My new X230T Problem

Just received my 3434CTO the other day and have a problem I believe with the hard drive.


The Problem:
On occassion during any operation be it web browsing or file mgmt. or application use, my hard disk activity light will turn solid green and my computer will basically freeze. For example I can move the pointer and hi-lite icons but I cant open anything or type etc. This will continue for 30 seconds to a minute then resume. Is this a software issue possibly or a hdwe. issue.

Another thing I have noticed is a faint "chattering" or "knocking" almost like that of a standard hard disk being accessed. This chattering does NOT coincide with the disk activity light or freeze at all. I mean as far as I know there are no moving parts in an SSD correct?

I purchased this 230t with the intel SSD (yeah I know, but I'm lazy). Accordind to device manager and tests, this is the drive installed. Hardware tests with Lenovo's LSC show no problems and I get a 7.9 on Windows Experience Index for the drive. I did add a Corsair Vengeance Laptop Memory Kit 16 GB (2x8 GB) DDR3 1600MHz CL10 PC3 12800 (CMSX16GX3M2A1600C10 to the system and it seems to be working fine with a 7.6 WEI score. All updates have been installed via Windows Update. I'm not sure sure if there is anything on Lenovo's site I should update as well.

I got the 1yr NBD and ADP warranty so I have no problem calling Lenovo and getting this fixed but I thought I'd run it thru the forum and see if someone had an idea.

I love the machine but I definately can't take this guy out on the road with the possibility of it bricking on me.


Any Ideas ?
Thanks

 

Run a CHKDSK /F. In my experience, a platter drive will freeze the system and stick the drive indicator if it encounters a weak or unreadable sector.

 

The only drive installed is an SSD. Is that considered a platter drive ? Sorry I'm not a hardware guy.

 

An SSD isn't a platter drive, so it might not have weak sectors in the same sense as a platter drive. It may still have dying NAND cells or something. Try CHKDSK or checking the health of the drive with some sort of SSD health indicator.

 

Thanks I figured that was what you meant. I ran chkdsk /f with "0" bad sectors FWIW.

Just happened to me again while opening a new tab in IE. Disk activity light remains solid and little blue "please wait" symbol rotates telling me its busy.

 

Reults from SSDLife

 

May have found the problem...

I downloaded Intel's solid state drive Toolbox and ran tests that all turned out ok. Then under the "System Tuner" tab there was a "!" under the Superfetch/Prefetch setting. I hit "Tune" and have not had the problem since. I'm not sure just yet, and to be honest I have no idea what that does, but for now I've had no issues. WEI still showing 7.9 for the drive.

 

Wonderful that it worked. This is from the Intel manual for SSD Toolbox: "In Microsoft Windows* 7 and Windows Vista*, Superfetch* tracks and copies your most frequently used applications to system memory to reduce load times. Superfetch is based on the similar Prefetch feature available in Windows XP. Superfetch/Prefetch is not needed on an Intel SSD and should be disabled for optimal performance."

SSD Toolbox just disabled them for you. I am surprised the Lenovo preload does not take care of this by default for SSDs.

 

Well I may have spoken too soon. The issue did come up once again today.

Actually I think I "optimized" or "turned on" Superfetch when I tuned the drive(per Intels recomendations) but my WEI went up 1/10 of a point !
Here are a couple of screen shots

[/ATTACH]

 

The SSD Toolbox optimizer turns off superfetch/prefetch when you run it. However, the system freeze is puzzling. Which application were you using when it happened? Can you look in the event log to see if there are any disk or application errors being reported there? You can click on the Start orb and type "event viewer" and hit enter. In event viewer expand Windows Logs, then System (for app errors, expand Applications) and see if there are any errors being reported. You might need to scroll down quite a bit to find the errors.

