x200s Windows XP problem + LED screen problem

[owl1979]

Hello - I've had the x200s for about 3 months now and it's a great computer to use. I upgraded from an x60s, for reference.

I have two lingering problems I thought I'd (finally) ask. I tried the Lenovo forums with no responses.

1) Windows XP standby-resume and hibernate-resume issue
I have an x200s with the SU9300 1.2Ghz processor. I'm running with a clean installation of Windows XP Pro. I noticed less-than-expected battery life and found that after leaving the computer on for a number of hours (let's say overnight) and returning from Standby or Hibernate, I find that my "System" process takes up around 20-55% but usually hovers at 49-50% when the machine is idle. The "System Idle Process" will take up the remaining 50%. This is observed in the Windows Task Manager.

On my x60s with a core duo processor (and all my other desktops and laptops) the System process will usually be 0% when idle and the "System Idle Process" will be at 99%.

A restart of the computer will fix this issue until I go into Standby or Hibernate again. I usually went for days and sometimes weeks without restarting my x60s. This issue will cause me to get 30% less battery life and will make my system slower to respond, even when I'm typing this post, for example.

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2) "Brighter" spot on screen
I have a round spot that is about 0.2 inches in diameter, which is located about 3.5" across and 2.5" down from the top-left corner; it's most viewable with the lcd lid at about 45-55 degrees with the base of the laptop. It's reminicent of a pressure spot common for many laptop screens, but I have been pampering my computer, so I don't think it's a pressure spot. Also, considering this laptop has a carbon-fiber lid, pressure spots caused by users should be harder to get.

Also, I came from an experience of the x60s having a pressure-spot issue that turned out to be a spot caused by the lcd screen circuitry (I had the ultralight x60s screen, but I had to complain and escalate the issue to get this fixed under warranty) - I think it was some potentiometer or inductor, but it happened three times within 1.5 months about 1 week after Lenovo repairs. Unfortunately, they didn't follow my request of replacing the entire lcd assembly and not just the lcd screen itself.

Obviously, the x200s is under warranty and I can call it in, however I do not want to be without my computer for weeks at a time (like the x60s) and I'll probably have to get this escalated again since they'll probably blame me.

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Anyone have experience or thoughts on these issues? Thank you

[Marin85]

Welcome to the forum!

(1) I believe the system process is supposed to optimize the system when the computer is idling. You may also want to check out under scheduled tasks.

(2) Regarding the brighter spot, I also have two of them, in my experience Lenovo may or may not agree to replace the screen due to this issue. I know that these spots can become annoying over time (especially since your ThinkPad is new, mine is quite old now).

Good luck

Marin

[owl1979]

Thank you for the welcoming and for the response.

1) Yes, it does seem like something is going on, however, I am not used to this process continuing for so long (indefinitely, until I reset for most cases) and taking away from battery life. I've come from a past of many different laptop computers with Windows XP and this is the first to exhibit this type of behaviour. It's quite baffling... (and I'm a tech-oriented person)

2) Yes, it's troubling to me since I pampered this system and the spot occurred only after about one month (or less) of ownership

Welcome to the forum!

(1) I believe the system process is supposed to optimize the system when the computer is idling. You may also want to check out under scheduled tasks.

(2) Regarding the brighter spot, I also have two of them, in my experience Lenovo may or may not agree to replace the screen due to this issue. I know that these spots can become annoying over time (especially since your ThinkPad is new, mine is quite old now).

Good luck

Marin

[Marin85]

Maybe a silly question, but did you scan for viruses/malware?

You may be able to pin down the source of problem using Process Explorer from sysinternals. It can give you very detailed information what is going on with which process.

[owl1979]

Sorry for the slow reply. Yes, I've used a couple spyware scanners (adaware, spybot) and have done full virus scans (Norton) and the problem persists. I really believe the problem may be some sort of incompatibility with hardware. I installed all the same applications (from scratch) onto my x200s as on my x60s when I upgraded. The issue occurs whether I have the machine (usually) for 5 minutes or 5+ hours and then go into standby, so it's not necessarily the software I run when the computer is on.

I have considered running Sysinternals, but first I'll probably try disabling all startup services and programs within msconfig and see if the problem still persists. I've already tried turning off several services and programs and left what I thought were mostly Lenovo and other vital programs running, but the problem was still there.

Maybe a silly question, but did you scan for viruses/malware?

You may be able to pin down the source of problem using Process Explorer from sysinternals. It can give you very detailed information what is going on with which process.

