T60 'freeze'

[Steerpike]

I've referred to this as a side note in other threads but I figured I'd give it it's own post with appropriate subject.

I'm the IT guy for a small company that has standardized on Lenovo. We have a bunch of T43s and now T60s. Three of us with the T60s are experiencing 'freezes' on a regular basis - every few days. None of us ever shut down; we always go to standby for trips to/from office. We all dock in the office, are undocked at home. One of the three (not me) has Vista biz, rest are XP Pro.

Symptoms: freeze - system simply 'stops' - screen visible, mouse stuck whereever it was, no response to mouse or keyboard. Caps lock and Scroll lock lights do not come on when you press their key, but NumLk (Fn+Scr-lk key) does, and the keyboard light (Fn+Pg Up) still works. Plugging and unplugging battery still yields a loud 'beep' and the green indicator goes on/off to reflect charging. My interpretation of this is, the 'basic hardware' and bios are still functioning -assuming the Num-lock and kbd lamp are bios controlled functions but the OS has somehow frozen. Closing / opening lid has no effect thought screen does turn off on close, but that' mechanical I think). No other Fn- key combination does anything. External usb mouse equally dead.

Problem occurs always at home, when undocked. Always after many hours of use at home (i.e., it doesn't jus freeze up 'out of the bag'). Also, it always seems to happen when the laptop is 'actively in use' - that is, it's not the case that you set it aside, return to it and find it frozen; it always seems to lock up while actively being used - though this latter observation is a bit flimsy at the moment.

My colleague with Vista has 2 GB ram factory installed, I have 1 GB made up of 512 from factory and 512 added by CDW.

I've tried to keep up to date on all patches.

Recently, I've started uninstalling more and more Lenovo software, a) to remove potential sources of the problem, and b) to thin out the 'forrest' so I may be able to better see the 'trees'!

Most recently, I uninstalled Access Connections, and this weekend I stopped the power management service and shut down the 'tray' applet. But last night I still froze.

My ultimate plan is to do a clean windows XP 'OEM' install, from scratch, but that is going to take a huge amount of time and planning, given the amount of use I put this thing to.

Any thoughts on what else I may want to kill, or otherwise look at?

[thinkNathan]

I'm experiencing exactly the same problem.

At first I thought that it was a video card issue because the top centimeter of the screen became garbled once or twice, but I have updated to the latest drivers and haven't seen that behavior again.

Sometimes the mouse pointer goes into the top left hand corner of the screen and then freezes.

I have also kept on top of all of the updated software and drivers from Microsoft and Lenovo, including BIOS. I ran PC Doctor and everything came through ok. I plan on running memtest tonight to test the memory.

I have 1GB of factory installed memory (singe DIMM) and haven't opened up the case to peek into its guts yet.

[thinkNathan]

I ran memtest all night and came up with no errors.

However, memtest reported that I had 166MHz DDR332 RAM, but the system is supposed to have 667MHz RAM in it. Has anyone heard of memtest not reporting RAM type correctly?

[GomJabbar]

I don't know if this will make a difference or not, but you can try turning Hardware Acceleration down or off in Display Properties. On my ATI system this is located on the Troubleshoot tab.

[Rizo]

I installed an extra Crucial 1 gig stick in my R60 recently and freeze when playing UT2004(a game) for an extended period of time.

It did not do this before the extra stick of ram was added, and memtest comes up with no errors. I am blaming this one on poor cooling for the ram bay and am going to see what I can do to increase the circulation(maybe remove the protective metal tray, but that sounds risky)

Don't know if this will help you, but heres hoping!

[Steerpike]

I'm experiencing exactly the same problem.

At first I thought that it was a video card issue because the top centimeter of the screen became garbled once or twice, but I have updated to the latest drivers and haven't seen that behavior again.

Sometimes the mouse pointer goes into the top left hand corner of the screen and then freezes.

I have also kept on top of all of the updated software and drivers from Microsoft and Lenovo, including BIOS. I ran PC Doctor and everything came through ok. I plan on running memtest tonight to test the memory.

I have 1GB of factory installed memory (singe DIMM) and haven't opened up the case to peek into its guts yet.

