T60 problems

[JaxNJ]

I am so glad I found this board. Hopefully I'll find some help because the T60 I own is seriously in need of it.

I bought it last June. Core Duo (solo). XP pro. 2 ghz, 80 gig hd.

Chronic problem: the touchpad freezes.
Also: the LCD is dark; occassional blue screens.

I sent it back to IBM (I have a 3 year warranty) and got it back last week. The LCD looks unchanged. I cannot work outdoors with it, but I am giving this computer away to someone who doesn't need to work outdoors (my nephew). This freezing touchpad/pointer problem is a royal pain in the kiester, though.

I had never done the Thinkvantage system update. My negligence...it slipped through the cracks. So I'm doing that this morning. First, I get "The Package Index Server is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later." At several points, it WAS available, and I downloaded and installed many updates.

And upon reboot, the touchpad/trackpoint froze again.

Please help. I'm so beyond frustrated with this machine. I already bought a replacement and am using it--it was like throwing away $2000. I am giving it to my nephew, but I don't want to give him headaches. I want to at least get the touchpad problem fixed.

Part of the "repair" from IBM was a new keyboard. Obviously, that didn't work.

I would appreciate any help or advice.

Aside: my partner worked for IBM for 30 years and retired from there. Fabulous company. Horrible laptop.

[dsalyers]

I sent it back to IBM (I have a 3 year warranty) and got it back last week. The LCD looks unchanged. I cannot work outdoors with it, but I am giving this computer away to someone who doesn't need to work outdoors (my nephew). This freezing touchpad/pointer problem is a royal pain in the kiester, though.

Sorry to hear about your problems. We had the touchpad freezing issue (only happened in Windows) was to reinstall windows XP from scratch. No amount of removal of the drivers/software and reinstallation relieved this problem. Since the fresh install I have not heard of it happening once. Also, note we updated the bios before we reinstalled.

As far as the blue screens are concerned she also got the blue screen with an NMI parity error. This is a known issue that installing the latest intel wireless drivers (assuming you have the intel card) can fix. If it isn't this, I don't know, but bad RAM could ba a cuprit.

As far as the screen brightness goes, when you run on battery the T60's screen dims itself to save power. Now, if you go into the bios and set the power management on the screen to not do this you can have max brightness while on battery.

I do not feel that the T60p screen is especially bright, but then again I would say it is useable out doors with the brightness up. Direct sunlight is always a problem, and I have never used or seen a laptop that is good in that situation. Not saying they don't exist, just don't know of one.

[JaxNJ]

I was hoping to avoid wiping everything out with a restore, but I am running into more issues.

My c: drive is showing that I've got 49.7 gigs on this hard drive. This is crazy. I have about 10 gigs in my documents.
Programs: under 4 gigs.

What the hell is eating up my hard drive?

Recycle is empty.

I'm thinking maybe i SHOULD just reinstall xp????

[gator]

JaxNJ, there are two things to check as to HDD usage:

1. Windows restore backups

To check if you have enabled windows restore, right click on the 'My computer' icon on your desktop (or start menu), go to Properties-->System Restore tab. You can see what % of your disk size is reserved for storing windows restore points, and you can choose to reduce it or stop it altogether.

2. Thinkvantage Rescue and Recovery backups

Have you enabled automatic scheduled backups using RnR? That could eat up a lot of space.

As regarding bluescreens, if you installed 3rd part RAM modules, it might be the culprit. Unfortunately, there are so many reasons why windows shows the BSOD (though it not frequent anymore), and it takes quite a bit of trouble shooting to find the exact reason.

I have no idea as to what is causing the touchpad freeze up. I suggest you uninstall and reinstall the trackpoint and touchpad drivers from IBM, and check what happens.

[JaxNJ]

Thank you gator for your post!

1. Windows restore backups

To check if you have enabled windows restore, right click on the 'My computer' icon on your desktop (or start menu), go to Properties-->System Restore tab. You can see what % of your disk size is reserved for storing windows restore points, and you can choose to reduce it or stop it altogether.

It is not checked...so it IS enabled, and it's set to max which is 12%.

2. Thinkvantage Rescue and Recovery backups

Have you enabled automatic scheduled backups using RnR? That could eat up a lot of space.

I don't remember. Where do I check this? I went to Thinkvantage>RandR
but it gives me a screen with 3 categories: Back up your system, Restore your system, and Manage backups
I can't tell if it is "on" or not. Any way to tell?

As regarding bluescreens, if you installed 3rd part RAM modules

None of those.

I have no idea as to what is causing the touchpad freeze up. I suggest you uninstall and reinstall the trackpoint and touchpad drivers from IBM, and check what happens.

Good idea. If it happens again, I'll try that. I finally did get all the critical and suggested updates installed, plus I've removed some programs including at least one with a driver today. I haven't had a freeze up since then. MAYBE one of those uninstalls or updates got the problem. If so, it would be the first break I will have caught!

Again, thank you so much. I appreciate your time!