[Marin85]

I would say Process Explorer could deliver a faster solution as it would take only downloading it, running it, looking under system processes (and resp. properties) My guess is it´s some Lenovo application or bad version of some driver.

[owl1979]

I'll give it a try over the weekend and report back. Thank you for the followup.

I would say Process Explorer could deliver a faster solution as it would take only downloading it, running it, looking under system processes (and resp. properties) My guess is it´s some Lenovo application or bad version of some driver.

[owl1979]

I seemed to have solved my own problem, but it does seem to be related to the Lenovo software configuration, primarily the power management software.

I just found out accidentally yesterday, and confirmed it just now. It seems I am able to "fix" the issue of one of my process threads taking up 100% by the "System" process by closing my LCD lid and opening it back up. By doing this, the screen shuts off and turns back on, and it somehow causes a release of the System resource. I have to play around with my settings, but I'll assume it's something to do with the setting of what I want Lenovo to do when I come out of standby/hibernate versus when I just close the lid of my computer.

I'll try to attach some screenshots, but it doesn't look like this forum can host images, but perhaps my post-count is too low.

I would say Process Explorer could deliver a faster solution as it would take only downloading it, running it, looking under system processes (and resp. properties) My guess is it´s some Lenovo application or bad version of some driver.

[owl1979]

(coming out of standby - left computer alone for about 20 minutes in this state and System process still held on to 100% of a complete processor - the 50% System process seems to be a rougue and unidentified process as seen in the Windows utility Process Explorer)
picture 1

picture 2

(after closing lcd lid and reopening)
picture 3

[Marin85]

A hint: if the pics are bigger than 50k, better turn them into thumbnails or links and add a pic warning to the thread name/post subject.

Now, what we need to identify the source of the abnormal cpu activity is -> right click on the system process (when on 50% cpu usage) -> properties -> threads. There you should find which thread (-> file name) is causing most of those 50% cpu activity.

[owl1979]

Thanks, changed pictures to links.

I was looking for a further drill-down option. I'll try process explorer again next when I see this issue.

I'll write back later. Thanks, again.

A hint: if the pics are bigger than 50k, better turn them into thumbnails or links and add a pic warning to the thread name/post subject.

Now, what we need to identify the source of the abnormal cpu activity is -> right click on the system process (when on 50% cpu usage) -> properties -> threads. There you should find which thread (-> file name) is causing most of those 50% cpu activity.

[owl1979]

Here is the information - it looks like it's connected with the Intel display driver, though I'm not sure what that tells me exactly. I'm going to try updating to the latest drivers. (quick note: a fn+f5 also seemed to work to release the 50% system process hog)

Current driver:
6/11/2008
6.14.10.4957

Latest driver on Lenovo website:
6.14.10.5002

Lastest driver available, but not necessarily installable:
6.14.10.5009

(SysInternals - Process Explorer)
new picture of thread information

(Module)
C:\WINDOWS\system32\dllcache
ntkrnlpa.exe

(stack)
ntkrnlpa.exe!NtBuildNumber+0x93
ntkrnlpa.exe!MmIsDriverVerifying+0xbb8
hal.dll+0x2ef2
igxpmp32.sys+0x54df4
igxpmp32.sys+0x6ebd8
igxpmp32.sys+0xdc075
igxpmp32.sys+0xb3bcc
igxpmp32.sys+0xafa7f
igxpmp32.sys+0xa6ff8
igxpmp32.sys+0x82881
igxpmp32.sys+0x6ff1d
igxpmp32.sys+0x72c5c
igxpmp32.sys+0x2b06
igxpmp32.sys+0xf851
ntkrnlpa.exe!NtWriteFile+0x3ad5
ntkrnlpa.exe!wctomb+0x88c
ntkrnlpa.exe!RtlMultiByteToUnicodeN+0x102
ntkrnlpa.exe!NtBuildNumber+0x7d6

[Marin85]

The high cpu usage comes from the windows kernel... Try running M$ driver verifier as a first attempt. It may confirm that there is a problem with the Intel display driver. While speaking of Intel, btw, do you know if you are running in AHCI or compatibility mode (BIOS -> configuration/setup -> HD) resp. do you know whether you have Intel Matrix Storage Driver installed? (rather asking out of curiosity...)

The other thing I can think of is rescanning for malware -> Malwarebytes Anti-malware

[owl1979]

Thanks again for the tips, Marin85.

