Who has 4 gigs of RAM in their T61P?

78 degrees C is not that high of a temp for a laptop CPU. This provessor is rated for a max tamp of 100C. If you click "My Thinkpad T61" (link in my sig) you can see similar temps in my CPU.

 

Hi Stallen,

I'm definitely from the big desktop world, formely from the mainframe world. My desktop cpu temperature runs at about 42 degrees C and I become very concerned when it's temp goes over 60 degrees C.

That's quite astounding that these chips are capable of operating at a temperature point where water turns to steam. In fact, it's frightening.

 

Sorry i only know enough about computers to be dangerous not too sure how i would find out what brand of memory is in the machine. I am certain it was whatever the manu put in it when you order it direct from them. Anyways if you tell me how to find out I will find out and report back.

Ya Renee, i totally agree with you that 78 seems really high. I am from the desktop world, never owned a personal laptop so never looked into it. But when i started having this issue the first thing i thought was overheating so i did some research on the net and aparently right around 80 is expected.

Thanks for the idea, i will open every app i can think of and see if i can get it to shut down on me. I already called my helpdesk and they have not recieved any other reports of this issue but i am one of the first people to get the T61's until recently they were still using T60's.

 

I updated to the newest bios, 1.26, and reseated the RAM. No go... still crashed after <10 seconds of UT2004.

I am frankly inclined to return the machine and get an HP8510w instead at this point. I got this machine because it was a little cheaper but it seems like that bit me after all. Especially since I am not even certain getting it repaired will fix the issue.

James

PS: Memory is Transcend... came with the machine from Lenovo.

 

Arsen, can you try something for me. Using the power manager to set the performance all the way down to the lowest it will go then give it a try. It seems to be somewhat helpful to me but i am not sure since the shutdowns are so random. I know this is not something we should have to do on a $2000 laptop but just curious. I havent yet tried taking out one of the sticks of RAM, pretty much cuz i havent looked up how to get at it hehe.

 

Yeah guys it sounded high at first to me too. Read some of the reviews here on notebookreview. Almost all of them contain information about CPU temps. It's normal. Especially read some of the reviews/temps for the smaller tablet notebooks like the X60/61. Your eyes will really bug out

 

I have 4GB in my T61 installed by Lenovo. I don't know what make it is. It works fine whenever Vista x64 isn't pitching a fit.

 

I finally actully got an error and not just a shut down. This time i was playing Oblivion and the screen turned blue with "NMI: Parity check/Memory parity error" I think i will try taking out a stick of RAM and see what happens or at least try resetting them.

 

I got that exact error once!

Charmsen and arsenixprime, I think you guys probably have the same issue as me.

Sorry to tell you this but you're screwed... So far it seems the only fix is sending the machine in to the depot for repair, and the depot is a cluster f*** lately. Read this thread about me trying to get my machine fixed at the depot... Be afraid... This issue is still not resolved...
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=181232

I'll sum it up for you, they replaced my motherboard, then the system wouldn't even post ( it posted before I sent it in) so they replaced the motherboard again! Then they replaced the CPU. As of last Thursday, the machine still won't post. It's dead, like a brick.

They have not done anything to fix this since Thursday. It is now Monday and late enough in the day that they won't fix it today. Best-case scenario, they MIGHT fix it tomorrow. If they do, that would make it a 12 day turnaround, which is about as long as it would have taken me to order a new one.

Some people sent theirs in with the same issue and got it back quickly, I don't know why they were so lucky, but in my case it has been a mess.

 

No good, i would be ok if i could send it in and get it fixed. My added issue is since it is a work laptop i have to send it to my local IT group to troubleshoot first. Since i cant get it to re-produce the issue on anything other then in games my IT wont do anything about it... I guess i could just lie and say it happens randomley and see what they say/do. I wonder if i would get faster support as we contract with IBM for our helpdesk. I may even see if we have another sitting in inventory that i can try and swap out with. Anyways this issue will make me not consider buying a Lenovo for personal use when i am in the market for a laptop.

 

Usually the depot only takes like 3 days for repairs, so I dunno what the deal is with my case. If I were you I would just wait until things settle down before sending yours in for repair. Can you maybe just take 1 of your RAM sticks out and get by on 2 gigs for a while? I did this for a few days before I sent mine in, because I really needed the machine. It worked perfect with just 1 stick lol...pretty fast too on 2 gigs. It sucks not being able to use all 4 gigs but it might be a good option for now until things get squared away.

 

Confirmed that it does not crash with two 1Gb sticks just now. They were 667mhz Samsung Dimmsl. Interesting eh? I guess this means the problem is not tied to dual channel.