 

Thanks yrc. I looked in the event viewer and saw many errors/warnings. Many of them were involving the "Peer Name Resolution Protocol", "superfetch" issue, and an Ide related issue. I'm thinking I might need to reload windows. Any possibility the RAM I installed is causing any problems ? incompatibility ? Got the specs for the ram from here and other sources so it should be fine. Had the computer freeze as soon as booted it this morning, then the wireless card wouldnt work, finally after rebooting a few times it came up.

What worries is the software I use for work has a license that is "mac address specific" for my wireless card. Having this laptop out of service means a whole bunch of hoops to jump thru to get the company to get a new license.

 

The "freeze" is exremely random. It can happen at anytime, running or switching to any program or task. What I have noticed consistently is that the freeze seems to happen ONLY ONCE during any computing session ! I have tried recreate the freeze the 2nd time during a session by having many programs running and some frantic multi-tasking. The system is a extremely fast and responsive, with no issues.

Rebooting or starting the system cold, will cause the freeze to occur again for like I said 30-90 seconds. Usually within the first few minutes of being turned on.

 

Event viewer has been busy...

 

If you are concerned about the memory that you added, then run memtest (freeware available on the net). However, I doubt that that is the source of the problems.

As a first step run system file checker. To do that, open an elevated (i.e. administrative privileges) command prompt and type "SFC /Scannow" without the quotations. Windows will find and fix any errors with system files.

Are you running the latest versions of the Intel RST and chipset drivers from lenovo? You might want to update to the most current or reinstall them manually (instructions are in the readme from Lenovo).

Chipset drivers: Intel Chipset Support for Windows 7 (32-bit, 64-bit), Vista (32-bit, 64-bit) and XP (32-bit, 64-bit) - ThinkPad

RST Driver: Intel Rapid Storage Technology Driver Windows 7 (64-bit), Vista (64-bit) and XP (64-bit) - ThinkPad

For Event ID 7001 generated by the Service Control Manage see Event ID 7001 — Service Start Operations - TechNet Articles - United States (English) - TechNet Wiki

As for Event ID 7023, I haven't a clue how to proceed. But I wouldn't be surprised to see it disappear if Event ID 9 and 7001 are fixed.

 

I would do a couple things.

First, load Process Explorer
Process Explorer
at start up and wait until the activity occurs. Note what processes are using the most cpu activity.

If nothing is revealed, then load process monitor
Process Monitor
This tool is a little more difficult to use, but it captures a lot of information. You run it and it captures practically everything going on on your system. You have to do a lot of work to filter through all the non-essential stuff, but if you keep at it you will eventually identify what is happening.

 

Thanks Gerry I will tinker with that. I spoke with support today and after a new bios update and the issue still present, they are sending a tech out with a new MB. Seems one of the errors I'm getting "iaStor" relates to communication between the MB and the SSD. They dont believe it's an SSD problem. They remotely analyzed my system today. I will post after the new MB install on Thursday.

 

You can also run a command prompt as administrator and type sfc /scannow that will run the system file checker to see if any of your system files got corrupt somehow. I had this problem once on a different machine and that fixed it.

 

Thanks. Yes I ran scannow earlier today with no issues found.

 

Ok, I didn't see yrc suggested it already. I am guessing you are using Windows 7 operating system, correct? You aren't trying Windows 8.

 

Yup Win 7,

The bios update seemed to take care of many errors I was getting, but everytime I boot up I will still get that iaStor error and the machine will freeze for a minute or so. Happens only once within the first few minutes of being on, and not again until the next time the system is booted. Crazy.

I would think if it's a MB issue it would be happening more often during use. But just the one time.

 

Question for everyone... The tech is finally here replacing the motherboard on my x230t. he opened up my laptop and noticed my 16gig of corsair vengeance ram I installed. He said that this could be causing my problems and error messages in event viewer. I got the speecs for the ram from a couple different forums and websites including Jesse B, and believe the ram is not an issue. Does anyone have an opinion on this. the ram is Corsair Vengeance 1600mhz ddr3 2x8gig. Thanks

 

Do you test your RAM using a memory test program like Memtest86+ ?

 

Yes I performed a variety of tests and the tech tested it as well with no issue.

