T61 MAJOR ISSUE! blue screen

I just recieved my T61 (w/vista business) today, was extremely happy, from all the reviews i've read, everything looked great until I started setting up vista.. and got the blue screen death..like 5 times (during setup, after setup, while using it). I had read that this blue screening happened to someone else in the thread about "t61 initial impressions". I'm so pissed that this I registered to make this post. I was extremely upset/pissed... and this is where I made my mistake (should have called lenovo), instead I formatted/reinstalled my laptop with my own legit version of vista business (that I received being a business student). Everything seemed great after this reformat/reinstall except my wireless wouldn't work. I then downloaded the driver for the wireless card for vista from the lenovo site and installed it but the laptop would still not detect the network card in the device manager. I then called Lenovo, and they gave me the steps to fix the wireless, but it wouldn't work..and all they could tell me was to buy their recovery cd for 90 bucks (3 of these tech support guys told me) which would solve my problems.
I recieved this blue screening laptop to start with, and I know I panicked to reinstall with my own Vista Business (understandable I think), considering the notebook doesn't come with the CD, and all they can keep tellin me to do is throw them another 90 bucks in addition to the 1.5 k i jus dropped.

BTW ..watch out for this blue screening issue, as the poster in the thread about inital impressions posted, it happened to him twice. I also have a friend who recieved his T61 notebook yesterday, identical to mine, and had the same blue screen crashes. Thats quite a few cases of the same problem I think.


If there is anyway I can get my wireless to work without this recovery cd
(using my windows vista business), that would be great help as well. I opened my laptop up 3 hrs ago..and I don't feel like giving lenovo another 90 dollars 3 hrs into my laptops lifetime.

 

If there is a problem, and all they say is that you need the Recovery CDs to fix it, that falls under warranty. Tell them to send you the discs, or it's a warranty violation and a call to the credit card company to force a chargeback on a defective product. That might help.

 

Can't you just download the drivers from their website? They should be all there. I don't think the recovery disks have something that is not available online.
Here's the drivers page

 

I did download the driver... and verified it was correct one with lenovo phone guy.. but still didn't work

 

then what would the recovery disk do that couldn't a fresh installation with the drivers do? I guess it's very likely that the wireless card is not working.
Why not try windows xp?

 

thats exactly what I was thinking... but the wireless card should be fine.as it was working 2 hrs ago when I first was using vista (before the fresh reinstall)

I think I will try xp... but I don't understand y my vista business install + wireless driver won't work

only good thing that has come about this... blue screening stopped happening

 

Did you look under device manager? Maybe it detected it but something isnt working.

 

yea I looked under browser manager..thats wat the lenovo tech guy told me to do..and nothings being detected

 

Is the ethernet port working? If so, hook it up to the wired network and then do a check on Microsoft Update and see if it gives you a driver.

 

yep i did that already, microsoft update gave me a bunch of updates but nothing to help my wireless problem..

thanks for the help

 

Bummer. When you install the driver, does it install successfully? Does the wireless adapter show that it's successfully configured in Device Manager? If so, I would remove it and choose to remove the drivers. I would then re-check on MS Update to see if it gives you a newer/different driver.

 

i thought thinkpads shipped with a separate partition for recovery, did you wipe that too?

 

I think i still have the recovery partition thing..since after i reformatted theres 10gb used up in my c drive..but i dunno how to access that

 

press the "thinkvantage" button during system boot.

http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Rescue_and_Recovery

 

Oh man..thats wat I did (what the tech guy told me to do), but nothing happens when I press it... so maybe it got wiped out


and just something to add to this post.. I jus found out another one of my friends who got the T61 today is experiencing blue screen crashes right now... so I dunno whats up with the blue screens.. any help on that would be great too.. Thanks

 

Look in the Windows Event Viewer and see what device caused it. That should at least narrow it down quite a bit.

 

it shouldn't be part of C drive, it probably got wiped unless you're pressing the button at the wrong time.

i would suggest go into device manager, make sure there is no device driver that is missing (with a question mark icon) by expanding ALL categories of hardware, check them ONE by ONE. If there is one, right click on it and update driver via windows update (if no driver is found, post here which device is missing). Restart computer and try to install the wireless driver.

