Strange things happening at the depot

Well here's my daily update:

Lenovo replacing my laptop with a brand new one.

They offered me a refund and I almost took it, but I couldn't find a different laptop I liked as much as the T61P.

I'll let you guys know how the new one works!

I have learned from this process that if you aren't happy with how things are going you really need to talk to someone whose job it is to deal with customers and make sure they are satisfied. I think the mistake I made was communicating my complaints to the repair depot hotline. If you talk to the right people they are a lot more helpful.

 

Just curious what department/number you spoke with who finally o.k.'d the replacement?

 

I would like to know as well. Did they have you order through the normal sales support team or did you have to go through someone 'special' to get the refund or new comp? Thanks

 

did you get to keep the parts from the old one?

 

i doubt it..but who knows..we'll find out as soon as hellbore comes back to this thread

 

Hey guys sorry I didn't reply sooner.

I don't get to keep the parts from the old machine, they are going to send me a box for them, but not until after I get the new machine.

I have been speaking with Mark Hopkins of Customer Satisfaction, he put in the order for the new computer for me. He was already looking into my case so I think he just did this to be helpful.

From what I understand, normally, if the machine hasn't been repaired after 7 business days, what you would do is file a complaint. The depot repair hotline is able to put you in touch with the complaints people, which is how I first spoke with them, but I think you can also get them by calling the sales line or tech support or whoever. I'm not sure about that though. Anyways, you file a complaint as the first step. You can always request a refund within 21 days of receiving the laptop, but from what I undestand, if the machine was sent to the repair depot before your 21 days were up, as part of the complaints resolution process they will offer you a refund and possibly a discount on the new laptop or something like that. Then you re-order and wait for the new machine.

This is if you had a custom configured machine like mine, if you bought one of the standard setups maybe they can just ship you a new one, I don't know.

So as far as being able to get a new machine if the repair is taking too long, that appears to be a standard option. The thing I'm not sure is standard is the loaner machine. I was really complaining about having to wait all this time without the machine, then having to wait again for the new machine to be ordered. I'm not sure if I only got the loaner machine because of Mark's involvement, or if they normally offer this to customers who are not satisfied with their repair wait time.

So from what I understand, you should be able to avoid having your machine stuck in repairs for more than 7 days or so, once you start the complaints process they will do something to try and fix the situation, the exact way your case is handled may vary but they aren't going to just ignore you.

 

Did they ship the loner machine to you yet?

 

Yeah I received it today, I haven't put it through the paces yet.

I'm VERY interested to see if it shows the same symptoms I was having with mine.

Some people are expressing concerns that there might be some kind of design flaw in the T61P line that can't be fixed. One guy I have talked to has 5 T61P's where he works that ALL have the same issue with 4gb of RAM. I hope this is not the case and it's just a certain batch of them or something. It makes me worry whether the NEW machine will have this issue when I get it.

Just to be thorough I will run the same graphics test on the vanilla Lenovo install that comes with the machine, as well as on my own hard drive's install. Just in case it could be a software issue...which is HIGHLY unlikely based on the information I have gathered from the other 10 forum users having this issue.

 

have you asked about a new ultrabay battery? sounds like this guy can do it for you if you ask

 

I did ask for one, I think the answer I got was "probably".

 

so you had to deal with a special 'complaints' dept in order to get a new comp ordered? did not have to go through normal sales?

 

Thanks for the info. My T61 went off to Memphis yesterday. We'll see what happens!

 

Hey guys, I'm still testing the loaner laptop but so far it doesn't look too good...

The loaner machine came with 4 gigs of RAM and I noticed it is running in dual channel mode, if that makes any difference.

I played Bioshock for about 15 minutes and got a blue screen crash. I got the dreaded NMI Memory Parity Error, System halted thing.

This seems pretty straightforward, a memory parity error, I don't know if it could possibly be software related. I used to get this error on my old machine.

I DIDN'T get the other error I used to get, the one that says "nvlddmkm.sys has stopped responding". It's almost like they might be 2 separate issues.

This is with the loaner machine as they sent it to me, except I popped in my own hard drive to run my games.

Just to be thorough I am next going to install Bioshock on the loaner machine's hard drive, on THEIR installation of Windows, just to see if it still crashes.

I want to try this because they might not have the same drivers exactly as I do. It is possible that the GPU doesn't work correctly unless you use the Lenovo drivers. I will try this next.

 

Hey does anyone know if Forceware 101.45 is the latest Lenovo video driver?

That's what came on the loaner machine.

