T61P/Bios 2.07/4 GB RAM....Lenovo says take a hike!

[lostinvt]

So I was a sufferer of the dual memory chip problem. Never worked quite right, same as the other posts here.
So I wanted to give the new 2.07 bios a go. Downloaded and installed it a few days ago. Immediately anything memory intensive just stopped working....

So I had a very long talk with several Lenovo folks this morning. I finally got one who seemse semi-intelligent and told me that officially, BIOS 2.07 reads the memory for a signature with an IBM FRU number on it, and if things try to access that memory and the FRU isnt found, the machine just crashes.

So, my second 2 GB stick of ram which has been working for months just wont work anymore. It's kingston, its decent memory, but the official answer from Lenovo is that this new BIOS will force people to only use Lenovo-supplied memory since they have had too many problems from people installing generic memory and blowing out a RAM slot which they then have to fix under warranty.

Reminds me of an upgrade I did to a firewall a few years back...I had an Intel NIC in stock, identical to the model Cisco had in the firewall, same everything, but the firewall wouldnt recognize it since it didnt have a Cisco flag in the flash. So the $50 nic wouldnt work, but the identical Cisco one would..it only cost $399.

So Lenovo basically said that they wont help me since Im using unsupported RAM, call back after I replace it with Lenovo RAM.

Go Lenovo.

[whizkid]

Welcome to the forum!

The BIOS acting that way sounds illegal, at least in some locations. It's like saying anything but Mobil gas in your Chevy voids the warranty.

I'd say escalate, and if you don't get satisfaction, do some research and talk to the folks at consumerist.com.

Keep us posted!

[lostinvt]

Ill sit tight for a few days and see if anyone else hits this. Im the IT director for my company and deal with a few hundred machines, so Im not some local yokel who lets the wool get pulled over his eyes....

This guy I finally talked to, after he put me on hold for a good 20 minutes, came back and said "my supervisor said..."

And was incredibly specific, like he was reading from a document, and said, in no uncertain terms, that Lenovo laptops with this bios and beyond, will ONLY work with Lenovo RAM.

Amazing...and yes, most likely illegal, and most definitely immoral.

[whizkid]

Yes someone who has just bought "a few hundred" machines has a whole different kind of relationship with Lenovo than a lone buyer of one.

My account rep. might be my next call, but there are others here who are probably in the same situation and will chime it.

[Troels]

I know you probably have heard it and all, but sometimes it just happens -
could you Kingston stick suddenly be defective? Have you tested it with Memtest or similar lately?

Manufacturers actually are often confronted with people with third part memory, which doesn't work for odd reasons (i.e. cheap fakes from ebay), but Kingston ought to work very fine!
Maybe the 2.07 bios changed timings which Lenovo knows work fine with their OEM memory.

[sugo]

Downloaded and installed it a few days ago. Immediately anything memory intensive just stopped working....

Could you share exactly what memory intensive operations you performed to make it crash?

[lostinvt]

The memory definitely isnt defective...I have another laptop here which I swapped it into and let it chomp on things for a few hours, not so much as a hiccup.

In terms of the other question....Ive been running both games and pretty high level Visio and photoshop CS3. And what Lenovo said is making sense...when anything tries to go above 2 GB it crashes....so Im pretty sure its not the RAM.....

[sugo]

So you have one Lenovo 2GB stick + one Kingston 2GB stick?

[lostinvt]

Precisely.

The kingston stick is the proper speed, etc. And, as I said, its been working for months......

[kernelpanic]

I'm wondering how a chip with the proper specs can burn out a ram slot??? If that were true, wouldn't we be reading about this problem on other forums - specifically the Dell forums, where most have installed their own ram? In my experience, a ram slot can quickly burn out an under-spec chip - not the other way around. Also, it would be the memory controller that suffered damage, not the slot, which is just pins and solder. And why would this only happen if you had the 570 graphics chip? Stranger and stranger....

[pae77]

I'm running bios 2.07 and have 4 GB GEIL Ram installed. All is fine. I do not believe what this Lenovo rep said can be true.