If there isn't any missing device drivers, I would try to reformat and reinstall again, and install the wireless driver as the first thing you try after reinstall. see what happens.

 

ok..so .. I tried reinstalling the wireless card driver ...again the network card doesn't show up in device manager, so under device manager I checked each hardware..and there is a yellow exclamation under other devices : network controller.. i serach for update for the driver..but nothing comes up...anything i can do about this?

 

sounds like you're installing the wrong driver. which network card are you supposed to have? Double check this on your packing slip, order sheet or whatever it was that documents what you're supposed to have. download the correct driver and install it. Did you mention in a different post that you opened up the computer? if you can, open it and double check whether it's intel or non-intel wireless card, maybe they put in the wrong card for you order.

On the other hand, you can just download all network drivers for your model from Lenovo and try to install ALL of them until one works. If it's intel's wireless card, try to see if there is a set of drivers on intel.com, and try to install that.

Do you have Bluetooth and Firewire (1394) on your computer? If you do, make sure the drivers are installed too. Are there any other networking related hardware on your computer?

good luck.

 

Few things.

My R40 was unstable when I was using video drivers from Microsoft. Everything was fine with drivers from IBM. Now it is most likely again some unfinished drivers...

The recovery partition is most likely there, but in windows you need Lenovo application for this think Vantage button. At the moment I am not sure which one and if you need also to install anything in addition to it.

Could you write down what is the messages of the blue screens. Just curious.

 

birdguy: i've definetely installed the correct one (network card driver), i have no doubt about that... and opening up the laptop, i think i'm too scared to do that.lol.. and the bluetooth and firewire...i just havent dealt with yet.. as they don't seem as important as wireless for me right now

darius_lt: since i fresh installed vista..i havent had blue screening problems anymore..jus this wireless problem (and other stuff that i havent dealt with yet maybe, video card doesn't show up as the nvidia one anymore)... so i dont' remember wat the bluescreen said... my friend who also got the blue screens mentioned that it was something to do with audio driver i think

On the other hand..if i were to get the recovery cd from lenovo..and get my system back to the original how it came from factory, is there an option to not install all those programs and stuff that originally come with the t61?..thanks

 

One other thing.. i asked the lenovo tech guy about doing a fresh install of windows xp instead..and he said that would probably work as well..

Booting from my windows xp cd though.. I cannot seem to install xp (says it cannot find hard disk) , is this an issue with vista or something? Do i need to format my harddrive and wipe out vista fist (and how would i do that?)

thanks again

 

Nowadays almost all notebook harddrives are SATA drives. Windows XP does not natively support SATA. In order for you to install Windows XP on a SATA hard drive, you need to slipstream a SATA driver onto the Windows XP install disk. Or if you happen to have an extern floppy disk drive lying around, that might also work. But there have been problems with compatibility of various flobby drives that are on the market. Windows Vista natively supports SATA. So there is no need to slipstream a SATA driver onto a Windows Vista install disk.

 

well, if you're absolutely sure that your installing the right drivers and it doesn't work, it still wouldn't hurt to try to install the other "wrong" drivers just make sure they're wrong.

here is a wild idea i have never tried before and i have no idea if it'll screw up your friend's (or your) vista activation (should be okay): you said your friend has a T61 as well, if your computers configurations are similar enough maybe you can ask him to make you a recovery DVD from on his computer (assuming the OS is the exactly same--vista business) and try the recovery dvd on your computer, and enter your original Vista key for your computer (you may need to change it after the recovery if it doesn't ask you for the key during recovery). You can install any missing drivers yourself after recovery (if successful).

other than looking at your computer on hand myself, i don't have anymore suggestions other than:
1. try to fresh reintall your vista business again and install the wireless driver right away after the vista is reinstalled
2. order the recovery dvd from lenovo
3. try my wild idea, you've got nothing to lose at this point.

you can't install xp because xp is not shipped with SATA drivers. you can slipstream the drivers using nLite. you can find tutorials for slipstreaming SATA drivers for XP on google. just need to make sure you're slipstreaming in the correct SATA drivers for your motherboard.