EDIT: Never mind, yes this is the latest Lenovo video driver, I just checked.

 

OK I just tried Bioshock with the Lenovo graphics drivers, it's even worse.

The first time I tried to start a game, it got a couple minutes into the intro cutscene and then crashed back to Windows with the message "Bioshock.exe has stopped working".

I think this T61P is bad just like my old one. Next I'm going to see what other programs I can use to cause it to crash, because if Bioshock is the only program crashing, they might not listen to me.

 

I still see so many complaints about how buggy Bioshock is in various places.

 

perhaps you ram is at fault..even though it error checks fine...try buying some sticks through best buy so you can test it out

 

It's definitely not the RAM. I'm surprised you would suggest that after we have gone this far already in testing. I personally have 3 sets of RAM already - the 4gb that came in the loaner machine, the 4gb I purchased from Lenovo, and 4gb of G.Skill RAM.

As of today, I have had the NMI: Parity Error with all 3 of these sets of RAM, 2 of which are Lenovo supported RAM.

Also remember there are 11 of us having these problems where removing 1 stick of RAM solves it, and out of those 11, several of us are running Lenovo RAM. It's not the RAM you can take that to the bank.

However, please disregard my most recent test, running Bioshock on the Lenovo graphics drivers, from the loaner machine's hard drive. I don't think this test counts because after removing 1 stick of RAM, I still can't run Bioshock. In the past, all problems have gone away after removing 1 stick of RAM, so I think this particular issue right now is a different issue.

However, the test when i ran off MY hard drive in the loaner machine, where I got the NMI: Parity Error blue screen, should be valid. I need to run some more 3D graphics tests though because some people seem to ignore any problems involving Bioshock. Yes I know lots of people have had issues with Bioshock. That doesn't mean there isn't a problem with T61P's, that is just the program that for me has been the quickest way to make the system crash. I CAN make it crash other ways too!

Some of the 11 people having these RAM-related issues have been experiencing crashes without even playing games. Some people have had the same symptoms just from running a lot of business-related programs at once, stressing the system.

One of our guys says he has personal contact with 5 different T61P's that ALL appear to have this problem.

One guy I talked to on thinkpads.com even tells me that he has spoken with IBM tech support in Canada, and that they told him the T61P CAN'T work properly with 4 gigs of RAM, that there is a design flaw in the motherboard. I don't know if I believe him but in his case, they actually told him the problem would never be fixed and they promised to replace his T61P with a different model, whenever a newer, fixed model became available!

Scary stuff. Now if you'll excuse me, I am going to do some more rigorous testing since people tend to fluff off any results obtained from running Bioshock. I don't know how much it will take to make Lenovo pay attention to this issue and come up with a fix.

 

OK I know why Bioshock doesn't work on the Lenovo video drivers, it's because these drivers don't correctly support Directx 10. This is all over the Internet. The game will run if you use Directx 9 mode.

However I am going to try and reproduce the errors without using Bioshock. I know with my old machine, just about any 3D program would produce the errors, it didn't even have to be games.

However, I don't think it is unreasonable to expect a top of the line machine with a Directx 10 card to be able to support a Directx 10 game. ESPECIALLY a game that works fine with an up-to-date driver and only 1 stick of RAM in the machine.

 

"perhaps you ram is at fault..even though it error checks fine...try buying some sticks through best buy so you can test it out"

The vista Distribution DVD Has an excellent memory tesing excercizer and there is also one included in regular Vista but I don't know that I would trust it as much. There is no need to buy anything if you have Vista.

 

Well that is one strange thing about this issue Renee, most people who I have talked to who have this issue report that their system passes the memory tests just fine with 4 gigs!

The problems seem to only rear their head when 3D graphics intensive programs are running on the machine, with both sticks of RAM. Removing one stick of RAM makes the problem go bye-bye.

I have an Excel spreadsheet keeping track of 11 different forum users who I have talked to about their issues. Every single one of them has reported that the errors and crashes go away if they remove one stick of RAM, and MOST of them have already tried running a memory test with both sticks in and passed it.

I think given the information we have so far, even considering the memory being at fault would be barking up the wrong tree.

 

Well for what it's worth, Bioshock will run in Directx 9 using the Lenovo latest video drivers, but it only works for a few minutes then it crashes.

HOWEVER, if I take one stick of RAM out, I can play in Directx 9 and it doesn't crash.

 

thanks! wasn't sure on how reliable memory checking was...but from what hellbore said about owning multiple sticks, it can't be the memory. I am at a loss....perhaps is something BIOS related when it comes to 'dual channeling' mode

 

AHA!!!

