T41, odd "freezing" issue

[theterminator93]

I rescued this particular T41 from the scrapper last year and recently started to experiment with it. When I got it, it had XP loaded on it; since then I've installed Windows 7 and upgraded to 2GB RAM, as well as no-1802'd the BIOS so I could install a WPA-capable 802.11g WLAN card. I've got a CPU upgrade and an SXGA+ screen upgrade on the to-do list. Before I pull the trigger on any of that though, I need to figure out this most recent development...

Recently - since the RAM upgrade and Windows 7 install, I've run into an awkward "freezing" issue. I don't know if it was present before the RAM upgrade (post Win7) because I'd never used it for prolonged periods. It wasn't having any problems pre-RAM, pre-Win7. If I boot the system normally, it runs fine for an hour or so. After that, the screen blanks out for a split-second as the speakers "pop" then it comes up. It's not a classic freeze where all activity halts, since anything currently running on the screen continues to run (e.g. video still plays, clock still ticks). The keyboard and mouse don't respond, and holding the power button in doesn't kill the power - I need to unplug it and remove the battery. The fan also shuts off and TPFanControl displays a temp of 0.

It is/was having intermittent issues coming out of standby; I'd need to unplug/remove the battery to get it to boot up.

I intend to do a Memtest86+ to ensure the RAM is good, and I'm going to have a look at the event log as well. I suppose I could also yank the WLAN card to be sure that's not contributing... Is there anything else anyone can think of that I can look at before I start considering a clean install of Windows and/or a replacement motherboard? Has anyone ever heard of something like this?

[GACrabill]

... It is/was having intermittent issues coming out of standby; I'd need to unplug/remove the battery to get it to boot up. ... Is there anything else anyone can think of that I can look at before I start considering a clean install of Windows and/or a replacement motherboard? Has anyone ever heard of something like this?

Assuming that your graphics chip is an ATI 7500 or ATI 9000, then with Win7 you will need to be using video driver version "6.14.10.6606".

You can find it here :
http://www.mediafire.com/?5tieomimroy#!

[theterminator93]

Yeah, it's a 7500. I'll give that a whirl. The driver I have installed now is 6.14.10.6547.

[theterminator93]

Rats, no-go. Nothing in the event viewer either.

Back to the drawing board...

[Think43p]

Hi,

My 2 cents if its of any value. I recently had the classic freeze issue where everything would freeze and the only way out was a hard restart. That being said the cause of my freezing was a faulty RAM module(a Samsung one if I remember correctly) which when removed my laptop did not freeze even once till date whereas prior to removing it would freeze around twice daily mostly while watching youtube. Luckily I had 2 X 1 GB so I could test by removing the faulty Samsung 1GB and tested. I now have a Crucial that replaced the Samsung and its been smooth sailing since then.

Here's the thread.
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=103534

[theterminator93]

Thanks for the thoughts. I let Memtest86 run for a several hours last night and it came back error free. I'm starting to think this is software (driver) related, so I'm going to start disabling devices one by one to see if there's any effect...

[theterminator93]

Well, I tried a couple hardware related things:

Disable video card to force "standard VGA adapter" drivers, no luck.
Disable WLAN card, no luck.
Updated BIOS to latest version, no luck.

Then I decided to try a couple software related things after seeing some events in the event viewer related to access to ACPI. First I tried disabling TPFanControl. This didn't fix the problem. Then I disabled the power manager as well, which still didn't help.

So then I pulled out the battery and DVD drive... and it's been running fine for about 3 hours so far; it would crash after an hour or less before. Maybe I'm being hopeful, but it's the most promising thing so far.

If this doesn't work I'm going to load up my WinXP image (from prior to loading Win7) and see if the problem persists. If not... I guess I'm staying with XP. If so, I think a new motherboard is on the list.

[theterminator93]

To update the thread with recent progress:

I ordered and installed a spare T41 motherboard. No change. So then I decided to wipe and reinstall the OS and all hardware drivers a couple nights ago...

So far, so good; the computer's been on for the last full day...

[theterminator93]

Reviving this thread with a couple updates on progress I made.

I started having issues again after the clean Windows 7 install almost immediately after I installed system updates. Interestingly, the problems do not persist if the battery is not installed.

Frustrated, I gave up on Windows 7 and restored it back to factory using recovery media. The machine works just fine now with XP. Maybe if I feel ambitious again in the future I will devote more time to tracking down the specific problem. Definitely software related though.

[Dekks]

Did you reset BIOS to default?

[micrex22]

I had this one similar issue where I put a T61 battery in my T60-- the T61 battery would 'freeze' Windows after it loaded to the desktop. Maybe your T41 is having a similar issue with a battery mismatch problem. It could also be some sort of whitelist mechanism... not sure.