T61 Wireless Woe

u can disable the windows wireless zero configuration from services. if im not wrong.

 

what is its name from services?

 

I don't know if this helps, but my wife was experiencing similar maddening problems with her t60 running windows xp. We fixed it completely by disabling "Deep Smart Power Down" on the Intel Pro/1000 PL Network Connection. Thanks to this reviewer: http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3563

 

This sounds like a Vista "powering down" problem. I recently installed an AT&T internal wan card in my T60 and experienced similar problems. Connections would drop at random intervals, sometimes only after a few minutes. The wan card would then be unresponsive and I would have to reboot to reconnect. This would always occur after short durations of inactivity so I suspected a power problem.

Disabling usb selective suspend in power options (advance settings) and disabling power down for the usb root hub for the card under the device manager seemed to help. I can now keep a connection for several hours. Also, Vista update KB941600, aimed at clearing up usb problems may have also helped. BTW, the wan card is in a internal mini pci-e slot, but appears under the usb root hub. I'm sure the hardware gurus can explain why. Hope this helps

 

Opps I just made a new post under "Wireless Turning Off". I think that it is exactly the same problem.

"The wireless on my thinkpad R61i will stop functioning after 30mins to 60mins of use. The wireless LED turns off. The Access Connections tray icon with the incrementally higher bars show a red cross. However beyond that, the software seems to think that the wireless is powered on. The Fn+F5 wireless applet still has the status of wireless radio as being on and when the "Power Off" option is clicked the applet will hang. I've updated to the newest drivers and all and am still having the same problem. The only way to get wireless back on is to restart the system."

I've also noticed the following:

My CPU also starts to run at over 50%. I've opened up sysinternals process explorer and found the culprit. It has no PID. The image name is DPCs and the description is called Deferred Procedure Calls. it is directly It runs consistently at 50%-48%.

Another process is also running. Again with no PID. Process is called Interrupts and the description is Hardware Interrupts. The CPU consumption on this is around 0-3%.

I've also noticed a correlation between these two processes. When Hardware Interrupts is not fluctuating at 0%, Deferred Procedure Calls stays close to 50%. When fluctuates upwards however, Deferred Procedure Calls decreases. When Hardware Interrupts is stable at around 2.5-3%, Deferred Procedure Calls jumps back up to 50%.

 

Some of you having problems may want to read this and try what it recommends:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928152

 

This sounds good but.....

Something in my Lenovo keeps resetting the powerplan after I have set it.

 

Might be the bundled software they provide. You might try disabling their power management software.

 

Currently I have a Lenovo 3000. I'll look into it further on the T61p I receive Saturday.

 

I uninstalled both AC and changed the power plan so that it has max performance and left it over night and it seems fine at the moment.

Renee, maybe create your own powerplan?

 

I have done that.

My new T61p arrives Saturday and I'm giving the current machine to a friend. I know I'll have the same problems on the T61p, but I'd rather solve them on the new machine rather than the old one.

 

I also have this problem on my T61p. My card shuts off when I am playing video games and if I leave my laptop on overnight to download stuff. I also think it has something to do with the Lenovo drivers and the powerplan settings.
Tim

 

Some people said that if they install windows xp on t61, the wireless problem can be solved. Have you tried this?

 

Wireless problem is a windows vista problem or thinkpad problem???

 

I intend to buy a t61 but I am afraid of this problem, a notebook is used for work must have a good wireless !

 

Exactly, connectivity is important especially for a business notebook. And I do think it is a power manager problem. I tried turning all the power plans to maximum performance and dont have any problems. However after a while, it automatically converts back to maximum power saving and it will turn off wireless.

Im trying a workaround. In device manager, double click the wireless driver and under the power management tab, uncheck the allow computer to turn off this device to save power option. Will report back on how that turns out.

Cheers
Jeremy

 

Install windows xp on t61, can it solve the problem?

 

But I think using windows xp on a new thinkpad t61 isn't a good solution: Core 2 Dou, nVidia Quadro, Turbo memory, Wifi N... so Vista is much better.

