Thinkpads Forum

Update June 14, 2010:
Thanks to user 'random' for the link to the BIOS version 1.25-1.20 which fixes the issue of hanging/freezing using a wired connection:
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-74275
It seems to work fine while using the current Windows 7 drivers from the Lenovo site.

End Edit...original post is below.


I haven't really noticed it when I first got this notebook last week since it's been mainly on wireless, but now that I've spent some time on it, it will randomly freeze when connected to a wired LAN. It will do it while I'm surfing the internet or if I just leave it idle for a random period of time.

I replaced the hard drive when I first got it, leaving the original intact, and installed Win 7 Pro x64. I was using it at work once and noticed that it froze. After a hard reboot (holding down the power button for 5+ seconds), it was fine for another couple of hours until it froze again. I had never noticed it doing this while I was at home (which was only used with wireless) and started to narrow it down to the wired connection as I would even get freezes when first starting up, no applications running and letting it idle for 15-30 minutes.

I've attempted to use both earlier drivers from the Realtek site as well as the stock drivers that it originally shipped with. It would still freeze after a random amount of time, which can be as soon as I log on, to 3 hours after logging in. I checked different settings in the BIOS as well, turning off wake-on-lan (still froze) and putting all the settings on default (would still freeze). It also froze today in another one of my work offices at a different location.

Thinking that it might be an issue with the LAN settup at work and the offices, I also attempted to do the same at home, connecting the laptop directly to my router using a different cable and it eventually froze within 2 hours. At home, connected wirelessly, I've been able to leave the laptop on throughout a whole weekend without a single freeze. Nearly every night and on wireless, I've left it on until morning with no problems.

After testing all this I decided to put the original hard drive in which had Win 7 Pro x86 (32-bit). It eventually froze. Restoring it back to factory condition it also froze. In both instances, I've checked to make sure that the drivers were up to date and recently installed the latest BIOS 1.22-1.18 found here http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-74275.

So would this be a hardware issue? I'm coming to believe that it is and it probably won't be fixed with either BIOS or driver updates. I'm guessing that if it has to get fixed the whole motherboard will have to go since it looks like its an all attached unit.

I noticed the same behavior.

I'm confident in a driver issue rather than an HW issue because I'm now trying XPpro and the system doesn't freeze. Or to be more precise I haven't seen any freeze since the OS installation.

The Realtek Gbe lan driver I'm using is the one proposed by windows update, strangely the lenovo updater doesn't know the lan card under win XP.

I placed a call into Lenovo technical support and they stated that they will need to replace the mainboard.

@The Solutor: Even if your unit works fine with Windows XP, I would still suggest having it replaced. A product requiring a mainboard replacement suggests that the issue cannot be fixed with drivers and that the unit will continue to have issues with Windows 7 should you ever decide to go back to Windows 7 or sell/give the unit to someone who would use Windows 7.

nacy333 wrote: @The Solutor: Even if your unit works fine with Windows XP, I would still suggest having it replaced. A product requiring a mainboard replacement suggests that the issue cannot be fixed with drivers and that the unit will continue to have issues with Windows 7 should you ever decide to go back to Windows 7 or sell/give the unit to someone who would use Windows 7.

There is no point in swapping an unit with one in the same conditions.

It's cristal clear that the problem is not HW related,XP works rock solid, Linux works rock solid, with seven 32 I had a couple of freezes, wit seven 64 I had more frequent freezes.

So what we have to do is wait to updated drivers and/or try if some advanced settings can help.

BTW, I'm not used to wired connections, in the last 12 years I never had a connection to the internet different from the wwan ones.

I noticed the problem just copying some backups from and to the main pc, but is really a one time activity, I can live happily even wit a totally broken wired nic.

I tried my wired LAN and got a couple of lock-ups in 30 mins trying to simply browse the web.

After a discussion with the Lenovo Service Technician here in Australia, we've determined that Windows Update downloads a newer version of the Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller driver than available on from the Lenovo support site. I've uninstalled this driver from Windows Update and re-installed the driver from the Lenovo support site:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-74332

Check your driver in Device Manager, it should be version 7.11.1127.2009, not higher. Also careful when you run Windows Update next time that it doesn't install the newer Realtek driver again.

I've been connected to wired LAN for quite a while now and experienced no lock-up so far. It could also explain why Windows XP users haven't had this issue, as the drivers are different of course.

If I do get a lock-up, I'll report back here.

