My Lenovo experience from ordering to installing XP.

[lighthammer]

I ordered my Thinkpad T61 on April 8th. I called about a status update on April 19th and was told that it just cleared Canadian Customs and I should receive it 5-7 days later. The next day, I received the laptop from UPS. Not sure what was up with the computer information but I'm glad I got it the following day despite what the computer said. My configuration is 6465CTO.

I had Vista installed and hated it for personal reason. I reformatted my drive into a c: for XP and D: for my data. I used Nlite and stripped out everything I didn't want in XP. My total XP image was 302MB after I was finished. I installed the 32-bit Windows XP and loaded all the drivers from Lenovo website.

I ordered 2 2048MB Ram PC-6400 from Tigerdirect for a total of 4GB of memory I popped the 4 screws from the bottom and installed them. I did noticed that it under clocked the memory speed to 667mhz, even though my FSB was 800mhz. No big deal. I read more about why and saw my answers on this forum. The price difference between the PC-5300 and PC-6400 was negligible. I knew that I wouldn't be able to use all 4 GB but no big deal either. If dual boot Linux, then I will use it.

I went to Blackviper.com and turned off all services that I didn't need. I used CCleaner and deleted my startup entries that I didn't want. I set my pagefile to 1500 min/max. I also used Bootskin to customize my bootup logo plus spent about 20 minutes doing custom tweaks from tweakxp.com and my various programs.

Overall, no problems. No BSOD. All devices under Device manager have drivers. I installed the "Disable Turbo Memory" driver from Lenovo. Defragged and rebooted. My bootup is quick. My shutdown is even quicker.

I haven't experienced any problems like I have been seeing on these forums. The only thing that is a bit shady is that I have 5 default monitors and two Thinkpad Display 1280x800 entries for a grand total of 7 monitors. I haven't figured out how to fix this but that will be for another day. I would post a screenshot but don't know where I could host the picture at.

I just wanted to share my experiences. I currently live in Montreal.

[Kyocera]

Nice to hear some positive experiences too

Welcome to the forum.

[Puttagee]

Wow, you got your TP in 12 days in Canada!!! I've heard nothing but complaints for users in the great white north. Mine took just over 2 months, it was pure torture..... Now I have it and couldn't be happier..

Welcome to the best TP forum......

[shahbazi]

yeah, hopefully lenovo is taking a turn for the better

[lighthammer]

The thing is, I ordered after reading on here about the massive delays when ordering. I thought to myself, "Well, might as well order it so it will be here next month."

I was VERY suprised at the time. I even got two emails saying that my package was shipped and I was thinking that it was BS and the computer just randomnly generated the shipping message. Even when I called up and they said 5-7 more days, I though they were just telling me that to get me off the phone and then suprised, the UPS man is knocking on the door the next day.

I looked for dead pixels on my screen, tested everything, wiped the harddrive clean, fresh install of XP, the whole works. No issues, nothing.

I'm knocking on wood because alot of people have quirks with their machines but I'm attributing alot of it to the OS and the way it is installed/used. If anyone has any questions about how I set up my machine, I'll be glad to answer.