New Turbo Memory Driver

There is a new Turbo memory driver as of 8/2/2007 Ver. 1.1.0.1010
Intel Turbo Memory Driver

This poll is only for Thinkpad users with Turbo Memory!!!

This is not a thread about whether or not you approve or disapprove of Turbo Memory.

I would like to find out if the new driver has improved stability or caused instability or neither.

Also, please post if you are using the Turbo Memory driver from Lenovo or Intel.

Thanks!

 

I installed the Intel 8/2 Turbo Memory driver and I still had random freezes (no BSODs) while on battery. Disabling Turbo Memory via the console made the problems stop.

 

Here is my question...if everything is working fine with the turbo memory driver (1.0.0.1082) which was the first driver release, would you update your driver? I'm afraid that I'm gonna start having problems again

 

I didnt install the driver because I got a message saying that "these drivers are older than the drivers that are currently installed"

I still get some freezing while off battery even with turbo memory turned off.

 

i Dl it and enable turbo memory cuz it always freezes and when i enable it re started it started to freeze so i am back to disabling my turbo memory..

 

Said these were older than what was already installed so I didn't continue.

 

lol sounds like they rolled back their drivers to an earlier release and re-released them as new ><

 

Bump... anyone else?

 

I didn't install because i got a message that my driver on my system is newer than whats on intel website !!

 

That is interesting. I would expect to find the latest Intel Turbo Memory driver from Intel. I guess this is proof that Lenovo is able to manipulate the drivers as they choose. Makes me wonder, though, if the latest from Lenovo is "better" than the latest from Intel. I don't have much faith in Lenovo these days.

It wouldn't surprise me if the Lenovo driver is a "dummy" driver (shutting down turbo memory in some way) optimized to prevent instability (and tech support phone calls). As opposed to Intel's driver being used in they way it is intended. (Just a theory.... conspiracy theory )

 

I have just been through the turbo memory mill with my new T61. I went from the 32 bit Vista which came with it to a clean install of 64 bit Vista (Ultimate) in order to get the full effect of the 4GB the machine came with. I have the T7700 processor. I have a 7200 rpm 100 GB drive.

It is interesting because I did not order the turbo memory, but I did order the WWAN. But due to a computer error by Lenovo, I got turbo memory instead. Since I have external WWAN capability I thought why not see whether the turbo memory is worth the trouble? I can return the notebook if I want, so it's like playing with house money.

OK the turbo memory does have some speedup effects; even though I have the fastest of everything else which should minimize the usefulness of turbo memory. In fact since I ordered everything else fast, I figured not to bother with the turbo memory in the first place.

Well, the turbo memory causes crashes. The most insidious is when you get into crashes on bootup where the only way to get the machine to boot is to disable AHCI for the SATA controller in the BIOS. NOTE: IF YOU HAVE TO DO THAT VISTA WILL REQUIRE RE-ACTIVATION BY PHONE. Also if you have to do that, Vista will install alternate drivers for your hard drive that will absolutely force crashes on bootup if you try to re-enable AHCI. So not only do you need to get the turbo memory drivers right, if you are coming from putting the SATA controller into compatibility mode in order to get the machine to go at all, you will need to install the correct SATA drivers.

OK more about the turbo memory crashes. The one that causes the huge problem seems to be when the image on the Flash chip used for bootup is corrupted - so the machine cannot boot off it. But for some reason, Vista is dumb enough not to bypass this image the next time around - even with the Startup Repair utility, etc. When you suspect a corrupt boot image on the turbo memory, what you need is a way to disable the turbo memory when you boot the system off the install disk. There is a command line prompt you can get to, but I could not figure out a good way to disable turbo memory from that prompt. I could find, but not launch, the Turbo Memory Console; nor the Device Manager. Is there a way to manage devices from the command line in Vista? That is 100% what you want. Otherwise, you will, like me, have to stymie the turbo memory device by changing the SATA mode out of AHCI. That works, but it's a bit of a pain. A smoother way to deal with this would be very good.

Now the new intel drivers did not seem to resolve my issues. I don't know if I will try them again any time soon. The new Lenovo drivers sort of work. When you first get them installed, the machine works, but there are one or two BSOD events that happen before the machine starts to stabilize. It's been a day since the last BSOD so maybe it will be tolerable. I would say Lenovo did not completely fix the sporadic BSOD issue that they claim to have fixed, probably they have reduced the frequency with which it occurs. I think either intel or Lenovo owes us another updated driver.

I spent a good deal of time on the phone with Lenovo, and they meant well, but frankly I knew more about the problem then they did. I also spoke to Microsoft about it when I re-activated, and they were polite, but they admitted they had no advice that might help. In particular, they had no suggestion as to how to manage this device from a command prompt. I suspect that they actually do know ways to manage devices from the command prompt but maybe it's complicated enough that they don't want to tell end users.

I am typing this on the machine in question, with the turbo memory enabled, and functioning. (You can sometimes tell what is going on with the ReadyBoost part of turbo memory because you can see it in the Resource Monitor.)

 

Is there anyone out there that have had no problems whatsoever with the turbo memory on a Vista T61 such as BSOD crashes or any other problems? I am interested since I have a T61p still in a sealed box with the turbo memory. The last thing I want to be dealing with is frequent crashes. Thanks.