Remember I posted instructions how to run PC Burn-In 3d Graphics test?

Well, I just ran it, with the Lenovo latest video drivers, and the plain vanilla Vista install that they sent me, NO non-standard settings or drivers, and after only 5 minutes, the test crashed out with the normal error message I am so familiar with:

The graphics driver has stopped functioning and has been restarted (not sure if that was the exact wording).

So... There goes your theory that Bioshock is to blame!

This is the same damn issue I originally sent my T61P in for!

 

I wish there was some way to disable dual-channel mode for testing purposes, to see if it makes any difference!

Want to hear something funny? This might be a mistake, but on Crucial's website you can look up your system to see what RAM will work in it, and it will tell you whether your system supports dual-channel mode.

For the T61P, it says Dual channel is NOT supported.

Interesting.. i wonder why they say that... do they know something we don't?

What is unclear to me at this point is if there actually is anyone out there who has the T61P with Quadro 570M, and 4 gigs of RAM, and never has these crashes and errors. 3 people have reported that the problem was solved for them but I don't know how rigorously they tested their machine, I wonder if they only THINK their problem is fixed? I wonder if they did enough testing under 3D graphics loads.

For example, one guy who at first claimed his problem was totally solved, more recently admitted that his system still crashes occasionally when he plays games. Huh? That doesn't sound fixed to me!

 

I wonder if and when there will be any 4 gigabyte SODIMMS made... I wonder if that would be a possible work-around for this issue?

I mean, since I have NEVER had errors like this when running only 1 stick of RAM, it just makes me wonder if 1 stick of RAM that is 4gb alone would work fine.

At this point I don't think we really know for sure whether the issue has to do with HOW MUCH ram, or HOW MANY sticks, because right now the max amount of RAM you can possibly have with 1 stick is 2 gigs. What if the problem is simply that having more than 2 gigs causes crashes?

I know in my case when I ran either 2.5 gigs or 3 gigs it crashed like usual, but that was with 2 sticks of course...

 

Hey guys, I just reproduced another symptom on the loaner machine that I was having on my old machine.

If you place only 1 2gb stick of RAM in the machine, BUT you place it in the upper slot, the one farther from the motherboard, the system will power on the first time you turn it on, but if you reboot it will fail to post!

For example, you can power on the system, then when the big white letters say "Thinkpad" on the screen, hit ctrl-alt-delete to restart, and it will beep at you and fail to post!

It also did this if I let Windows boot, then I tell Windows to restart.

It gives the BIOS beep error of one beep, pause, three beeps, pause, one beep. This error means a memory failure.

Interesting no? If any of you have the T61P with the Quadro 570M graphics card, and you have a 2gb stick of RAM at your disposal, I would appreciate if you could try this test! Even trying it with other sized memory sticks would be interesting.

I wonder if this has anything to do with the problems I have been having, or if this is just a normal aspect of these motherboards, maybe you just aren't supposed to put a single stick in the upper memory slot?

If you have a T61P but DON'T have the Quadro 570M, it would be interesting for you to try this and see if your system beeps at you or if it works fine!

 

Thank you Hellbore. This discussion has been really helpful for me as I just started experiencing the same thing last night.

I just posted this in another thread but... I have a 570M, Vista 32, 3 GB ram (1gb from Lenovo, 2gb corsair). I just put the 2gb in the bottom slot and will see what happens when I get a chance to test it out.

Thanks again and good luck!

 

OK NOW I AM REALLY CONFUSED!

You know the PC burn in 3D graphics test I have been using?

Well, for some reason the test doesn't crash when I run in fullscreen 640x480!

However, it crashes right away if I run in 1024x768 fullscreen!

It doesn't seem to crash in the native resolution either, 1920x1200, though I didn't let the test run the full 15 minutes so I'm not 100% sure about that.

Those of you who have a T61P with 4 gigs of RAM, and the Quadro FX 570M, if you already tried the PC Burn-In graphics test and it didn't crash, could you try it again but this time with 1024x768 fullscreen?

Here's the link to the program:
http://www.passmark.com/ftp/bitpro.exe

Here's the changed instructions:
1. Download and install the program
2. Run the program, it will say it's a trial, click Continue
3. In the program, go to the Configuration menu, click "Test duty cycles", then in that screen, click the "All Off" button, then check the box for "3D Graphics", so it will only test 3d graphics. Then click OK.
4. In the program, go to the Configuration menu again, click Test Preferences, then click the "3D Graphics" tab, change Window Size to "Full Screen (non-windowed)" and in the box under this, change the "full screen resolution" to "1024x768x32". Then click OK.
5. Now back in the main program window, click the green triangle button, which makes the test start. Let the test run for maybe 5 minutes or so, see if you get any errors or crashes.