I've had a lot of freezes this week. It happens so often now I'm no longer bothered by it - I see it as an opportunity to do troubleshooting Some more thoughts/observations:

* I use the computer at work all day and have multiple apps open, including IExplorer, outlook, excel, etc. Sum total of memory in use is usually over 1 Gig (so I'm paging out).

* The computer is docked at work, with lid closed. I go to standby at the end of the office-day, undock, come home, open lid, log on. Computer runs for several hours (sometimes days) then freezes.

* freeze always occurs at home, when undocked. Never when docked in the office. I don't THINK I ever have a second crash at home before going to work.

* I see an entry in the event log (app section) with this text, possibly around the time of the crash: "Windows cannot obtain the domain controller name for your computer network. (A socket operation was attempted to an unreachable host. ). Group Policy processing aborted. " So I'm suspecting a network issue. There's nothing else in the event log relating to the crash.

* tonight, the freeze occurred before I got to 'unlock' (ctrl-alt-del, sign in) the computer. I opened the lid, woke from standby, but could not sign in - so it can happen almost immediately.

* At work, docked, I'm hard-wired to the network. At home, I'm using wireless.

* I am running 'Fortigate' VPN all the time. At work, it's not doing anything, but at home it's connecting me to my office.

[crazyfrog]

I experienced exactly the same 'freeze' problem twice in similar conditions in last two months. So it is very rare on my T60.

I use my T60 at home though wireless network, no dock, no shutdown (hibernation instead). Interestingly, I noticed that when the 'freeze' happened, I was always doing some kind of copy & paste text using mouse between two microsoft programs (once in IE and once in Excel).

I have two matching OEM Samsung 1GB rams from Lenovo installed. Tests of any hardware, memory included of course, though PC Doctor/memtest/RMMA always passed with success.

So I suspect that bugs in Window XP are to blame.

BTW, I have turned Remote Desktop on. I will try to connect my T60 remotely when the freeze happens next time and see if I can find more clue.

[Dodge DeBoulet]

I had similar freezing problems almost daily with my T60 in the first week I had it . . . many BSoDs too, especially when resuming from standby. I requested a motherboard replacement (on-site service contract), and in the 3-4 weeks since then, I've only had one additional freeze. No BSoDs at all.

Shortly after the MB replacement, though, I uninstalled Daemon Tools and the SPTD driver (used to mount ISO images as virtual CD ROMs, very handy in my business for software installation to remote app servers). It could've been the motherboard, it could have been Daemon Tools/SPTD.

I now run Daemon Tools in a VMWare Win2K virtual machine and have no problems.

[r. aster]

I'm going to add a maddening reply to this thread:

T60, WSXGA, ATI x1400, 2 GB RAM (1 GB Lenovo, 1 GB Kingston), 2.0 GHz.

I used to get this freeze-up behaviour about every day or so. Seems like it was often when I tried to resume from sleep, but may have happened other times.

I have not had an occurence in the last couple months.

Here's the maddening part: I don't don't what I changed that fixed it. So here's a list of the major changes I've made. The ones marked with an * are the ones that seemed to have an effect on system stability.

• Uninstalled CSS
  Uninstalled the pre-loaded anti-virus
  Installed all updates offered through MS Update except .net 3.0
  Installed all critical updates offered by System Update and most of the recommended
  *Installed latest DirectX update from MS
  *Using the Omega modded ATI drivers
  Uninstalled DiskKeeper Lite. Installed Perfect Disk. Run weekly.
  *Updated BIOS to 1.07.
  *Installed MS hotfix to videoprt.sys. (There are two of these. One worked better: version 5.1.2600.2911).
  *Disabled PowerPlay in ATI drivers
  *set color depth to 16 bits

It seems to me the instabilty of the T60s is related to the video subsystem and/or power management. Almost all of my issues have ocurred at or immediately following a change of power state. And many but not all of my BSODs have fingered the ATI driver. And the frozen screen with video artifacts implies video issues.

Good luck,
RA

[Steerpike]

Update ...

Stopped docking altogether at work - I now go to 'standby' at home; arrive at work, manually plug in my monitor, network cable, and keyboard/mouse then wake from standby. At the end of the office day, I go to standby; unplug everything, then at home, wake from standby.