 

"Im trying a workaround. In device manager, double click the wireless driver and under the power management tab, uncheck the allow computer to turn off this device to save power option. Will report back on how that turns out. "

I've done that. It did not work. I think we all have to talk to Lenovo support.

 

That's not the way to do it. You have to go into the power options, and for every power plan, go into the advanced power settings, and under wireless adapter settings, change both options under power saving mode to "maximum performance".

 

I understand that. What I have noted before is that some piece of software resets those settings after i have set them.

I am confused as to why I'd have to change the settings for power plans that I never use.

 

Its in case you ever use them. I'd say some piece of Lenovo software keeps changing them back then. Tried looking in there?

 

Hello Tech,

I've had this struggle on a 3000. Today I receive a new t61p and I thought I would wait until I get the t61p to deal with this. I want to examine the front end sensitivity of the AGN card which I will probably replace with an Atheros card.

I do not have problems when i am connected. It's only when I am disconnected that I have this issue. But that's important to me as I have just finished writing a Vista Wireless scanner. Keeping the card powered up when I am not connected is pretty important.

Btw... do you have any FEDEX accelerator software?

 

Any new idea?

 

All weekend I was doing installations on the new system. Since I was connected the wohole time, I didn't have any problems at all. Infact I have yet to see the t61 disconnect.

 

I do have have news. Today, I brought my system into work and I'm not connected. Within five minutes my who system shutdown but the card shut down first.

I went into the the Lenovo power manager for the first time and set the lenov power management to Hight Performance when plugged in and I haven't had the slightest problem in hours. The card is still on and it has not been connected at all.

 

best bet: t61 and xp = stability + performance. your knowledge of the system services is the key to minimize problems. i'm glad my t61 works flawlessly.

 

as everything else in this world, we must evolve our knowledge. We can't stick with XP forever

 

XP is a pretty mature and stable OS though. There wasn't a compelling reason for me to move to Vista. I'm only on it my old laptop was stolen and vista came with the Thinkpad. Moving to a new platform has its drawbacks and this is a good example.

In any case, my work around is to just manually change the power settings to Max Performance every restart. I've talked to IBM support Australia and hes working with the product manager to see what the problem is and what are the solutions. I should post back soon.

Regards,
Jeremy

 

Huanker,

That's really valuable. Thank you.

 

So, every start you must change setting to Max performance? Does it solve the problem?

 

Yes it does. Check after restarts, wake ups from hibernations and standby.

 

Can you save the setting to Max performance? If you change to Max performance, the battery life become less?

 

The whole point is that the settings automatically changes to max savings every reset, hibernation and stand by. So you have to change to max performance to avoid the wireless issues.

Battery life isnt much affected.

 

Huangker,

The way you stated that is quite succint and accurate. Have you heard anything from lenovo support on this?

 

actually, I don't think switching to XP helps. I spent more than a month tinkering with my T61's wireless (while using XP), and here's what I've found.

I'm using two laptops right now. Occasionally, my router apparently hiccups or something, and the wireless connection dies for a minute. On my other computer, trillian tells me "you have been disconnected" and tells me I've been reconnected roughly 6 seconds later.

Whenever this happens, when I'm working on the T61, I notice that there's a 1/3 to 1/2 chance that my wireless just dies - the wireless LED dies as described before, and nothing short of a reboot fixes the problem (rebooting normally doesn't work though, I gotta hold the power button down to turn it off, otherwise it just freezes in the middle of turning off)

I'm not running access connections, not running client security software, and never installed them (I did a clean install of XP). Tried the power management tricks, no help.

All I can conclude is that this is somehow related to the router - apparently its tendency to hiccup is throwing my wireless card (Intel Pro/wireless 3945 ABG) for a loop

 

I've had no problems with my wireless. I have the Lenovo power manager set to keep my wireless card on full performance per that Microsoft KB bulletin that I posted earlier and haven't had a single wireless glitch.