I wonder if this issue only happens at certain resolutions! Wouldn't that be wild?

I don't know what the significance of this is but I am testing this now!

I have a hunch that maybe the issue will go away if you ONLY run 3D graphics using widescreen resolutions! Maybe the issue is somehow related to Nvidia's scaling system it uses to fit non-widescreen resolutions on the screen...

It's worth a shot...

 

OK never mind, I just got it to crash again this time in a widescreen resolution.

Darn. I hoped I was onto something.

It DOES crash faster and more often in 1024x768 mode though. Maybe only because it works the GPU harder or something having to convert the aspect ratio or something...

 

you should try posting some of this stuff on the thinkpad forums....it looks like the folks over there are more technically inclined

 

I have and I didn't get much of a response, not many seemed to be interested. There doesn't even appear to be that many T61P owners there and those who are there don't appear to game much. Plus that forum is INCREDIBLY slow. I don't know why but every page takes like 10 times longer to load than this forum

Anyways, another interesting tidbit... As per Nurio's suggestion I tried checking how much memory is reported for each slot.

One 2gb stick in bottom slot: Windows reports 2030 MB
One stick in topmost slot: Windows reports 2046 MB
Two 2gb sticks: Windows reports 4030 MB

Umm...yeah.. 2030 + 2046 = 4076... Doesn't add up!

Isn't that kind of odd?

Does anyone have a DESKTOP computer with 4 gigs of ram, shouldn't a computer report 4096 megs of RAM?

Kinda weird, I wonder if it has anything to do with these issues, or if there is a logical explanation for it.

 

If alot of these T61P's have the same issues (maybe all of them?) it will be interesting to see if your problem is ever solved.

 

This is a complete shot in the dark - but I hope you fix your problem and just trying to help. I was looking at Corsair.com and went to the forums and saw membrs talking about crashes with 4GB memory, slot configurations, …similar to the things you’re talking about.
Some were recommending an MS update that’s supposed to work (KB929777): http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...77541E93C18&displaylang=en#QuickInfoContainer

The post I was looking at was here: http://www.asktheramguy.com/v3/showthread.php?t=59110

There are other updates in the link they suggest as well. I’d be surprised if it actually worked for your problem, but sometimes a different perspective helps. I've been following this thread with interest and haven't seen any comments about the possibility of MS updates. Hope you get it worked out!

 

Thanks ickysmits but I already have applied every hotfix in that thread.

Also, at least 1 person with this issue had these kind of problems under Linux too.

 

We've been having some problems with our hosting.

We have a a lot of T61 owners there, but you're right that not many of them are gamers. Did you read the sticky about memory limitations at http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=49703 and did it help?

 

I did read that thread but it didn't help.

I hope you are able to solve your hosting problems. It has gotten to the point where it takes so long to load pages on the Thinkpads.com forums that I don't even like going there any more, which is a shame because it's an otherwise good forum.

I think given the history of this issue and the descriptions of all the steps taken already by T61P owners to diagnose this issue, it should seem clear that this isn't a simple software issue, especially since it has shown itself on various operating systems. If I start a new thread I'm most likely going to get a lot of helpful but useless suggestions like, maybe your RAM is bad, maybe you need the latest driver, etc. etc... things that are already discussed in this long thread.

Some people have had some luck making the problem occur less often by disabling certain settings but these are really work-arounds at best, not solutions. I think the only ones who can really solve this are Lenovo's engineers by getting to the bottom of what is actually causing this.

I KNOW they have people smart enough to figure this out, I just wonder, are they not aware of this issue, or do they not consider it important enough to bother fixing, or are they in the process of trying to solve it, or what? I mean, come on... If they need help I can tell them how to reproduce these crashes, they should be able to then analyze system dumps and error logs and figure out what is causing this!

I considered myself turning on the Windows Driver Verifier and then triggering this crash to see if it gives me extra debugging information, but what I can find out is really limited, I don't work for Lenovo and this isn't my job. I really hope they have someone working on this!

It would almost be better if more users were having this problem so they would make fixing it a priority! Unfortunately a lot of T61P owners either don't have the Quadro FX 570M or don't run extremely graphics-intensive programs, so they might not ever see this issue. Heck, the issue itself is pretty vague and sometimes hard to reproduce. It seems like we're still trying to convince the world that there is even a problem!

