T450s complete freeze on video playback and other trigger programs

[jonb42]

Computer is a T450s thinkpad with i5 and Intel 5500 graphics. Windows 8.1 Home.
Symptoms:
Computer reliably (ie, every time!) crashes any time I try to do the following:
1) play ANY video file using VLC, windows media player etc - doesn't seem to matter. Web videos are safe apparently for instance Youtube.
2) open iTunes: it is not iTunes that triggers the crash but the Quick Tour that pops up. I verified this by quickly x'ing out the quick tour before it could start and a crash could happen - then I was able to use iTunes no problem, play music etc. However choosing "quick tour" from the menu once again freezes everything
3) Sketchup & Layout seem to also trigger the crash.
4) Unigine Heaven Benchmark reliably crashes HOWEVER PCMark 7 free completes with no issue - playing video clips and doing 3d graphics!!!!!
Crash details:
1) it is instant - does not allow computer to get to BSOD so no crash dumps etc...
2) it is complete - Ctrl-Alt-Del no option, the only thing is to restart the computer.
Things I've tried:
1) sfc /scannow - no problems found
2) reinstall OS from factory disk - same issue
3) Update all drivers to latest versions. - no help
4) Uninstall graphics driver completely - no help
5) There is no "disable graphics acceleration" option with the Intel 5500 apparently
6) DxDiag reports that everything is peachy
7) Ran memory scans all last night, no issue. Traded memory chip. No help
Replaced hard disk - also ran scans. No help.
What keeps me from thinking that I have a lemon laptop (is is new) is that there seems to be some kind of rhyme & reason to the problem - I just don't know enough about the back end of windows to know WHAT. For instance if it is a problem with the graphics card why does PCmark work just fine - but Unigine crash? (in DX9 / DX11 / OpenGL modes ALL).
What is the common ground between Unigine / Sketchup / iTunes Quick Tour and video playback?
I've done extensive searching and reading forums but I am getting no-where... Many people seem to have an issue with flash video - or with online video - but I can't find someone with exactly THIS problem
And because no BSOD I get no crash dumps to look at. Is there a debug tool I can run in the background to monitor pre-BSOD crashes?

Update:
- I tried DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth which completed successfully but didn't help the problem
- and found another trigger program: Splashtop Remote Desktop. Immediate repeatable crash as soon as the remote computer's screen is about to show. In contrast Chrome remote desktop works fine. I'm leaning towards some kind of graphics accelerated problem because I know Splashtop uses some kind of graphics acceleration - its something they are proud of...
- and another: Photoshop (creative cloud latest version). Program opens with no problem but as soon as one tries to open a photo with it the computer crashes.

I have submitted a warranty request since the laptop is new. However since everything else works well I can't help thinking there is just something simple yet obscure wrong...

Thanks in advance for any insight!
Jon B

[RealBlackStuff]

Welcome to the forum.
Rather than waste frustrating hours, since you state that this is a new computer, exchange it under warranty.
Unfortunately the newer Lenovo laptops do not live up any more to their former reputations.

[AIX]

It reminds me of the T420s w/ integrated graphics weird problem, I can't believe Lenovo are doing this _again_.

I was thinking you're facing a memory issue until I've reach point no. 7). Do yourself a favor and listen to RBS' advice.

[jonb42]

A returns box is being sent to me as we speak.

Hopefully I will get some feedback as to what exactly was wrong!

thanks
Jon

[jonb42]

Update on this issue:

From the EasyServ site, a sample of the status updates one gets:

Original comments/problem description
04/28 1254 04/28 1113 THE LAPTOP COMPLETELY FREEZES (BEFORE BSOD - NO ALTERNATIVE BUT TO USE LONG PRESS POWER BUTTON TO RESET) WHEN THE FOLLOWING TASKS ARE ATTEMPTED:.- PLAY ANY TYPE OF VIDEO USING WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER, VLC ETC.-

(Note that this was the only information I was initially able to pass on to the repair center - and it might have been enough if they had read it and thought to ask for more... But that didn't happen!)

Status
Status Date/time received Time zone Description
CX 05/19/2015 22:59:00 A Repair complete, shipped to customer
OS 05/15/2015 16:32:00 A Machine being repaired
HF 05/14/2015 18:22:00 A Hold for customer information
OS 05/14/2015 15:53:00 A Machine being repaired
HF 05/13/2015 21:35:00 A Hold for customer information
OS 05/12/2015 12:31:00 A Machine being repaired
HF 05/09/2015 15:01:00 A Hold for customer information
OS 05/07/2015 08:08:00 A Machine being repaired
AK 04/28/2015 19:27:00 A Carrier processing request to ship container
AK 04/28/2015 17:01:21 A Carrier processing request to ship container
Parts provided may be new or serviceable used parts.

From IBM EasyServ, Engineer Notes:

"Using the customers submitted email, found that the video on the desktop would crash instantly as well as when you played the ITunes video tour in ITunes. Found the system-board was causing this issue after a test HDD(Hard-drive) would do the same thing. Replaced system-board(motherboard) unit is no longer duplicating this issue.

Quality Notes: Tested video on desktop for 1 hour, played you tube video for 1 hour no lockups, hang-ups or shutdowns"

No way to know what exactly about the motherboard was causing the issue - some of the ram is soldered on as well as the video chip etc...

What I learned:

Lenovo support chat is almost completely useless. The person on the other end can pretty much only tell you what the EasyServ support site tells you - see the useless status table I posted above. The one useful thing I got from the chat session was to get someone to give me a call.

This was after a week of so of status checks and chatting with "support" and getting nothing.

This person was an order of magnitude more helpful and would at least listen to the words I was saying. Firstly I was alarmed to hear that the testing so far had really turned up no crashes except one time - and now they were considering re-imaging the hard drive!!!!! People, wait! I already did this!!! After explaining everything as well as I could they arranged for customer support to send me an email to which I could respond with the details of the testing I'd already done (see previous posts). There is no support email address listed on IBM's site. This is actually an @flextronics email address.

After my email I waited a couple of days before following it up with another email saying that the "engineer" would give me a call - which he did. Now I was talking to someone who seemed as though they at least had read my email even though they were doing some of the same tests - which I understand for verification.

If I hadn't done all this communication I am almost 100% sure the laptop would have returned to me after a week of half-hearted testing with the exact same problem it had when I sent it.

Another way of saying this: in the beginning I felt as though I had wasted my time doing all the testing and posting here since it turned out to be a hardware / warranty issue anyway. Now however I feel convinced that if I hadn't been so thorough the warranty center would not have been!

This is not a ringing endorsement of IBM EasyServ repair center... But I will still be thankful if I get the laptop back in working condition!

[Puppy]

There is similar report for HD 5500 Display driver crash causing system to freeze during start up of Photoshop and Premiere Pro

It is a bug anyway because it should end up with a "Display driver stopped responding and has recovered" error instead of freeze. My guess is that nobody does deep testing of hardware/drivers these days given number of issues of today's devices. My 11 years old ThinkPad R51 has never crashed (no freeze, no BSOD).

As for T450s there is thread about CPU whine issue. Have you noticed it ?