 

Not that this applies to your situation (not enough info on how and where you are using the wireless) but.....when I got my recently replaced Compaq laptop (replaced with a T61p), I was having some very bizarre intermittent wireless issues while at home. It drove me nuts for weeks. Then, one day, while sitting there using my laptop wireless connection, the house phone rang and my wireless connection dropped. Then it died completely when my daughter answered the call with HER cordless phone. Come to find out, her phone was interfering with the wireless (it was a Linksys 54g). The brief interruptions occurred when the phone rang, but when she used HER cordless phone, it killed the wireless altogether. The wireless dying completely didn't happen when our main cordless phone was used, so I never really noticed the brief interruption during the ring cycle. I replaced her phone and haven't had a problem since. Very bizarre.

 

I have had the same issues. I am able to hit repair in the network connections which 4/5 times will restart the wireless. Takes less time then a re-boot. Have you tried this?

 

A lot of wireless devices use the same 2.4ghz frequencies and have a few different channels that they operate on. If you are getting interference from other devices in the house then your best bet is to log into your router settings and change the channel to something different. I've even had a microwave cause interference on my wireless network before.

 

The router is definitely NOT causing this as many have mentioned. I would try a custom recovery and see if that fixes the issue.

 

well, the way I see it, this problem only shows up when I get momentarily disconnected, which I assume is the router's fault. And this problem was evident right when I got the computer - only had vista for like a day, so can't comment on that, but after I clean installed XP and later reformatted and reinstalled, I've had the problem from day one, after installing drivers and stuff but nothing else.

Though it is possible that it's some other wireless device that's interfering with the wireless signal, I'll look into that.

 

We are having this exact issue with three of our Lenovo laptops. One is a T60 and the other 2 are T61s. Both are running XP and both have been purchased within the last 8 months. We bought 3 T60s and 8 T61s. Our CDW rep has never heard of this problem. You'd think with 3/11 laptops plus everyone on this thread having the same problem Lenovo would've acknowledged the problem by now but all they keep saying is that it's either a software issue or a problem with our wireless router. They don't get that the other Lenovo laptops we have all have the same software installed and connect to the same router without problems. I hope someone can find a solution to this problem. Trying to get Lenovo to acknowledge a problem is like puling teeth.

 

I have a T61 running Win XP and I'm having the same problem. My wireless connection randomly disconnects. Is there a solution for this yet?

 

There are two problems that people are treating as the same.

There are disconnects that's one problems

Then there was the powering off of the wireless adapter when not connected.
I've fixed that.

I have to sound daft but I did all of the recomended power plan modifications and device manager property sheets to no avail. I finally found a non-descriptive checkbox in the lenovo software in an obscure place, I don't remember where. THAT was the culprit. Yoggling that checkbox made the problem go away.

 

Brilliant - thanks for your input. What use is that to anybody? If you want to help then go back and find the check box and tell us what it is.

 

Well actually it was brilliant to find. If found it, there's some chance you may too.

 

I understand that there are two separate problems in this thread. Some people are getting wireless connection dropouts, others are having their wireless radio turn off. I have a Z61m running XP Pro SP2, and have been having the first problem (connection dropouts) for several weeks now. After looking over the ideas in this thread, I was able to solve my problem. There are two places where I had to change settings to make it work.

The first is in Access Connections. From the top toolbar: Locations - Manage Profiles - Edit ... - Wireless Settings - Advanced configuration. Once you're at this page, change the "Power Save mode" to Low, and uncheck the "Enable radio management support" box. You may have to do this separately for each wireless profile.

The second is in the Windows XP Network Connections, which you can get to from the Control Panel. Right click the Wireless Network Connection icon, and select Properties. At the top of the General tab, click the Configure button for the wireless adapter. In the Power Management tab, uncheck the box that says "Allow the computer to turn off this device ...".

I suspect this won't work for everyone, but it worked for me and is worth a try. While I'm at it, I would like to add that Lenovo really should provide better documentation for Access Connections. Although I fixed my problem, I'm still not sure what some of the options really do.

 

also add to Tilney's post going into the access connections and setting the wireless to "best network connections".

I had the same problems until I changed these settings.

 

how do you get to "access connections" please?

xp pro running
edit=uninstalled that already