The tech replaced the MB and the problem was still there. Took out the 16gig of ram and and replaced it with the stock 4gig that came with the system and voila! problem has not re-surfaced. How is it this ram caused the problem. I will try and place 1 8gig in at a time to see if one of them is bad I guess.

I cant believe I didnt do this sooner, but from all the info(including Lenovo's tech support) the memory was not an issue

 

I'm running the same RAM for about a month with no problems so far.

Do you have another machine to test it on? IF not I'd try your method of one stick at a time for a few days each.

 

memtest--indeed, no test will show every error. I've had ram that tested in software testers like memtest, but failed when placed in a hardware ram tester

 

It's better to use Samsung RAM, the most reliable RAM as OEM ram in Lenovo and Apple.

Other rams you can find so many people claim issues in Amazon, after few months or a year they bought.

 

Well i tried the first 8gig stick alone and it brought back the lockup issue. Trying the second stick now.

 

I've been running the 2nd stick through the paces with NO problems. Several cold boots /restarts etc. No lockups. I can't believe It may have been one bad stick. If it is indeed a bad Corsair stick i will definately look at an alternative manufacturer. Any suggestions/ part #'s

I will run this one 8gig stick for a day or two to be sure it works then return them both to Amazon

 

Glad to hear that its the stick of RAM and not the motherboard

 

Yeah. Just wish i trouble shooted correctly and saved me and Lenovo some time and money

 

Ok. The problem has finally been solved. The issue was not the motherboard, not the RAM, not the hard drive, but Intels DIPM. After calling Lenovo support again(which in my opinion is horible until you get to a higher support level) I investigated the iaStor0 error on the web.

The upper level Lenovo tech hinted at the problems with DIPM and the SSD but could not attempt to fix it since he thought it required new registry entries. He said the only way they could fix it was to have it sent to the Depot. Why did I pay extra for NBD on-site?

Well anyway I didnt want to have the machine gone for 2 weeks. so after digging around, the solution for many people was to add these keys in the registry in iaStor>>>>Parameters to DISABLE DIPM


Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\iaStor\Parameters\Port0]
"LPM"=dword:00000000
"LPMDSTATE"=dword:00000000
"DIPM"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\iaStor\Parameters\Port1]
"LPM"=dword:00000000
"LPMDSTATE"=dword:00000000
"DIPM"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\iaStor\Parameters\Port2]
"LPM"=dword:00000000
"LPMDSTATE"=dword:00000000
"DIPM"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\iaStor\Parameters\Port3]
"LPM"=dword:00000000
"LPMDSTATE"=dword:00000000
"DIPM"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\iaStor\Parameters\Port4]
"LPM"=dword:00000000
"LPMDSTATE"=dword:00000000
"DIPM"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\iaStor\Parameters\Port5]
"LPM"=dword:00000000
"LPMDSTATE"=dword:00000000
"DIPM"=dword:00000000

I have NOT had a lockup in 2 days with the new 16gig RAM sticks installed. Machine is running great.

Now i'm not very familiar with editing the registry, and to be quite honest a little intimidated about possibly bricking this thing, but in either case it was going to the Depot if it didnt work. Information was vague on whether or not I needed to disable all these ports(I have no idea which ports the drive use) but all indications were that it would not affect the system

From what I've read the power management benefits with DIPM are somewhat minimal, and I hope I dont see a drastic reduction in battery life. So far I havent, but I'm not in the field now doing surveys.

My last issue is Superfetch. Do I or do I not need this with an SSD ? It wont stay enabled under event viewer with an error code 7023.Ii went into services and disabled it to see if that would decrease my boot-up time. I could've sworn when I got this machine I was booting up in 20 sec. now its more like 40. This time is from swiping the fingerprint reader to turn on the machine, and then load everything. I have a sneaking suspicion that Lenovo's power manager is holding this up. It takes awhile for the battery indicator on the task bar to go from greyed out to green with info.

Hopefully I can let this thread die a peaceful death.