James

 

Wow that IS very interesting! You have the exact same problem as me...to the T...

 

For completeness... also confirmed it does not crash with 3Gb in the machine (one 2gb stick, one 1gb).

If I hadn't already heard that folks got this fixed through a repair I would wonder if it was caused by the lack of PAE/64 bit-ness in my OS's.

James

 

That is different, in my case it still would crash with one 2gb stick and one 1gb stick.

Are you sure you tested enough? Maybe it just didn't crash yet...

 

I am going to take out a stick today and see what happens, ill post later today or tomorrow as to if it helped or not. If it works on just 2 i can deal with that nothing i use really needs much more then that.

 

I hope i dont jynx it however after taking out 1 stick of RAM leaving me with 2gigs i was able to plat WOW and Oblivion for about 2 hours each with no issues. So far it looks good, guess i will see in a few days if it really resolved the issue.

 

Yeah I think you have the same problem I had.

If so, your computer will work perfectly now with just the 1 stick.

I believe Lenovo is working to figure out whether this particular issue is a hardware or software issue and what the fix is. Personally I believe it is a hardware issue but I'm hoping to be able to gather more information to try and determine if it is indeed a hardware issue.

If I were you, I would enjoy your computer with just 2 gigs until there is a definitive fix for this issue.

 

Thats my plan, as long as it works with just 2 gigs then i will be a happy camper. Like i said before i dont need 4 gigs nothing i use requires that much and i am using XP not Vista so i simply just dont need it. Good luck with getting yours fixed!

 

Well, guess before I spend a ton of time loading a bunch of stuff on my new T61p, I'll load a couple of major games and put it through its paces. Might as well not waste time loading everything up if there's a chance of having to send it in!!

 

Yep, played UT2004 for ten minutes with no issues. Before it would crash within 10 seconds...

I did realize that my machine does NOT have turbo memory BTW, despite what I PM'ed you. (maybe this makes a difference?) I had thought it came with it but I checked and verified that it didn't

James

 

Hmm interesting! I wonder how that effects things.

This is a very strange issue so far.

Can I ask you guys something? IF you have 4 gigs of RAM and 64 bit Windows, could you please post how much RAM windows reports? (if you hold down the Windows key and press Break it will open a screen that will tell you "Memory (RAM):"

I'm just wondering because supposedly a 64 bit OS should be able to directly address all 4 gigs right? Well, first of all, we all know 1 gig is actually 1024 mb of RAM. Well on my T61P, if I had 1 1gb stick of RAM in the machine, it would repor 1024 mb of RAM... OK normal so far... Then if I put in 1 2gb stick, it would show 2048 mb of RAM...still good...

HOWEVER, if I put in 2 2gb sticks, instead of showing 4096 (which is 4 gigs) it would only show 4033 mb of RAM. I don't see why this would happen on a 64 bit OS. ALSO, if I put 1 2gb stick and 1 1gb stick, so it should show 3gb which is 3072 mb, it showed some smaller number, I don't remember the exact number now but it was less than 3072.

Any ideas on that? So if you have 4 gigs and 64 bit Vista, I would be interested to know if your system reports the same amount.

 

My system reports 3.93 GB when following your instructions, but under the task manager it reports 4029. I don't know why...

 

aadadams what version of windows are you running and is it 64 bit or 32 bit?

I have an update on my situation:

As you may or may not know, I sent my laptop in to the depot for repair. They ended up ordering me a new one so i wouldn't have to wait on the repair. They are letting me use a loaner laptop while I wait.

The loaner laptop was sent to me with 4 gigs of RAM as well.

Guess what, I just got the NMI Memory Parity Error blue screen while playing Bioshock.

I wonder if all T61P's have this problem. Maybe they need to change their website and say that it only supports 2 gigs of RAM not 4. Or maybe say, it supports 4 gigs of ram SOMETIMES but not if you stress the machine... lol...

 

I run Vista Ultimate x64. I have read of your issues, but I must confess that I do not play any games aside from solitaire and hearts every now and again. I tax the system with molecular modeling, AutoCAD, and Adobe apps etc. I never experienced memory errors.

 

Just an update, on the loaner T61P, with 4 gigs of RAM and the latest Lenovo video drivers, and the Windows installation it came with, if I run the PC Burn-In 3d graphics test, it crashes.

If I remove 1 stick of RAM it doesn't crash.

Same old issue as always!

I wonder if and when there will be any 4 gigabyte SODIMMS made... I wonder if that would be a possible work-around for this issue?

I mean, since I have NEVER had errors like this when running only 1 stick of RAM, it just makes me wonder if 1 stick of RAM that is 4gb alone would work fine.

