Bug free X61t Win7x64: BIOS? Drivers? TV System Update Apps?

[crashnburn]

Bug free X61t Win7x64: BIOS? Drivers? TV System Update Apps?

Ive been having tons of GRIEF over last 2 weeks,

XP & Windows 7 both: Possible Hardware / Driver / BIOS Issues as WinXP & 7 were Freezing at bootup
SMBIOS Standards test Fails X61T
T61p - PCI Memory Controller
Reflashed the factory BIOS and OS boot, but now XP BSOD issues.

XP Issues:
WHY Frequent BSOD: INVALID_WORK_QUEUE_ITEM 0x96 ntoskrnl.exe - Even when idling 5/10 minutes.
Has kind of disappeared or decreased since I disabled the Hardware Wireless switch or so it seems for now.
BSOD Fix on German Thinkpad.de forum Please Help Understand

Windows 7 Concerns and some Issues:
X61T, Windows 7 x64: Drivers and APS problems
x61 tablet: Scrolling in Portrait Tablet mode?
Trimming the fat from thinkpad Windows 7 installs.

Solution Direction: Questions & Concerns
So Ive decided to move off from my WinXP to Windows 7 x64.

My concern is given the varying ways that this can be done, I do not want to have a system that starts wierding out on me due to some DRIVER and other issues.

I'd appreciate if you could share from your experiences with
Win7 x64 (maybe 32 as well) run on the X61 Tablet or close cousins X61(s).
Please do post your experiences with some details of the following parameters.

TV System Update v/s Default Microsoft ones and for which devices?
Device: X61T, X61/s
Which Windows 7 (64 vs 32),
BIOS (Version No, Factory / Zender / Middleton),
DEVICE DRIVERS (Default Windows 7/ Vista 32 or 64/ Intel or Lenovo TV System Update) and
Apps (Thinkvantage/Lenovo / Intel are you using?

Specific Devices:
- Video Driver & Control Apps? Default MS or from Intel or via Thinkvantage?
- For Storage, are you using Intel or Lenovo drivers or default Windows 7? Varying Experiences with them?
- Tablet buttons drivers? In Tablet Mode Scrolling working in Apps and especially MS One Note?
- Fingerprint Scanner? via TV System Update? - Working fine? (I know its not super secure, but I like its convenience so I can swipe a finger instead of type whole password, while I am eating and reading off the x61t)

- Wireless Control
- Have you had any issues with enabling / disabling the Wireless / Bluetooth via the Fn F5?
- Can this only be installed if we install TV Access Connections?
- Is the Wireless Driver working fine?
- Were there any issues with Access Connections? I have liked using it over Windows default in XP.

-Bluetooth Stack & Functionality
- Can you/ have you installed a more complete Bluetooth Stack to replace Win7 default stack? From TV System Update or downloaded from Lenovo Site or 3rd party Stack?

General
- Is there any scenario or drivers where the Vista Drivers are working better for you?
- ALSO at certain times I have found OLDER VERSIONS of ThinkVantage Apps better. e.g. Access Connections that was originally there on my T61 and X61T on XP was much better before their updad versions started become slow, inconvenient and bloated.

... More thoughts and questions coming up.. Ill post this for now.

[ausmike]

Crash*;
excelent post; thanks fot this excellent effort & Docu'mentation-

My personal experaince with TVT 'Airbag' x64 bit version = not working well , and from what I seen its stilla x32 bit version MASKED to run as x64 - thius makes me feel NOT TRUELY working as 'fast' as what its designed to be - AS HD SAFETY is of utmost importance to us(and me). Other TVT apps - especially in the x64 bit version seems even more 'weird' and often a RESOURCE HOG to the machine - and lets not even getinto WHY LENOVO needs to 'check your system info' every 2-5 mins - WITHOUT YOUR KNOWLEDGE !!! (hint look at 'services running' ....blah blah ......

PM+toucpad & Air bag with OLDER FP reader apps (if needed) are ONLY ITEMS i would ever use.
Often use my LINUX partition so am sweeet !

Cheers , and thanks for post!

[loyukfai]

Disclaimer: I installed Win7 x64 on this X61T probably in mid-2010 and there could be something wrong with my memory...

- Video Driver & Control Apps? Default MS or from Intel or via Thinkvantage?

Use the one Windows decided to be the best.

- For Storage, are you using Intel or Lenovo drivers or default Windows 7? Varying Experiences with them?

Default Windows 7.

- Tablet buttons drivers? In Tablet Mode Scrolling working in Apps and especially MS One Note?