Tonight, I locked up right after waking from standby at home. So it's still happening. Maybe I should recover from standby first at work, THEN plug in the monitor / mouse / kbd, and at the end of the office day, unplug everything THEN go to standby - that way, I would not be changing device status while the computer is in standby.

[wxxiong]

Update ...

Stopped docking altogether at work - I now go to 'standby' at home; arrive at work, manually plug in my monitor, network cable, and keyboard/mouse then wake from standby. At the end of the office day, I go to standby; unplug everything, then at home, wake from standby.

Tonight, I locked up right after waking from standby at home. So it's still happening. Maybe I should recover from standby first at work, THEN plug in the monitor / mouse / kbd, and at the end of the office day, unplug everything THEN go to standby - that way, I would not be changing device status while the computer is in standby.

You are not alone. I have the exact same problem on my T60 (type 2007). But I have some more intereting observation.

I have updated to almost all the latest BIOS/drivers. It works pretty stable but only with the issue of freeze after I put my T60 into standby in docking station, undocking it and resuming from standby at home or in meeting conference room.

I should say 3 out of 4 undockings in my case would result in a freeze right after the first time it came out of standby after undocking. However, my T60 never freezes if I do standby/resume repeatedly only when undocked.

I was also thinking about abandon the docking station but unfortunately I am using the DVI port on the dock station for my 2 monitor setup so I really want to use it.

Now after your experimenting with directly connect cables without dock station. It brings up some interesting though. Since it also freezes your T60 without using docking station. One thing I can think of is what is the difference before and after the undocking process? Since in my case, it never freezes if it passes the first resume from standby after undocking. I think maybe (1) the resolution of the external LCD and the laptop LCD is different. (2)docking using the AC power and after undocking, the battery.

Based on above 2 points, Now I started my experiment process of trying to bring the laptop into as close as possible the state of undocked situation before I put it into standby and taking it with me.
What I did is:
When I am ready to take the T60 with me:
1. When it is still docked, I use the "Presentation Director" to switch it to laptp internal LCD
2. Push the undock button on the docking station to undock it.
3. Take it out of dock station
4. Wait until the wireless LAN is enabled and connected.
Now my T60 is in a state of normal work condition that I normally do not have freeze problem using standby/resume.
5. Now I put it into standby and take it with me.

I have tried this 5 times already and it seems not freezing anymore.
I will keep trying and let you know.
Also, please let me know if you have any more new findings

WX

[GomJabbar]

FWIW, I have a T42, not a T60. Also, I do not have a docking station. Yet I discovered when I first got my T42 that XP does not like hardware changes while in Standby. The only times I ever had problems with Standby was when I plugged something in or unplugged something that was plugged in, then tried to bring the unit out of Standby. Only the power cord I do not concern myself with, in regards to Standby.

[jcf2007]

I've experienced three similar "lock ups" since setting up my new T60 on June 10. In addition, experienced one "screen black-out" (not a blue screen, just an empty black screen). That would be four failures in 11 days of pretty steady operation.

My activity at the time of the lockups has been simple mouse operations, cut/paste between windows, etc. The cursor just disappears. The black-out happened exactly as I clicked a Firefox bookmark.

I'm running Windows XP with stock Lenovo applications. The computer is used only in my home office, undocked, with 802.11 networking.

This T60 has Core2Duo T7200, 2 GB RAM stock Lenovo, graphics ATI X1400 128M.

Watching this thread closely for any trends toward resolution...

[Steerpike]

Recent posts by everyone are very helpful. Don't want to waste space re-quoting everyone, but it's all good stuff.

I too am zeroing in on the notion of 'changes while in standby' being the issue. I have currently abandoned the docking station, tediously plugging/unplugging mouse/kbd/monitor/network/power twice a day. I'm also now - as you guys mentioned above - not going to standby until I switch the display to laptop LCD each time. Thus, at home (undocked) in the morning I:
1) go to standby
2) close the lid

At work (also undocked, for now):
1) open lid (note: I have my power profile set so that open/close lid 'does nothing' because I'd rather control the standby/wake process directly using the power button)
2) press power to wake from standby
3) allow machine to settle
4) plug in network/power/kbd/mouse/monitor
5) Fn+F7 repeatedly till external monitor only is on

...<work hard and earn money >....

