware combinations and put their stamp on it.

And MS will ALWAYS beta test on it's customers... until they adobt something like Debian Linux who generally try to only release when it's ready, not when they need to keep up with something else or to fix some previous "beta" *COUGH*vista*COUGH*