At this point I don't think we really know for sure whether the issue has to do with HOW MUCH ram, or HOW MANY sticks, because right now the max amount of RAM you can possibly have with 1 stick is 2 gigs. What if the problem is simply that having more than 2 gigs causes crashes?

I know in my case when I ran 3 gigs it crashed like usual, but that was with 2 sticks.

 

Hey guys, I just reproduced another symptom on the loaner machine that I was having on my old machine.

If you place only 1 2gb stick of RAM in the machine, BUT you place it in the upper slot, the one farther from the motherboard, the system will power on the first time you turn it on, but if you reboot it will fail to post!

For example, you can power on the system, then when the big white letters say "Thinkpad" on the screen, hit ctrl-alt-delete to restart, and it will beep at you and fail to post!

It also did this if I let Windows boot, then I tell Windows to restart.

It gives the BIOS beep error of one beep, pause, three beeps, pause, one beep. This error means a memory failure.

Interesting no? If any of you have the T61P with the Quadro 570M graphics card, and you have a 2gb stick of RAM at your disposal, I would appreciate if you could try this test! Even trying it with other sized memory sticks would be interesting.

I wonder if this has anything to do with the problems I have been having, or if this is just a normal aspect of these motherboards, maybe you just aren't supposed to put a single stick in the upper memory slot?

If you have a T61P but DON'T have the Quadro 570M, it would be interesting for you to try this and see if your system beeps at you or if it works fine!

 

In my laptop I have 4GB and it reports 4030MB.

What I have noticed was that laptop actually reports different memory sizes for each slot: Try plugging the same 2GB in the second slot and you’ll see less memory than in the first slot. And if I remember correctly, it doesn’t add up, if you sum up the reported memory for each slot separately it doesn’t equal the total mem when using both sticks. Who knows, maybe that's part of the problem.

 

Are you serious? Wow.

Did you read my most recent post, where I actually get bios beep codes if I try to only use the second slot?

It's like the second slot is just defective or something!

 

I never had a problem booting with the second slot. But I will test it again tomorow.

 

Well the test is you gotta boot with the second slot, then do a SOFT reboot... don't power off...just tell windows to "restart". That is when it beeps at ya.

 

EDIT: Never mind it just crashed again this time in a widescreen resolution.

It DOES crash MORE OFTEN in 1024x768 resolution but it will still crash also in widescreen.

 

UPDATE: As per Nurio's suggestion I tried checking how much memory is reported for each slot.

One 2gb stick in bottom slot: Windows reports 2030 MB
One stick in topmost slot: Windows reports 2046 MB
Two 2gb sticks: Windows reports 4030 MB

Umm...yeah.. 2030 + 2046 = 4076... Doesn't add up!

Isn't that kind of odd?

Does anyone have a DESKTOP computer with 4 gigs of ram, shouldn't a computer report 4096 megs of RAM?

Kinda weird, I wonder if it has anything to do with these issues...

 

My desktop has 4GB of RAM, admittedly in a 4x1GB setup, but XP x64 reports 4094 MB of RAM - a mere 2 MB short of the expected 4096, and nothing too noteworthy.

On my T61, however, Vista x64 only sees 4030 MB, meaning a whopping 66MB are AWOL. It's enough that the main system info reports 3.93 GB of RAM on my T61, as opposed to 4.00 GB on my desktop.

Also of note, 32-bit XP detects 3.25 GB of RAM on my desktop, but only 3.00 GB on my T61, despite the desktop having 704MB on dedicated accelerator cards (640MB GPU + 64MB sound card) and the T61 only having 128MB (on the GPU, of course).

 

ok, i have t61p +570m and vista 64bit altimate 4GB 2*2GB modules from TRANSCEND
**HAVE SAME PROBLEM**
(*** normal using is stable, only have problem when playing 3d games)
(**** BurnInTest no problem too when test 3d)
i test alot of video drivers with CRYSIS and HEROES OF MIGHT AND MAGIC V
this is i got
-156.55 CRYSIS crash, heroes v lock sometime and old error message from windows --> stop responding from nvidia driver and recovery successful
-156.65 CRYSIS can run but windows will randomly shutdown or bluescreen upon u luck
-169.01,02,04 CRYSIS crash bluescreen killer

and last test , removed one of 2GB upper module
EVERYTHING RUN FINE.

 

Those with crashes in Crysis Demo with 4gb, did you try running in DX9 mode? I haven't had any crashes in DX9 mode with 1280x800 medium settings. I had constant blue screens in default DX10 mode. Try giving the -dx9 argument when you run it.