At the end of the office day:
1) Fn+F7 repeatedly till only laptop LCD is on
2) disconnect ethernet/kbd/mouse/monitor/power
3) go to standby
4) close lid and go home

Back at home:
1) Open lid,
2) recover from standby
3) use computer in a productive manner.

Obviously, this is as tedious as hell but ... if it helps find the problem, I'll keep doing it.

So far (just a few cycles so far) this has been 'solid'.

The one difference I have to point out with my situation is that I was locking up in the evenings, at home, several hours after resuming from standby, for no particular reason (no pattern). But more recently, I was locking up within seconds of resume. Only time will tell if the former condition will start re-appearing.

The funky thing I don't understand about docking is, if you want to keep your laptop closed at work (as I do), then it seems totally illogical to use the 'undock' function when preparing to go home, since ... the lid is closed on the laptop and you have no way to power down without raising the lid, which is a big waste of time. That is - you are at work, docked, using external monitor only, and want to go home; you click 'undock'; computer disconnects from the external devices, which means, you now have no display and no keyboard to do the 'standby' operation, so you have to undock, raise lid, then go to standby. Weird stuff.

[GomJabbar]

I don't have a dock - never did. But I just read this post above yours that has me wondering. What do you have Suspend/Hibernate Options set to in Power Options IRT undocking, in Windows Control Panel? In the thead below, this setting was done in Power Manager.

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=44730

[Steerpike]

I don't have a dock - never did. But I just read this post above yours that has me wondering. What do you have Suspend/Hibernate Options set to in Power Options IRT undocking, in Windows Control Panel? In the thead below, this setting was done in Power Manager.

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=44730

Undock action = no action.

Note - I had a freeze a few days ago, even without docking; the key seemed to be, going to standby with an external (and higher res) monitor connected, then recovering from standby without the monitor attached.

[wxxiong]

I don't have a dock - never did. But I just read this post above yours that has me wondering. What do you have Suspend/Hibernate Options set to in Power Options IRT undocking, in Windows Control Panel? In the thead below, this setting was done in Power Manager.

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=44730

Undock action = no action.

Note - I had a freeze a few days ago, even without docking; the key seemed to be, going to standby with an external (and higher res) monitor connected, then recovering from standby without the monitor attached.

The monitor resolution change before standby and after resume is my first suspect. So far according to my freeze cases' situation, it all involves external monitor and internal LCD resolution change.
After I started follow my procedure that in previous relay, which involves making sure my T60 goes into internal LCD before standby, I did not have a single freeze yet. Of course my procedure also makes sure that it is undocked/removed and nothing is connected before standby. I can try to isolate the steps whence I am confirmed the entire procedure works for maybe at least a week.

[wxxiong]

FWIW, I have a T42, not a T60. Also, I do not have a docking station. Yet I discovered when I first got my T42 that XP does not like hardware changes while in Standby. The only times I ever had problems with Standby was when I plugged something in or unplugged something that was plugged in, then tried to bring the unit out of Standby. Only the power cord I do not concern myself with, in regards to Standby.

I think you are right about it not like hardware changes before/after standby. In my freeze cases, it involves monitor resolution change and the Ethernet cable plug in/out change.

[Steerpike]

Well, as annoying as this is, I hope we can trace this to something. ANYTHING is better than losing the dozens of windows I'm in the middle of using (I can't say I lose data any more, since I religiously save/save/save when I work).

If this DOES turn out to be traced to the video switch during standby, that's a big fat bummer because I really like to leave my lid closed at work, and I'd have to re-arrange my desk in order to open the lid before going to standby. If this is the case, I'll start leaving my lid open all the time, and make the most of both monitors during the day then switch to laptop LCD right before shutdown.

I wonder if the same issue applies to Hibernate? For reasons I forget now, with my old Dell Latitude, I used to have pretty much the same workflow as described above but used hibernate instead of standby. If, in fact, hibernate is more resilient to hardware changes, I could easily go back to hibernate instead of standby - it just adds a minute or so to the shutdown and startup process.

I feel a solution is near ...

[wxxiong]

I've experienced three similar "lock ups" since setting up my new T60 on June 10. In addition, experienced one "screen black-out" (not a blue screen, just an empty black screen). That would be four failures in 11 days of pretty steady operation.