[lostinvt]

Just had another go-round with Lenovo, same result....after a half hour they came back and stonewalled me with "unless it's 100% lenovo memory in the system we can't troubleshoot"

So first call to my lenovo rep just was made

[Harryc]

It's SOP for a manufacturer to balk at supporting non-OEM devices in their products. It is 100% understandable. If you owned a Ford dealership, would you work on a Ford with a Chevy engine? Every PC manufacturer would require that the machine be 100% stock before they would support it. The part that is of some concern is the alleged BIOS/RAM block. Hopefully we'll have a definitive answer on that soon. Meanwhile, don't panic. Take a look at my sig, I am interested in the answer as well. Relax
As a side note, it is a really bad idea to sell or get rid of RAM (or any part for that matter) after an upgrade if the machine is still under warranty. I think you can now see why ...

[lostinvt]

I'm definitely not panicking...more then anything Im just ticked at them. The first call to them could have been a fluke..Im definitely of the mindset that you call and call until you get the same answer twice. A ton of cisco support requests have been that way...working with an engineer who gives me an answer I dont like, I just call back and get a better answer...but when I have a consqensus between two people then I put some stock into that.

So this was my second call, got the same answer.

And in response to the ford/chevy parts comment....I do and dont agree....yes, chevy will not warrant your car battery if you put a generic NAPA battery in...but on the other hand they also won't refuse to troubleshoot your alternator just because soemthing connected to the system isnt from them.

I mean, come on...what's the point of having a industry standard for RAM, memory cards, you name it if nobody will support anything not their own.

That's like saying one of my HP servers wont be supported by HP if I plug in a sandisk flash drive, you know?

[Harryc]

Well, in the case of the Sandisk that is a removable device whereas RAM is more permanent, so it's not exactly the same thing, IMHO. Again, the main concern is the alleged BIOS block, so lets see if we can't get an answer on that. Looking at your phone discussions with Lenovo, really only one Rep stated anything about a BIOS block. So, I'd hardy call that definitive.

[sugo]

Take a look at my sig, I am interested in the answer as well. Relax

Do you have BIOS 2.07 installed?

If the BIOS RAM check statement from Lenovo Tech Support is true, it's unreasonable for Lenovo to hide it from BIOS Release Notes. I wouldn't have upgraded BIOS if I saw this thread earlier.

I will test my non-Lenovo memory (2x2GB Crucial) by running memory intensive applicaiton tonight.

[Harryc]

Do you have BIOS 2.07 installed?

Yes. All I am saying is don't make a huge deal out of hearsay. Let's get the facts then go from there. Give us a couple of days to get the answer. It's mid-holiday season here in the states, so it may not be until next week.

[DAH]

Do you have BIOS 2.07 installed?

Yes. All I am saying is don't make a huge deal out of hearsay. Let's get the facts then go from there. Give us a couple of days to get the answer. It's mid-holiday season here in the states, so it may not be until next week.

OK So what happens if you run the latest free Memtest86 v3.4 iso Does your T61 pass? It would take about two hours. If it passes do you have Lenovo memory, or some other memory in your computer? Doesn't seem like it **should** take a couple of days, if a few people would run the memory test.

[pae77]

As I mentioned above, I have 4 GB non Lenovo Geil ram and therefore have zero Lenovo ram installed in my system and also am running with bios v 2.07.

Last night I played COD4 at 1024 x 768 resolution for at least 4 hours straight without any problems except my machine got fairly hot but not enough to cause any shutdowns or stability problems. Also my Vista x64 system at mere idle uses about 2 GB of ram and the graphics processor grabs a bunch of my free system ram and runs it pretty hard when playing games like COD4. So I think this is pretty strong evidence that bios v. 2.07 does not contain anything that is interfering with the proper functioning of non Lenovo ram.

For future support purposes though, I think I will hang on to my original 1 GB stick of Lenovo ram instead of selling it, just so Lenovo will have no excuse to blow me off.

[Harryc]

OK So what happens if you run the latest free Memtest86 v3.4

You're assuming that running Memtest86 would prove something. The OP was complaining about the "dual memory chip problem", which appears while running 3D or graphics intensive games or applications and results in the machine freezing/shutdowns/graphics corruption. I don't recall seeing Memtest86 tied to that error in any way. In addition, the "dual memory chip problem" has been discussed ad nauseum in another thread (link below). IIRC, you'll read through that thread and find a couple of instances where memtest ran error free. Lenovo has acknowledged that problem and is working on it in their Labs with no solution yet. So, what were are going to prove by 1) running memtest86, and 2.) by continuing this discussion without some meaningful answer from Lenovo beside hearsay?

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=47755

[JaneL]

We're also going to lock this duplicate thread.