T61 xp sp2 clean install problems

Ok so I am trying XP SP2 on my T61 to demo the performance and see if I want to keep it. I have managed to get rid of all unrecognized/uninstalled devices in device manager so I believe all hardware is working. With the exception of an exclamation point on one of two Atmel TPM devices in system devices. I have no idea how to fix this. Maybe install client security to actually use the TPM? Anyways the major problem I am having is power management. The system won't charge my battery and will not reboot or shutdown itself, I have to hold the power button down to manually complete these processes, it's annoying. Also I do not think my system will go into standby. Anyone know the solution to this?

 

No one ever cares to respond to my posts...

 

Stallen's clean install guide has the right order of devices to install. Did you install the chipset drivers for the motherboard first, or at all? If not I would install the Intel Chipset drivers, and see if that clears up the ? devices.

 

Just an update... after allowing Thinkvantage system update to download and install some xp updates, as well as windows update, the power issues are fixed. My battery charges, the system can standby, shutdown and reboot itself. So I have a successful installation of xp sp2 running on my T61 now.

As for the performance of xp sp2 vs Vista, I can't say that I have noticed any major speed improvements. But I do have more RAM available at all times. In vista I would be using 50% (1gb) of my RAM even at idle. Now I usually have about 1.5gb available when surfing with firefox and doing other small tasks. I have less processes running, 43 with many programs already installed compared to 93 and up on vista. And I am enjoying the extra disk space I gained from deleting the Lenovo recovery partition because I only have a 60gb hd. Also many of the bugs I was experiencing in vista are gone in xp (sound glitches/clicks/skips, faster USB performance of flashdrives. Things just seem to work better and I dont feel like I am missing out on anything except for that sexy aero gui and the sidebar. I like the classic logon box too, not that picture crap.

 

When you were using Vista did you have the updates that fixed the issues you were mentioning installed? Some were not available through windows update. Vista has been spot on for myself and I would not go back to XP.

 

I think I'll wait till Vista SP1 comes out. I heard that it fixes a lot of performance issues. Hopefully, software support on Vista will be more stable by then too.

 

I have no idea if I had those updates or not, or if they were even needed because I didn't have those problems with Vista. And I wouldn't be able to tell you if I ever received those updates. Did I understand your question correctly? Because as far as I know there are no acpi issues with a fresh vista install and no updates.

Yes if vista sp1 gets reviews of better stability and major bug fixes then I will switch.

 

stevensol,

My T61p is going to be here tomorrow (Monday).

Can you tell me how you did a clean install of XP on your T61p?

I have done clean install on my PC many times. It was extremely easy though. I just had to get the video and network divers and thats it. Windows recongized everything else.

Here on the T61p. I gotta get Intel Chipset drivers? I dont even know what those are. This will be my first laptop.

 

Basically I followed this guide. http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=136351&highlight=t61+xp+sp2+clean+install

Make note/know of all your hardware in your machine before the clean install.

As far as I can tell as long as you install the chipset drivers and the storage matrix drivers first the rest of the order doesn't really matter. In fact I think UAA was one of the last things I installed, in contrast to that guide, just make sure you get the chipset and storage matrix drivers installed first. You don't really need the 7.5 driver for intel storage matrix. After you get these basic drivers installed, install sp2 and run windows update. Then install whatever other drivers you need from here http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?sitestyle=lenovo&lndocid=MIGR-67853

I was able to get rid of every single unknown device in device manager. There is just one problem with one of two Atmel TPM devices (lord knows why i have two, the driver is installed but it says the device is not working). There are a lot of drivers you have to install if you want to get rid of all those devices. I had a smartcard reader, display adapter, ethernet, bluetooth, wlan card, TPM module, USB, ethernet, modem, soundcard (install UAA, THEN install sound drivers and modem), shock sensor for the active protection system, and ACPI power management.


After I got all of these devices installed/working. I had power issues. The computer would not shutdown or reboot itself. I installed Thinkvantage system update and ran it, I installed all of the windows xp updates along with several other fixes and that seemed to complete my xp sp2 installation and I now have a working system.

 

In regards to the memory issue -- Vista uses memory differently than XP. Just because less is available does NOT mean it is a memory hog.

 

I know how it uses memory. but Vista still takes more RAM to run than does xp. ie: components of vista use more RAM.