 

I haven't yet, but I've only used Lenovo's driver I think (the newest, not this one in this thread)

 

Just to make it clear; I am using the newest Lenovo driver; that is the pair

1.0.1.1004 / 7.0.3.1001

I have had two BSODs since the last time I installed them. None so far today though.

 

And if it helps I've done a fresh install.

 

I assume if I just unplug the turbo memory from the laptop, the problems related to it will stop. Is this correct? Thanks.

 

Me too. I am using a retail copy of Vista Ultimate 64, therefore it was necessary to do a clean install.

 

The Lenovo support person I talked to did not want to consider that option.

 

Ditto... I have not had a BSOD or freeze since my clean install with Vista 64-bit. I am using the latest Lenovo Turbo Memory driver.

 

Ah but I have had two.

 

I have several ideas as to possible causes Turbo memory related issues. I think it could be any one (or all) of these...

1. Poor Drivers
2. Poor BIOS Support
3. Poor Vista Support
4. Lack of system stability causing a conflict with Turbo Memory
5. Faulty Turbo Memory

The solution for 1 is probably mostly Intel's responsibility.

The solution for 2 I suppose would be a combined effort of Intel and Lenovo.

The solution for 3 is Microsoft's resposibility. I'm hoping SP1 will provide increase stability and performance.

The solution for 4 is to rule out fualty RAM, faulty HDD, or other hardware. Also, a clean install will almost always improve overall system stability.

The solution for 5. Perhaps swapping out the turbo memory is a solution. I don't know if there is anyway to test the Turbo Memory, but faulty RAM is not too uncommon. I would imagine there is a fair amount of faulty Turbo Memory units, but the technology itself gets the blame.

 

You guys should just toss the thing in the garbge and move on



--

 

^^^^^

 

I wanna sell my T61

 

But who knows what will cause it to become unstable again...
.

 

If not for the occasional BSOD I am pretty happy with the machine. I assume that if it's not completely stable yet, it will be in another driver update or so.

This thing screams, and has battery life for hours.

 

I don't think anyone knows if their Laptop will become unstable. There have been quite a few non-TM users with problems too.

If I could order all over again, I'd configure it the same way... including turbo memory.

 

It's been a full day since the last BSOD. Turbo memory is definitely doing things (I can see in the Resource monitor).

Another full day. It may be fixed this time.

And another full day. I think it's finally fixed.

 

One oddity I notice now: The IAANTMON service does not run. I am using 64 bit Vista and it seems IAANTMON is 32 bit. The service is set up to run Automatically on startup, but is not running. I tried manually starting it, and it cannot start.

Does anyone know how this might affect the Turbo Memory?

 

so how did you fix it then?

 

I've had many freezes with 64bit vista...so i don't think its a 32 or 64 bit issue

 

Bought a 6460-66U T61 that came with Vista Business and turbo memory for my girlfriend. Not a single BSOD yet in 2 weeks of daily use, no change of drivers from out of the box. The only change was to add another 1Gb of regular system memory.

 

I have had my T61 since early August with turbo memory and have not had a single BSOD. I'm using Vista Business.

It did occasionally stop responding on battery, but that turned out to be the active protection system acting up. Now that it is disabled, I have not had a single crash or lockup.

 

that freeze IS related to you active protection system is because of the turbo mem...for some reason those 2 don't get along.

 

I can't say it IS related to the active protection, but ever since I turned off active protection I haven't had a freeze.

Has anyone ever had a freeze while active protection was disabled?

 

please keep us notified of any freezes that do or do not occur with ure aps off...thanks...hopefully we can finally isolate the problem

so for i think the fix's are either turn APS off...or turbo mem orr...both can't be on at the same time

 

So far no freezes with the APS off. Turbo memory is on.

 

Hi I'm noob.
How do you turn APS off..?

 

don't install the driver....or if you did install it...type in active protection system in vista search and open it up and disable it..it's fairly simple to do so

 

If you have the APS installed and running, there is an icon which will say "Active Protection System". Click on it and it will let you suspend it.

I have suspended it for a couple weeks and almost all the freezes went away. I had two freezes recently but that seems to be the fault of the nVidia driver.

So I would definitely disable the APS if you run Turbo Memory.

 

I did not have any problems with ITM. Have clean install of Vista Ultimate x64. Tried with all drivers. Now using latest ITM driver from Intel. If you have driver from Lenovo and try to upgrade to Intel one, then it prompts, because lenovo fixed Intel Matrix Storage manager driver a bit, and they put new version number on it. So still Intel ITM driver is definitely newer, just could be that Storage driver is the same version as in Lenovo (though one digit is different).
Also I disabled ReadyBoost (cause I am adding 4GB of ram and then ReadyBoost would not have such a huge impact as I think). Only enabled ReadyDrive (so windows would start up quicker and somehow I think that it is more use if 1GB is fully dedicated to one feature than having 2 simmilar features 512MB each).
Works pretty well even with 1GB of RAM that I am using now....

 

Is anyone having problems with the 1.5 series of Lenovo Intel Turbo Memory driver?
I still am not able to get ReadyDrive enabled on a Vista SP1 X64 Busines Edition install fresh from Microsoft installation disk and NO Lenovo drivers.