Windows 7 (Experience & Drivers)

Oh boy...hey, anyone having problems with the Windows Experience Index (WEI)? Mine's on 6.6 for all but my SSD, which was 7.5, and now remains at 5.9.

I remember there was a link somewhere in the OS where I could delete the WEI numbers, but I do NOT mean the "Delete and re-assess" one. There is a way where you can only delete the scores (or reset, or whatever) without immediately jumping back on re-assessing the scores...

 

WEI is a load of bull, ignore it.

I really do hope Lenovo pushes out finalized W7 drivers by W7 release date.

 

umm...actually, it's of entertainment value as far as I'm concerned. Anyone else on my previous post?

 

A new switchable graphics driver popped up at Lenovo (for T500). This time it is in the RELEASED drivers section, and not present on the Windows 7 Beta drivers page at all (which as of currently now has an older driver).

I am downloading now, will have to try it when I get home from work.

The graphics driver itself seems to be the same (8.641), so I wonder what has changed? It does list a small changes section in the .txt, nothing major if you can beleive that.

 

Bro where is this new switchable graphics driver, i cant find it on the main driver page, please provide a link.

I have a weird issue, for me when I switch to discrete graphics in windows 7 from the power manager, my comp actually slows down, youtube videos do not run smoothly and the frame rate tends to be bad. When I am in intel graphics mode, they run better. It is so weird and is ruining my video watching experience on windows 7. I wonder whats wrong.

I have the same system as you t500 9600

 

I confuse upgrade thinkpad laptop from Windows Vista Basic to Windows 7 without lenovo but .... I'm

Anybody have advice ?

 

I downloaded the driver for my T400, but the ATI installer crashes after selecting the type of install. I'm running Windows 7 x64.

EDIT: The link to the these drivers has been taken down.

 

Although I did manage to download them as I wrote my earlier post, if there is some sort of problem with the driver (thus Lenovo removing the driver) I might not install them just yet.

On a side note, I had trouble with all of the latest ATI installers (couple of months now) crashing just as Setup is starting (after the first dialog). It is related to me having installed Visual Studio 2008, so I have the newest version of some DLLs (MFC80U) - and the ATI setup crashes with these. Still waiting for a solution to this issue. Until it is solved I have been running both ATI and Lenovo installers from the command prompt. Whee

 

I haven't been able to get to any of the download/support pages for my W500 yet today. I guess Lenovo is updating their pages.

 

I cannot get to the T61P version either... Maybe there will be a few more Windows 7 drivers released...

 

yeh this likely means theyre updating the pages and...

WE'RE GETTING NEW DRIVERS.

WOOOOOOOOOOO.

 

what's the best way to move files for a clean install? system migration assistant or windows easy transfer or 3rd option?

 

Site is back up!

 

Nothing new on the beta site or my specific site as far as I can tell...

 

For those of you, who can't wait another few days for the official drivers you can download them from the lenovo china website. Most of the official drivers are posted in their site.
http://think.lenovo.com.cn/support/driver/defaultpage.aspx

 

I checked it out and found the Intel Chipset driver and Power Manager to be updated. The others are the same versions that existed before the temporary shutdown, YMMV.

 

drivers are up!

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/s...ind=0&operatingsystemind=466746&validate=true

guess i'll have to to reformat and install these. although i'm likely going to wait til my brother sends me a copy of W7 Ultimate from his school.

anyone know if theres a proper order in which to install these?

 

Just install them in the same order as you did with Vista: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=333677#Link4

 

actually all the drivers still arent up. unless theyre planning to keep the old power management drivers, new ones have not been released.

 

Some of the drivers will remain the same, at least for the T61P. I have been cross checking and some were taken from the beta page a posted to the T61P page as is.

 

I can once again see the 8.461.1.1 version of the Switchable Graphics driver on the T500 drivers page, which is a little bit newer than what they offer on the W7 beta page.

Switchable Graphics Driver 8.461.1.1

 

What's with the W700/W700ds stipulation: "Only Windows 7 64-bit Professional is supported"...Funny stuff.

