WTH is going on with my T410s? Loud noise+freeze

So I've had my brand new T410s for all of a week now, and already my system has crashed at least 5 times, forcing a hard shutdown. Most of the time I was watching streaming Netflix, which may have something to do with it....but it shouldn't cause this kind of problem.

Basically, I first hear a consistent, loud, dull, grinding-like noise. Then everything on the screen freezes and I have to hold down the power button until it shuts off. NOTE: I have already conditioned and removed the battery so it's completely on A/C power. Do you think it has something to do with the SSD?

Just spent a ton of money, and I'm freaking out... Any ideas what's going on?

Thanks for your help.

 

So it was malfunctioning out of the box? I'd do a clean install for starters.

 

Followed immediatedly by a RMA.

 

Yes, this started happening after maybe 4-5 days of use.

I'm a tech novice. Are there directions somewhere on how to do a clean install?

 

Press the blue thinkvantage button on the keyboard when your laptop is just booting up. Then select the restore factory condition option in the rescue and recovery menu. Select full restore option.

What you are saying regarding your T410s could be a problem with the fan.

But try the full restore first and then proceed later with the repair or return process as necessary.

 

Thank you greatly. I will give this a try right now.

 

Back2School, first things first: What did Lenovo have to say when you called them about these problems?

 

Haven't called yet. I just did the restore and I'm going to see if by chance that fixes it. If not, I will definitely be calling.

 

Might be the fan, the ssd suppose to be silent.

 

Yep, looks like the fan is/was mulfunctioning and the high temperatures resulted in throttling and eventually freezing.

 

honestly, i think your first mistake was not calling lenovo first and coming to an internet forum instead for help

it is a brand new machine under warranty - i don't understand why you wouldn't call the manufacturer immediately?

 

Sometimes calling Lenovo will create a lot of unnecessary headache and running as they might not be able to solve the issue on the fly and will ask you to send them the system. You will end up waiting for weeks for a simple fix that is already known on this forum.
In fact in most cases this forum will provide you with the immediate solution and save your valuable time.

 

Yep, this is the reason. And half the time people send the machine back and they can't get it to have the same problem. So now you've wasted a few weeks and you're in the exact same boat.

 

What you could do meanwhile is to install HWMonitor and keeping an eye on the temps do your usual stuff and see if there's a grinding noise and a temperature fluctuations at the same time.

 

Unless the OP has onsite warranty, it's kinda a hassle to not have a laptop for a couple of weeks, especially if he/she needs it for school.

 

I have the same problem about noise.
There is always a zizizizi noise in certain frequency from my machine.
it is not very loud. but it is quite annoying~~
I do not know where the noise is from.
Isn't ssd supposed to be more quite??
I do not know if it is normal.
Anyone has idea about it ?
btw, does anyone know how to turn the fan off? I want to know if the noise is from fan.

Just like BackToSchool said IT IS A TON OF MONEY!!!!

 

The sound you descibe seem to be from the i5, look up cpu whining.

 

Every I5 has that problem or just I have a bad luck?

 

In a really quiet room and putting my ear close to the machine, I think I can hear ssd accesses. Could be from the ssd or the sata wiring / chipset. You just need to transmit enough frequency spectrum (data) through a cable and eventually something will resonate

 

hey Cheng my T410s has the same noise, I usually notice it in a silent room when the laptop is unplugged and the fan is not running. I'd describe it as if the speakers had no signal and made a noise.

I've seen a lot of people complaining that the C2D on the T400s had a whining noise as well. The common thing among all was the SSD.

From my understanding the SSD has no moving parts and is completely silent. Thus the sound does not come from the SSD itself but by the fact that the machine is too silent and the only sound that can be heard is the piezoelectric noise that comes from the CPU.

An additional problem I have is that the wireless receiver powers off after an hour or so and doesn't power on when I go to "ThinkVantage" and try to force it. I'm almost certain it's software related as this does not occur in my university. Dunno if anyone can make sense out of this but in house I have Wireless g while in univers. wireless n

 

Have the same whining noise on a t410s with SSD. Semed a little more quiet when maximum CPU speed was set to Lowest and a little louder when set to highest.

Paradoxically, it can be suppressed by starting a large program like Illustrator for the duration of the starting process. Seems like some component makes the whining noise when it is idling. CPU whining seems to make sense as an explanation.

When it is very quiet in the room, I hear another noise that sounds more like a conventional hdd noise and that appears whenever I move the mouse using either trackpoint or touchpad. With trackpoint it stops right after taking finger off of the point. with touchpad it keeps whining for another half second or so.

I installed bios update 1.0.49.0 from lenovo website. That decreased the louder (CPU?)whining noise a little bit - maybe. No huge difference. But caused another problem. now the fan kept going all the time, even at low CPU load (just windows 7 64bit sitting there).

Installed tpfc_v062 which immediately set the fan to nice low level. Now bottom of laptop gets warmer on the lap.

following tpfc settings seem useful compromise but I did not experiment much.

Level2=33 0
Level2=40 1
Level2=45 2
Level2=55 3
Level2=65 7
Level2=66 64
Level2=77 128

Turning off CPU power management in BIOS turns off the (CPU?) whining. Obvious effect! The quiet mouse movement noise remains.

I kind of like the t410s after all but I am very upset with this issue because I hate the noise but I want CPU power management. Battery life is rather disappointing anyways in the t410s. Without ultrabay battery, it lasts barely 3 hours using skype and some web surfing even when power management is ON. My old acer from 2007 was still able to do that as well.

 

I'm actually experiencing the same problem. I changed the power settings to 'low' max processor speed in the power manager, but there is still a constant, high pitched whining sound.

Anyone come up with a solution?

EDIT: Also, is this something covered by warranty? (switch out CPU, SSD, etc.). I've been doing some research and it seems like a small portion of computers suffer from this issue, while others emit no noise at all.