ThinkVantage Power manager gauge hangs with Outlook

I've noticed that whenever I have outlook running in the background, the lenovo power manager gauge doesn't update itself (it doesn't refresh at all... it stays at the same percentage for hours even though I'm using or charging the battery). I recently installed the Outlook Connector (to check Windows Live Mail in Outlook) and I'm think this is the cause.... when I uninstalled the Connector, the symptom does not appera. Does anyone know of a way to fix this seeming conflict? (It seems ridiculous, but I've tested multiple times and it's the same all the time. The gauge won't respond to changes in the power plan while Outlook is running, so that is the bigger issue than the percentage refreshing.)

I'm using Vista, Outlook 2007, Outlook Connector 12.1 beta (also tried with Outlook Connector 12), ThinkVantage Power Manager 2.36.

I have a w500 so I'd like the gauge to work because I use it for switchable graphics. As a side note, the switchable graphics settings works regardless of whether Outlook (or anything else) is running.

If you need any other information, let me know.

Thank you!

 

I have exactly the same problem as you. I´ve tried different versions of Outlook Connector and Power Manager but nothing changed. Power Manager Gauge stays frozen until I close Outlook. Then it gets back to normal and refreshes actual battery level or applies changes in power plans. It´s very annoying, because I use Outlook all the time my notebook is running.

I have R400 with Vista Business and don´t want to switch to XP.

EDIT: I´ve also noticed, that the Power Manager Gadget (for Vista Sidebar) freezes as well. Battery meter in Vista (small icon in taskbar) shows correct values all the time Outlook is running.

 

Yeah... interesting development is that if you delete the outlook connector account in outlook, the gauge almost instantly "unfreezes" and refreshes, so it's something about having that account set up; I'm not even sure how to go about debugging this. I've pretty much identified the issue as the outlook connector specifically, but I really don't know of any settings I could change that could affect this... I've posted it on Lenovo's forums, maybe someone there will see it and a bug report will get filed with the power manager team?

 

crrash and anyone else having this problem: I posted this on Lenovo's forums. Posting your model number, OS, power management software version and driver version may help get a solution.

This forum software won't let me post URL's until I make 15 posts, so I pasted the URL of the Lenovo forums thread in the post title.

Thanks for your help, and if you've found a solution, let us know.

 

I'm having this problem as well (x200 Tablet, Vista Bus 64, Outlook 2007 w/ Outlook Connector 12.06). It is quite annoying, and my current policy is to only run outlook when I absolutely have to (not ideal because I keep my appointments in there as well).

Has anyone found a fix/workaround besides uninstalling Outlook Connector??

 

As far as I know, there isn't a fix... if you post your system information on the Lenovo Forums thread as well, it might (eventually) get looked at by someone who can do something about it...

I only really run the Lenovo Power Gauge to switch graphics cards, which works regardless of outlook running. for switching power schemes I've just started using vista's power manager, which is almost the same in terms of what I need it to do.

(Using vista's power manager allows me to run outlook all the time like I want to...)

 

I was having the same issue with my power meter gauge and I called Lenovo about it. they told me to reinstall the Power Manager / Drivers and that did nothing. I just found this post and when I removed my hotmail account from outlook it started to work fine like others have said. I am happy I found this post, I was starting to get irritated by this issue.

 

Lenovo shipped a new Thinkvantage power manager release 2.42 for Vista only on Feb 12. Hopefully a new release for XP won't be far behind.

2.42 replaces the VERY buggy release 2.41 shipped Jan 5. Havn't installed it yet so don't know if it fixes all the bugs including the Outlook one.

The development team for power manager doesn't seem to be one of Lenovo's brightest, even the writeups of the releases on the web have bugs. Right now the T500 driver matrix on the web states that the latest Vista power manager release is 2.41 from Jan 5 but if you click on it you go to the 2.42 release from Feb 12.

 

Don’t blame the developers for the often wrong/inconsistent web site—this is another department that’s inconsistent. I simply despise Lenovo’s Power Manager because it’s written in .NET and is as bloated and slow as possible. If they simply extended the existing Power facilities built into Windows, instead of reinventing the d*mned wheel, I might actually install their stuff and praise them. Instead, they’ve chosen to become like most of the other OEMs that only understand pretty and buggy bloatware.