BTW, I am using the Nvidia Forceware 169.04 drivers.

 

with -dx9 everthing run fine, thank for your trick.
at this point, i think it is directx 10 problem, that right?

 

But Directx 10 mode works fine with one stick of RAM removed right?

That still sounds like a hardware issue to me.

Also, other people with different computer can run Directx 10 mode with 4 gigs of RAM.

 

yes, if only 1*2gb module ,everything run smoothly and very stable

additional, last night i test with c&c 3 v1.02 bluescreen killer too.

 

see this
http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=25381
Post #13

someone have same problem. maybe drivers problem?
if it is driver problem, it will better than hardware problem. i hope.

 

i have updated information.
now, i change ram from TRANSCEND to RC (my local brand, sumsung chipset)
problem gone. 3d run very smoothly.

 

Just to give an update on my issue, i have been running with only 1 stick of RAM giving me 2gigs and so far no shut downs. Oblivion works great, FF online also works fine but for some reason it always did even with 4 gigs. WOW does not shut down on me anymore however after a while of playing i can only explain it as skipping. Its like the system pauses for a fraction of a second and then picks up and it happens every couple seconds. the weird part is i am showing i run at about 50 fps no dips even when it skips. Also i wanted to say i run XP it seems most people see this issue in Vista and i just wanted to make sure people knew it happened in XP also.

 

An update on Crysis crashing with DX10 on my T61p 4gb config and DX9 working. I had accidentally installed the WinXP 64-bit Nvidia Forceware 169.04 driver. I installed the Vista 64-bit driver and now I can run fine with DX10. I guess that makes sense since XP doesn't support DX10. So for me the problem was the video driver.

FYI, I am using the Mushkin 4gb kit from Newegg, but I have also used 4gb of Transcend memory without issues with Oblivion.... I never tested the Transcend memory with Crysis (its currently its in my X61s) .

 

I also bought T61P with 4GB of ram and yes I also have the same issue crash/hang/parity check in games...
I called Lenovo after a few questions, they told me to send it in.

We'll see what happens

 

So it would seem to me that Lenovo has to know that their T61p's have an issue and are still sending them out anyways? I would think some sort of recall would be in order but i guess it is cheaper to just wait for the people who use the laptops for gameing to complain and only fix those?

 

Well if they know about this issue then they lie, because everyone I have asked has said there is no known issue.

All we are doing is guessing... but it makes sense, in theory. If there was a known issue, a small percentage of buyers actually use 4 gigs of RAM with this particular model (the T61P w/ Quadro 570M) and of those buyers, only some play games. Therefore there is probably only a small percentage of Lenovo customers who would run into this issue so they probably wouldn't consider this a very high priority. They have to think about the bottom line, and I'm sure it's cheaper for them to fix the few "complainers" who have this problem than to do some sweeping change like a recall. A recall would not only be very expensive, it would also be embarassing and make them look bad.

As for the poster whose issue was solved by installing a different driver, you probably have a different issue than some of us, I would guess, because others in the past had their problems solved by a motherboard swap, and the depot didn't install new drivers they just swapped out the board.

 

I hate to dig up this topic, but the damndest thing just happened. After weeks with no bluescreens/weird wavy lines/other GPU-related crashes - which I had attributed to the new BIOS - I wiped my Vista partition in favor of trying the latest version of Ubuntu. After installing it, getting everything up and running, and installing nvidia-glx-latest, the system restarted with Compiz enabled - and promptly exploded in a very similar fashion, with wavy lines going down the screen and a hard reset being needed to clean it up. After disabling Compiz and rebooting, launching PlanetPenguinRacer caused the same type of crash. Also, brightness controls don't work in Linux, despite an OSD showing up. So the problem isn't fixed after all, meaning that deeper work is needed. Though apparently sending my machine in to Lenovo will only result in my losing my computer! And performance in all operating systems remains lackluster, especially in terms of 3D application performance.

Anybody want to discuss the feasibility of my getting a refund? Those new MacBooks look mighty tempting...

 

Hellbore did you get your machine back from Lenovo yet? Was it repaired?

James

 

CRAP I have this problem. I am sending mine in. Does anyone know if they will fix it or what to say to them to get it fixed? I have tried to play cod4 but it locks up and blue screens constantly!.. HELP

 

I wouldn't be sure that you have this same problem unless you try removing one of your sticks of RAM and then the problem goes away. If that happens THEN you know this is the same problem.

Lenovo may have fixed my original machine, I am not sure, because they ended up offering me a brand new one because it was taking too long to fix the old one. I'll definitely let you guys know if the new one works right!