Good call. Just found out the 4-way selector doesn't quite work in OneNote 2007. Guess under OneNote my hand is holding the stylus so didn't find out.

- Fingerprint Scanner? via TV System Update? - Working fine? (I know its not super secure, but I like its convenience so I can swipe a finger instead of type whole password, while I am eating and reading off the x61t)

Not sure, but probably manual download from Lenovo. IIRC the one suggested by SU wasn't the latest.

- Wireless Control
- Have you had any issues with enabling / disabling the Wireless / Bluetooth via the Fn F5?
- Can this only be installed if we install TV Access Connections?
- Is the Wireless Driver working fine?
- Were there any issues with Access Connections? I have liked using it over Windows default in XP.

Windows Vista/7's wireless control is superior than that of XP's, and I actually find Access Connections more cumbersome and have stopped using it since some time ago.

I usually use the hardware button on the front of the machine to turn on and off the wireless but yes, you can use Fn-F5 to enable and disable it.

-Bluetooth Stack & Functionality
- Can you/ have you installed a more complete Bluetooth Stack to replace Win7 default stack? From TV System Update or downloaded from Lenovo Site or 3rd party Stack?

Lenovo supplies a more complete stack, for some reasons I've uninstalled it and keep using the default one though.

BTW, it's a fairly straightforward experience for me. No need to worry too much about it. Some of the threads you referred above are related to some obscure issues which probably don't affect most of the users.

Just go ahead to do it, if you have so much time to research all this stuff, you can always nuke it and re-install from scratch in case something goes wrong.

And there's probably no "bug free" software saves the simplest "Hello World" programs. (OK, I'm exaggerating but you get what I mean...)

Cheers.

[mariol90]

I've been using windows 7 ultimate x64 for the past 2 months on an x61 tablet, and I've had almost no issues. the hard drive has been cloned multiple times, and the install is from my hp touchsmart (because it's too much work to take time and reinstall all of my stuff, oops). install date is 2/17/2010. so this would mean i ran windows update first, then installed all the lenovo software after.

My video drivers are from 8/6/2009, not sure if these are the default ones or lenovo's but it doesn't say "Microsoft corporation" in the device name so it's probably lenovo's.
The 4-way selector doesn't seem to work properly for me, so I just never use it. all the other tablet buttons are working.
Fingerprint scanner is working without any issues using lenovo's software. I use TV system update to update all of lenovo's software. the version says 5.9.4 build 6882.
bluetooth drivers are stock (windows) unless it managed to use hp's drivers somehow.
I use tpfancontrol to enable/disable bluetooth, and the hardware switch to enable/disable wifi. I do have access connections installed but I don't use it.

for the BIOS, I was using middleton's but switched to another tablet with an SXGA+ screen. this one has bios 1.04 from july 2007.

[crashnburn]

Just posted this ALSO on the forum: What I thought was a Win7x64 install that was finally working normally. Apparently, it has a wierd issue

[Pic] X61T Win7x64 Boots w/ Ultrabase Dock but not by itself

[crashnburn]

BTW - I am doing a reinstall of Win 7 x64 SP1 Ultimate Retail on the HDD with XP Tablet PC via USB Thumb drive ... without the Ultrabase.
This is the SP1 integrated version.

I am getting this issue now. Cant remember if I got it when I installed it the first time.
Windows 7 Freezes at "Completing Installation"

Bunch of solutions outlined here that I am trying and I am wondering if you guys had to deal with the same.
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/For ... 9b5b504c1/

I had to use the solution outlined in the link I posted. Basically, disable as many devices as possible and finish installation and ensure you can boot up. Then slowly enable them for them to be recognized. Did that with lots of devices.

Right now, Finally, I have 3 devices that are not recognized and seem to cause issues. I've disabled/enabled them one at a time to check if they were causing issues?

Now, I am wondering which drivers I should install and whether I should allow these devices to be enabled (especially the SD one causing issues):

Windows Update shows:


TVSU Shows:

[crashnburn]

UPDATE:
I was able to figure out that the "SDA Standard Compliant SD Host Controller" was that one causing the issues:
- tons of DELAY during shutdown (shutdown would eventually fail and I'd have to power it off) and
- was preventing Windows 7 from Booting to success.


I've disabled it, on two instances of Win7x64 install on 2 HDDs which now boot up fine.

If enabled, there's constant attempt to access it (the little green/yellow light keeps flickering) big time and hence the system gets stuck.
Any thoughts on how to fix it?