slowdown, updated BIOS, beeping advice?

[scarmichael]

Hi again, I wrote about this a few weeks ago - I have more questions now - thank you in advance.

I bought a T43 (1875 DMU) a few weeks ago. I like it a lot, except for the following:

1. So I'm still getting that BEEEEP noise from the back of the machine, unrelated to speakers, battery, AC adapter (although if I take the battery out of the machine completely and run on just AC power it's less common). So far it hasn't done anything really horrible, though. Just annoying.

2. Every two weeks or so, the hard drive slows considerably, and it takes forever to boot up, iTunes skips, programs are slow, the mouse is jerky, etc. Restarting with fewer startup items doesn't help. The only thing that works is doing a system restore to the previous day, and then everything is fine for another two weeks. What's going on?

3. I updated the BIOS from the Lenovo website for my T43 model, thinking that it would maybe help with the slow hard drive problem. Well, no change with the hard drive, but when I start up now, it doesn't recognize my wireless connection, because the Use Windows To Configure Wireless Settings is always unchecked (in the View Available Wireless Networks, Advanced panel) upon startup. It's not a huge deal to go in and check it (and then the wireless is fine), but in my opinion it shouldn't be doing that.

Ideas on any of these things?
I've called IBM for help (especially for the hard drive/system restore situation - I shouldn't have to do a system restore every 2 weeks on a brand new computer, especially when I'm not installing anything new or weird, I'm just using regular Adobe and Microsoft programs) and they're sending a box to send my computer in for repairs... but I'm wondering if it's something I can fix myself in the meantime.

Thanks!
Sarah

[Domain]

If the machine slows as bad as you say then beeps, I'm wondering if the keyboard buffer is filled (happens more commonly with locked up Win 9x machines) and that's the cause of those beeps.

Just throwing that out there.