It is worth mentioning that I also updated to the latest BIOS - v1.23 - at the same time, but I doubt that this had an impact on the problem:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-74275

Cheers,

Just when I thought all was well, I just had a lock-up. Again doing no more than web browsing. Could still be a driver issue. I will contact Lenovo again.

Cheers,

The Solutor wrote:BTW, I'm not used to wired connections, in the last 12 years I never had a connection to the internet different from the wwan ones.

I noticed the problem just copying some backups from and to the main pc, but is really a one time activity, I can live happily even wit a totally broken wired nic.

I'm much the same. However, wired LAN is one of the basic functions of all laptops that should simply work.

Cheers,

morkli wrote:I tried my wired LAN and got a couple of lock-ups in 30 mins trying to simply browse the web.

After a discussion with the Lenovo Service Technician here in Australia, we've determined that Windows Update downloads a newer version of the Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller driver than available on from the Lenovo support site. I've uninstalled this driver from Windows Update and re-installed the driver from the Lenovo support site:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-74332

Check your driver in Device Manager, it should be version 7.11.1127.2009, not higher. Also careful when you run Windows Update next time that it doesn't install the newer Realtek driver again.

I've been connected to wired LAN for quite a while now and experienced no lock-up so far. It could also explain why Windows XP users haven't had this issue, as the drivers are different of course.

If I do get a lock-up, I'll report back here.

It is worth mentioning that I also updated to the latest BIOS - v1.23 - at the same time, but I doubt that this had an impact on the problem:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-74275

Cheers,

I'm testing seven 32 now with the stock driver (I'm copying) a lot of gigabytes back and forth via lan and no freeze.

I will try to install the proposed update to see if the freezes are starting again.

morkli wrote:
I'm much the same. However, wired LAN is one of the basic functions of all laptops that should simply work.

Cheers,

You never had to do with the 3com cards...

BTW the Gbe cards are still too young to work flawlessly as the elder sisters, often they simply works because on the other end of the wire is present a 100Mbps NIC.

But on a true Gbe lan the headaches are not uncommon.

I had the same issue, I can confirm using the Ethernet driver for XP and installing it as "XP SP3" has worked so far, 24 hrs of use with no lockups. Have not tried 64 Bit Win7 yet though, same may apply until a new bios fix comes out or driver. Just thought I would confirm this fix for others.

Stealthpossum wrote:I had the same issue, I can confirm using the Ethernet driver for XP and installing it as "XP SP3" has worked so far, 24 hrs of use with no lockups. Have not tried 64 Bit Win7 yet though, same may apply until a new bios fix comes out or driver. Just thought I would confirm this fix for others.

Thanks for the update, I haven't sent my computer back to Lenovo for a mainboard exchange as of yet since it appears to be a driver issue. I manually installed the Windows XP driver. I'm currently using Win7 64-bit along with the latest BIOS 1.23-1.19. I'll post back at the end of the day on whether or not it locks up.

Been using the Windows XP Drivers on Win 7 Pro x64 and I didn't have a freeze for the 6-7 hours while it was on the LAN yesterday.

Do you notice a performance improvement with Win64 vs 32? Thinking to throw it on, but didn't necessarily want to go through the hassle if the only option I will get is Bitlocker.

Stealthpossum wrote:Do you notice a performance improvement with Win64 vs 32? Thinking to throw it on, but didn't necessarily want to go through the hassle if the only option I will get is Bitlocker.

Bitlocker is only an option available on the Enterprise and Ultimate versions of Windows 7, regardless of if you have the 32 or 64 bit versions.

I mainly wanted the 64-bit version of Win 7 so that I could use all the RAM I have available (4 GB) which will certainly help with the VMWare install of Ubuntu. It's difficult to to notice any particular performance improvements because I'd be comparing the Factory Install (which has more than a few applications and services thrown in than I care for) to a Fresh Install, of course the Fresh install will always be faster.

Sorry about that, only mentioned the bitlocker since the only 64bit Win7 I had was Ultimate, like everyone, no option for 64 bit Win7 Pro when ordering and don't have a generic 64 bit ISO to try a reinstall with factory registration. Agreed on the clean install, some of the apps are nice but unnecessary along with the factory partition. Appreciate the response.

Stealthpossum wrote:Sorry about that, only mentioned the bitlocker since the only 64bit Win7 I had was Ultimate, like everyone, no option for 64 bit Win7 Pro when ordering and don't have a generic 64 bit ISO to try a reinstall with factory registration. Agreed on the clean install, some of the apps are nice but unnecessary along with the factory partition. Appreciate the response.

No need to register online if you install the same version of win seven x64.