 

Since Mark had you send your notebook to him, it's highly likely that it went straight to engineering.

 

Hellbore, after reading your test results I realized that I am a numskull, for some reason I remembered that my system saw more memory in the first slot (bottom) then in the second one. Your test results and mine after I retested showed the opposite and that might make some more sense:

Although the T61p (15.4”) has a dedicated 256MB memory it can still use shared memory of up to 1015MB (with 4GB) on my machine. My guess is that the shared memory mechanism uses both fixed memory allocation and dynamic memory allocation. The fixed memory allocation assigns a predefined amount of shared memory based on the installed memory, meaning that the more memory you install the more it will dedicate for the video (based on our results for 2GB it will assign 18MB and for 4GB 66MB).
And my other guess would be that the fixed memory allocation could only be assigned on the first memory slot.

That might explain the different amount of memory being reported for every slot.

 

Received my T61 back from the depot at 8:15 this morning - that was fast. Under 48 hours inclusive. And so far it seems to be working perfectly Don't have a clue exactly what they did to it though as there was no explanation included. But so far... I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

 

How does one find "the depot?"

 

A depot is just any authorized service provider servicing your area. Where I am in the city there's at least 3 that I know of. Basdically I just went to Lenovo's warranty page, typed in my model # , my general location and it spit out a list of providers.

 

Do you have 3 or 4 gigs of RAM?

Hey can you try the 3D Burn In Test mentioned earlier in this thread?

But make sure you run it with it set to fullscreen non-windowed, resolution 1024x768x32

I believe that should make it crash if it's not fixed.

Also What was it doing before you sent it in? Did you send it in with your hard drive or without? does it still do the thing it was doing before you sent it in?

 

I just ran the 3dburnin test using the settings described (full screen 1024x768x32) and got a 'Passed'. GPU temp immediately after completion was at 70C. I dont have fraps on but I doubt it went much more above 70 at anytime during the test. I also just got a full copy of bioshock, played 2 hrs into it and no crashes either.

Have 3 gigs on my system ( 2Gb OCZ + 1Gb factory sodimm) and using 169.04 drivers.

 

I just completed running the 3D burn-in test using the settings described (Full screen for both 1680x1050x32 & 1024x768x32). In both case the test passed after about 15 min. The tests were ran using the default factory configuration (Vista Ultimate 32 with no updates, original Quadro driver: ForceWare version 101.55). The only thing I modified was I took out the 1GB factory-installed RAM and installed 2x2GB OCZ RAM. By the way, I received my T61p on Oct. 30.

P.S. Does anyone know what's the ForceWare version number for the latest Quadro Driver 7.15.11.0145?

 

Interesting, I am going to have to run a test myself with 3 gigs.

you're not the first person who has reported that 3 gigs works.

It may be that 3 gigs works because it prevents dual channel mode... which may end up being the common factor in all these problems.

I THOUGHT that I had tested with 3 gigs before and gotten crashes but I might have made a mistake. I will try again with 3 gigs now.

I'm also going to try with 2 gigs (2 1gb dimms) because if this issue is simply a problem with dual channel, 2 1gb sticks should crash too.

 

Morphy and Galin, there's a couple settings I forgot to mention that I was hoping you could try.

In the "test duty cycles" settings, would you kindly make sure the 3d graphics test is set to 100%, and would you kindly also make sure that in the "test preferences" settings for the 3d graphics test, where you set the resolution, it is set to "Max refresh rate", not "monitor refresh rate"?

Try that, would you kindly ? wink wink...

Also, Windows just not popped up a message telling me to install a hotfix that is supposed to "improve stability", it's one I have never seen before. I installed it and I'm testing the stability now.

 

When I ran my test I did pick max refresh rate, however the load was only at 50% (I was wondering why every 5 sec or so the graphic "pause" for a brief moment). I'm re-running the test now (graphic is now running smooth).

 

Hey guys, this is kinda weird...

I just ran the test again with 4gb of RAM, this test always has crashed in the past, but this time it ran 15 minutes and passed!

The following things are different:
- My battery is at 50% and charging, in the past I always have run this test with a full battery and on AC power
- Windows just installed a new hotfix dated Oct. 25
- I have 4gb of RAM in the machine but 1 stick is G.SKILL and the other stick is Lenovo RAM

I'm going to see if I can figure out which of these changes is making it not crash...

Also I'm going to check real quick if Bioshock will work.

 

Hellbore.....

Often when you can't replicate tests.... the instability is due to thermal issues.