 

Thanks alot for the replies and help.
Birdguy: I will try to install the "wrong" drivers just to see if it works. As for you suggestions, I have fresh installed vista twice and did the wireless driver installl right away (but that doesn't work). Also , your "wild idea", someone else also suggested that to me, but back to the original problem.. the t61 on my friends comp blue screened before i could finish making the recov cd (which is why I think lenovo should at least give me/him the recov cd for free, which they refuse to do- terrible service in this aspect)

unrelated: but maybe this bluescreen problem is just the first batch of these t61's or something , possible reason for the delays in shipping maybe?

 

Since you said your BSOD problem was fixed by reinstalling Vista, you should try Recovery on the other T61, if you haven't already, to see if the blue screen problem goes away on that T61. If it's fixed, then you can make your recovery dvds, and hopefully fix your problem too.

actually my wild idea should work, a writer on lenovoblog did it with a copy of T60 Vista Recovery DVD on his T60 with a fresh Vista Key and it worked. i guess it's not so wild of an idea after all...

also if you write down the bluescreen error messgae and error code, it might help to diagnose the problem

 

Try this, after your fresh reinstall of Vista, install your chipset driver first before you install anything else. I usually do drivers in this order:

1. Motherboard Chipset / CPU related drivers
yours: http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?sitestyle=lenovo&lndocid=MIGR-67818
2. video
3. audio (if HD audio, MS HD audio driver needs to be installed first Vista might have this built-in already)
4. networking, and everything else can come in any order.

whenever your fresh reinstall Vista, you need to install the drivers for each hardware component in your computer. OS install doesn't come with many of the drivers you need so you need to install them yourself. Example: When you install video drivers, you will get your nVidia graphics back.

sorry i blanked out before, i was assuming that you had the chipset driver install already. installing the chipset driver should allow vista to properly control the network card. you still need to install the wireless lan driver after chipset drivers

if this still doesn't fix your wireless lan problem, i give up!

 

Sorry to hear about your blue screen issues. I'm the one that posted the comments under "T61 - Initial Impressions" regarding my bluescreen issues.

I was trying to connect to my wireless router (Airport Extreme by Apple) when I got my first bluescreen. I did a restart (not a cold boot) and got another bluescreen after I logged into Windows Vista.

I then did a hard shutdown, restarted and everything seemed to be OK. I've not had a bluescreen since, but I agree with you that there is something going on that is causing this.

I would suggest that you download and install the Thinkvantage Maintenance Manager (previously referred to as the Software Installer) and let it determine what drivers need to updated for your Thinkpad. It's smart enough to download the drivers in the correct order, install them, and even reboot if necessary. In a previous version, I did run into the situation where it would reboot after installing some of the drivers, but did not resume the rest of the installation of the remaining drivers, so I've gotten in the habit of always re-starting the software installer to see if there were more drivers to install.

I will keep watching your thread to see how your coming. Let me know if you have any questions regarding my experience with my T61.

Here is the link for the Thinkpad Maintenance Manager ...

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?sitestyle=lenovo&lndocid=MIGR-67272

 

You need to read this page with instructions for Windows XP. First instructions are for Vista, so just skip them. Later instructions are about Windows XP installation with and without a floppy disk.

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?sitestyle=lenovo&lndocid=MIGR-62909

 

Just throwing in my experiences -- got T61 yesterday, blue screen of death, cycling on and off endlessly. Interrupted it, did a full restore with their restore function. Seems to be working okay now.

"...the t61 on my friends comp blue screened before i could finish making the recov cd..."

How do you make a recovery disk (XP)? Really handy if your drive dies.

 

Just to throw this out there and eliminate it, have you checked the wireless switch in the front of the laptop?

 

Does this link explain the right way to do a clean install??

 

Regarding SATA - yes, I had this page in my mind.

 

cRap- this is five t61 owners who have had this exact [problem?!

Sorry to hear of your problems. Maybe there is something to be said for giving them time to work out bugs from a new model. Ridiculous that they want to charge you $90 to fix.

 

I called technical support. They had me run pcdoc (I think it is). I don't know if it's meaningful but it said the CPU multicore test reported "misconfigured". And the SMBIOS test failed which supposedly may have been the cause of the blue screen.

Has anyone who got the blue screen done any analysis of their laptop?

For some reason pcdoc could not see any of my usb ports but they work fine.