Just backup the the activation cert and serial (no, isn't the one on the stiker) with ABR (one click operation) and restore them with the same sw (one click operation too..).

You can use a a plain and untouched iso image downloaded from the internet (it's very easy to find one), and your install will perfectly legit. You paid for win7, you aren't cracking or hacking anything, so no matter if you are using a 32 or 64 bit version, and no matter if the iso comes from lenovo, from M$ or from elsewhere.

Use the official M$ USB download tool to make a USB bootable installation media, starting directly from the iso image if you don't have a usb burner.

Thanx for the info, figured as much since win7 ult comes with both versions; just haven't poked around much for iso's to download, I'm sure I can find something. With no lockups and the SSD in the machine its doing better than I expected. Thanx again for the replies.

I had this same problem with my L625 x100e. Win 7 32-bit, driver version 7.11.1127.2009. I had to rollback to driver version 7.2.1127.2008. Now it seems fine.

Thanks for the informative posts. I updated drivers the first night I had the machine. Locked up the next day at a friend's house (wired). Found this topic later, rolled back drivers... problem fixed.

crystal castle wrote:I had this same problem with my L625 x100e. Win 7 32-bit, driver version 7.11.1127.2009. I had to rollback to driver version 7.2.1127.2008. Now it seems fine.

My X100e cam with driver version 7.11.1127.2009. Where can I download driver version 7.2.1127.2008?

Cheers,

Just got my x100e yesterday and my LAN driver is @ 7.13.112.2010 and this problem is present. Was fine all last night on wireless. Hook it up to wired today at work and random lockups. Going to try uninstalling and reinstalling the older driver and hopefully this problem goes away. I need to transfer files and settings from my T60p and I'd rather not do that over wireless.

Sounds like a widespread and consistent problem, I'll get my x100e soon, although the chance for me to use it on Ethernet is slim, I really wish Lenovo will get it resolved quickly.

hmmwv wrote:Sounds like a widespread and consistent problem, I'll get my x100e soon, although the chance for me to use it on Ethernet is slim, I really wish Lenovo will get it resolved quickly.

Lenovo has nothing to solve, their drivers are working, is microsoft that has to pull out that buggy update from wu.

Either way, its a new machine running an OS that is relatively new. The fact you can use an XP driver effectively on this OS is pretty nice considering the past. Lenovo needs to address the issue, its their machine that is supposed to perform with Win7 as advertised. Driver/firmware update? Win7 still gives the opportunity to make it run fine until then. Minor issue once you realize the solution; a long way from IRQ conflicts and setting lands/zones for Hard drives......

morkli wrote:My X100e cam with driver version 7.11.1127.2009. Where can I download driver version 7.2.1127.2008?

Cheers,

I guess this driver version was already on my system but a software update bumped the rev up. I didn't notice because I didn't think it would be an issue. Now I know better. If it's not on your system, you might just try doing a Google search. I'm seeing some references to that driver version on various 3rd party sites. I did a brief search on the Lenovo and Realtek sites and found nothing. Or maybe try the XP driver.

morkli wrote: My X100e cam with driver version 7.11.1127.2009. Where can I download driver version 7.2.1127.2008?

Cheers,

Morkli -

7.2.1127.2008 is installed with Windows 7 from start. If you update with Windows Update, use "custom" and uncheck any updates to the Realtek Gb driver.

Lenovo's released a BIOS update a couple days ago

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-74275

http://download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub/pc/pccbbs/mobiles/6xuj08us.txt wrote: [Problem fixes]
- Fixed an issue where the computer might hang when updating the BIOS.
- Fixed an issue where the computer might hang when using Ethernet.
- Fixed an issue where the remaining battery change might be shown as critical
low when the computer was running with the AC adapter only and then
the battery was attached to the computer.
- Fixed an issue where setting to disable WiMAX in BIOS Setup Utility takes
effect at the next system boot.
- Fixed an issue where the serial number of the PC might not be correctly read.

For those of you stuck with the 7.11.1127.2009, this may be worth a shot (instead of trying to track down the older drivers). I'll probably be updating to this BIOS rev after giving it my customary delay for other people to find the critical bugs

Wow, good news. Thanks

I checked just yesterday and was present the usual 1.23 firmware

@random

Thanks for the update! I usually check every day for new updates but this one didn't show up. I'll get this installed along with the latest Ethernet drivers and update my first post accordingly if I get through the day without any lockups or freezing.

There is also a new version of access connection (added support for sprint)

And a new wifi driver, this one works with connectify, so the one from windows update is not needed anymore