My activity at the time of the lockups has been simple mouse operations, cut/paste between windows, etc. The cursor just disappears. The black-out happened exactly as I clicked a Firefox bookmark.

I'm running Windows XP with stock Lenovo applications. The computer is used only in my home office, undocked, with 802.11 networking.

This T60 has Core2Duo T7200, 2 GB RAM stock Lenovo, graphics ATI X1400 128M.

Watching this thread closely for any trends toward resolution...

Did you update to the latest BIOS that is "HIGHLY Recommend" by Lenovo? The BIOS update makes T60 much more stable. I used to have the similar freeze problem when I am in the middle of doing something such as outlook. I believe I do not have that problem anymore after I upgraded to the latest BIOS version.

[szaffi]

I think you are right about it not like hardware changes before/after standby. In my freeze cases, it involves monitor resolution change and the Ethernet cable plug in/out change.

Hi all,

I have this freeze problem for several months and I can confirm that at least in part it is related to Ethernet card. I'm running Vista but previously I experienced exactly the same problems on XP.

I noticed several types of lockups/freezes:

1) When going out of standby - 30 seconds of operation and then complete system freeze (mouse not moving, no response)
2) Sometimes freeze (mouse not moving, no response) during normal work after standby but also without standby when working on batteries (same as described here)
3) BSOD of "Memory Parity Error"

Ad. 1) I have the solution. If you use Lenovo Ethernet card drivers go to Ethernet card properties and on the Advanced tab you will find "Deep Smart Power Down" option. Just Disable it. By default it is enabled and my TP was freezing when OS/driver tried to disable the card to save power when going out of standby with no power cord attached and no Ethernet cable plugged.
ATTENTION: you won't see those Advanced settings if you use standard Microsoft driver. You have to download and install NIC driver from Lenovo.

Ad. 2) I still have no solution. But what I have experienced is that number of those lockups was significantly lowered (or maybe they just changed into point 3) - "Memory Parity Error" BSOD) after applying latest BIOS releases. But problem has not gone completely. Yesterday I had this type of lockup.

Ad. 3) This topic was widely discussed. Typically you get it when there are two memory ports filled with different memory modules. But some have noticed they even get it with the same memories. TP seems to be very sensitive in this area. My observation is previously (two BIOS releases earlier ) I was never having "Memory Parity Error" BSOD but rather system lockups. Now I have random "Memory Parity Error" BSOD. I have two banks filled with memories (earlier same brand, same type, exactly the same 1 GB modules, but since month ago I use two memory modules: 2 GB and 1 GB). Yesterday I removed one of them (so one port is free) and I will report what is the progress.

Generally I think that problem is Power Management related. It seems to cover different areas: network cards, graphic card (for sure) and maybe also memory. Maybe it's a powering problem when working on batteries, maybe the problem with general power management when going out of standby mode. Maybe hibernating only would resolve the problem but this is not an option for me.

Happy troubleshooting

[GomJabbar]

@szaffi

Please make sure when you quote someone, that the quote is attributed to the correct person. You quoted wxxiong above and attributed it to me.
I edited your post accordingly.

[Steerpike]

...
Ad. 1) I have the solution. If you use Lenovo Ethernet card drivers go to Ethernet card properties and on the Advanced tab you will find "Deep Smart Power Down" option. Just Disable it. By default it is enabled and my TP was freezing when OS/driver tried to disable the card to save power when going out of standby with no power cord attached and no Ethernet cable plugged.

...

I'm always powered, never on battery ... thus, could this apply to me? I AM running wired ethernet at work, and wireless at home, so there are some similarities here, but ... it sounds like the prob. only occurs on battery?

I do have that setting enabled - start/run.../devmgmt.msc.../Network Adapters/Intel Pro/1000 PL Network Connection, advanced tab (to help others find it!).

For now, I'll leave it enabled as I'm trying to change only one thing at once, but this is a good thing to know about.

[Steerpike]

Speaking of drivers and video ... I just went into device manager and checked the version of my ATI Radeon X1300 driver. It is version 8.293.1.0, dated 9/13/2006. I clicked 'update driver' and let it search windows update for updates. It found a driver version 8.362.0.0, dated 4/5/2007. I chose to apply it ( ).