I updated my video driver before your posting, and then before I restarted I downloaded and ran the MS Driver Verifier. Something happened after my restart, and I'm not sure if it was me confirming settings on the driver verifier program or quitting the video driver install before it completed, but after starting up my computer was cycling through heavy processing (100% utilization) and I was unable to do much - eventually it ended with a blue screen. I didn't catch the blue screen message, but this was reproducible, so I after a few cycles of this I went into safe mode and completely reinstalled the drivers for the Intel Video driver. The problem still persisted, so I checked MS config and disabled a few Intel startup programs that were reinstalled with the video driver (I never used them on my x60s and I've had them turned off on my x200s as well). After restarting, things were a bit slow, so I went back in to the MS Driver Verifier program and deleted the settings setup and restarted. Everything seemed "normal" after that.

Right now, with the new video drivers, I haven't seen the 50% System process after a full day and two or three Standby cycles. I'm going to keep monitoring the issue and post and update in a few days.

I will also try your suggested malware program as well.

Re: bios and IMS - I am set at AHCI and I'm pretty sure I installed the Intel Matrix Storage driver after reading forums on fresh XP installs for the x60s and x200s. Is there a way I can check to be certain? My hardware device manager doesn't seem to list "Intel Matrix Storage Driver" explicitly.

Thanks again.

The high cpu usage comes from the windows kernel... Try running M$ driver verifier as a first attempt. It may confirm that there is a problem with the Intel display driver. While speaking of Intel, btw, do you know if you are running in AHCI or compatibility mode (BIOS -> configuration/setup -> HD) resp. do you know whether you have Intel Matrix Storage Driver installed? (rather asking out of curiosity...)

The other thing I can think of is rescanning for malware -> Malwarebytes Anti-malware

[Marin85]

Under IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers, Device Manager should show Intel AHCI controller among some other things. Alternatively, you can go to BIOS -> setup/configure -> HD. I hope with the new driver your problem got really solved. Time will tell

Cheers,

Marin

[owl1979]

Hi Marin,
The device manager shows "Intel(R) ICH9M-E/M SATA AHCI Controller" - so this seems to confirm that I have the Intel Matrix Control manager in place and AHCI set instead of compatibility mode.

I have not had a recurrence of a stuck System process yet... I'll post more in a couple of days.

Thank you again.

Under IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers, Device Manager should show Intel AHCI controller among some other things. Alternatively, you can go to BIOS -> setup/configure -> HD. I hope with the new driver your problem got really solved. Time will tell

Cheers,

Marin

[Marin85]

Yes, it does confirm that you have the IMSM driver installed. Don´t forget to update us

[owl1979]

I'm happy to report that I have not seen the bogged System process issue since installing the new/updated video drivers last week. This issue was a real downer because I would have to reboot frequently to maximize battery life, thus losing my desktop state.

Thank you so much, Marlin, for journeying alongside me during this issue. I hope this thread can help someone else in the future. This issue had me scratching my head for a few months since I could not find anyone else with a similar problem on other forums.

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Re: LED screen problem from the original post, I'll just chalk it off as a pressure mark, most likely caused by an internal component, similar to my x60s. I'd like to be optimistic to say that the new carbon fiber lid on the x200s is better in protecting from true (finger/hand/etc) pressure marks.

[Marin85]

Glad that you solved your problem Could you provide a link to this Intel driver you used as last, just for future reference.

Regarding the screen, did you try to contact Lenovo on this issue? Since you have the warranty, you may get the screen replaced and thus the white spot gone. Believe me, this thing can get annoying over time, especially on smaller screens like yours.


Marin

[owl1979]

Re: the video driver, I currently have version 6.14.10.5002 installed, as shown in my driver tab within the display properties.

The following webpage is dated 2008/12/14:
Intel Driver on Lenovo webpage

The strange thing is that I did my Windows XP fresh installation sometime in January, and I downloaded all drivers directly from Lenovo at that time. I'm not sure why, but before installing the latest drivers last week, my current version was 6.14.10.4957, and I'm sure I did not use the Windows XP installation default drivers (in fact, I couldn't have since there was no support for the native resolution of 1440x900).

I believe the solution may also be to reinstall the Intel software/drivers, since it seems the Lenovo software is sensitive to driver/program installation order (eg. Thinkvantage Access connections and Intel wifi drivers). However, I don't think I'll rollback my drivers to test this theory since I like how things are running now

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Re: white/bright spot on screen. I'm currently waiting on a callback from Lenovo regarding another issue, so yes, I will definitely call this in under warranty soon, and I'll be sure to insist that I did not cause the issue from handling, thought that may take some work.