I've been pretty good about applying patches from Lenovo, so I'm surprised to see I have such an old driver. Anyone else care to comment on this? Let's see if this new driver gives me grief!

[jgrobertson]

too am zeroing in on the notion of 'changes while in standby' being the issue.

I am having a problem that at Ty60P (2623) does not come out of standby sometimes. My thinking is that it also has to do with quickly undocking and then shutting the lid and capturing it in some transient state.

The symptom is that with lid open, it does not read the keyboard. It is alive and senses changes to USB devices etc.

[jcf2007]

Responding to wxxiong's question from 24-Jun-07:

When I ran System Update on 12-Jun-07 it did not identify a pending BIOS update.

However, based on this question, I just re-ran System Update and it identified a Critical system update consisting of BIOS version 1.08-1.07. I have now installed this and will watch closely for any behavior changes. Will report in a few days on the apparent results.

Thanks for the tip!

[Steerpike]

Speaking of drivers and video ... I just went into device manager and checked the version of my ATI Radeon X1300 driver. It is version 8.293.1.0, dated 9/13/2006. I clicked 'update driver' and let it search windows update for updates. It found a driver version 8.362.0.0, dated 4/5/2007. I chose to apply it ( ).

I've been pretty good about applying patches from Lenovo, so I'm surprised to see I have such an old driver. Anyone else care to comment on this? Let's see if this new driver gives me grief!

I just checked for updates from Lenovo and I got notification about 'ATI Mobility-RADEON/FIREGL (PCI Express-2) Mfr Lenovo ... Version 8.293.1-<long version number>-Lenovo. This version 8.293.1 corresponds to the OLD version I had installed before, so it seems Lenovo are not pushing the latest version yet! Let's see how it goes since I've already updated!

[wxxiong]

...
Ad. 1) I have the solution. If you use Lenovo Ethernet card drivers go to Ethernet card properties and on the Advanced tab you will find "Deep Smart Power Down" option. Just Disable it. By default it is enabled and my TP was freezing when OS/driver tried to disable the card to save power when going out of standby with no power cord attached and no Ethernet cable plugged.

...

I'm always powered, never on battery ... thus, could this apply to me? I AM running wired ethernet at work, and wireless at home, so there are some similarities here, but ... it sounds like the prob. only occurs on battery?

I do have that setting enabled - start/run.../devmgmt.msc.../Network Adapters/Intel Pro/1000 PL Network Connection, advanced tab (to help others find it!).

For now, I'll leave it enabled as I'm trying to change only one thing at once, but this is a good thing to know about.

I just had a freeze in a training room on battery. This time is not after undocking. I have not dock/undock since last weekened. This time is the first resume since last night and only difference in connection is the DC power that I used to charge the battery and I unplugged this morning before going to training. Not sure whether this is the cause. However, my T60's Ethernet "Deep Smart Power Down" is also enabled. Funny thing is when it is on battery, I could not find any Ethernet driver in device manager. But once in a while when I resume from standby, it activates the Ethernet driver trying to look for connection and then says "Network cable unplugged...". I am wondering this feature may caused my recent freeze.
Now I turned the "Smart Deep Power Down" off and to see if it still happens.

[hoya]

wxxiong - which version of videoprt.sys is installed on your ThinkPad?

see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/923232

also search google for videoprt.sys - there is more than one version available to fix resume issues.

[wxxiong]

wxxiong - which version of videoprt.sys is installed on your ThinkPad?

see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/923232

also search google for videoprt.sys - there is more than one version available to fix resume issues.

Thanks Hoya for pointing this out. I just about to ask it on this thread.
I saw this Microsoft hotfix on the web while back and it seems fits exactly the symptoms we are seeing. No sure if anybody else is aware of this hotfix and have installed it on their T60s. This hotfix does not have a download link on the page and indicates to call Microsoft tech support.
I tried to call Microsoft and the auto phone system told me to call laptop manufacture since my XP is a pre-install on the T60. Then I called Lenovo tech support asking for this hotfix of videoprt.sys, but Lenovo support is of no help. They insisted that they do not receive this hotfix from Microsoft and they asked me to ship my T60 back to them for diagnostices...
Does anybody know how could I get this hotfix to be installed on my laptop?