Also, Intel 5300 is being bunched into the 5100 and 5150, and 5350 gets its own driver, even though Lenovo is not selling the 5350 anymore, but rather the 5300 only. lol...

I guess it's a bit early in the game still...I installed the latest driver for the Intel WiFi 5300 a while ago. I got it from Intel's site (v12.4.3.9, dated 5/28/09), if anyone needs clarification with all these different "rules"...

 

And what about the IdeaPad Y Series.

I still don't see any of the Y series getting a Windows 7 driver. Yet.....

 

The Realtek LAN drivers have been out for some time.
Lenovo haven't updated their pages yet.
http://www.realtek.com.tw/DOWNLOADS...D=5&LEVEL=5&CONN=4&DOWNTYPEID=3&GETDOWN=FALSE

Here's the link for intel wifi 1000, 5100, 5300.
Courtesy of bananaman on the Lenovo forums - http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?sitestyle=lenovo&lndocid=MIGR-73611

 

Have anyone tried Lenovo Fingerprint Software for Windows 7 64-bit 2009-10-02
and
Fingerprint Software 5.9.2 for Windows 7 (64-bit) 2009-09-29

I saw that Lenovo Fingerprint Software for Windows 7 64-bit 2009-10-02 is more slower that Fingerprint Software 5.9.2 for Windows 7 (64-bit) 2009-09-29. At logon screen, Lenovo Fingerprint Software always say "please wait" for about 2 seconds.

 

well, i think, one is for Authentec Fingerprint Reader and another for UPEK Fingerprint Reader, so if i understand correctly, you cannot use both of them on same laptop. i have T400s with UPEK, so i use the one for UPEK, havn't test second one for Authentec.

 

Windows 7 System Update is available. Version 4.0 states it is only for windows 7

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?sitestyle=lenovo&lndocid=MIGR-73695

 

It's very good news!

 

does the new video drivers for t400 still have problems with waking up from sleep and having both cards turned on?

 

Unfortunately it looks like the server that the program downloads from doesn't even have all the required drivers yet. Ran it after a clean install of W7 and it didn't offer the switchable gfx nor the power manager for download.

No problems waking from sleep here, the issue with the cards, yes. Sigh.

 

Can someone riddle me this??

 

On my W500 with win7-home-64, switchable graphics option does not work. but both discrete and integrated gpu's work fine when running on their own. screen appears brighter than before, though I did not need that. there are far more increments in turning screen down and up in brightness. OS very quick in every way, but configuration of a WUXGA tricky - in some ways easier than vista, in other ways harder. despite speed advantage, not entirely convinced. i wish i had dual-booted! might try new Ubuntu when it comes out...

 

The Lenovo driver page for W7 is missing Audio, Card Reader and Ethernet drivers.

 

In case anyone missed this that I posted earlier, Lenovo has a special section on their forum for the next two weeks for questions. See this for details:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=427521

 

Non-Preloaded Win7 systems will not have all of the same enhancements as Preloaded systems.

 

that sucks...I have a T400...and I can't get the enhancement update?

 

What is the "enhancement" upgrade?

 

There are posts and videos and talks about the "enhancement" upgrade you have been asking about. A good starting point is the following post from Lenovo:

Windows 7 Enhanced Experience Launch

There is also a handy table that shows you what you get when you clean install Windows 7, and install all the drivers from Lenovo as compared to the factory Windows 7 image they have built.

I am still looking through all this information, but I did not really find how much their "tweaks" really matter in terms of boot times, etc. I plan to clean install again in the coming days/week/weeks, as soon as they have released all drivers. Currently I am running mostly on drivers from the Beta page.

 

I used System Update 4 last night. It gave me 9 new drivers (including a new PowerManager) and all went entirely smoothly !

 

And I got 8 new dirvers tonight. It didn't detect some new versions of drivers, but I downloaded them manually from Drivers Download page.

 

So, is it possible to get an enumerated list of what works and doesn't work when you upgrade to Windows 7 on a T500?

Is it just the switchable graphics? But my understanding is you can pick one or the other to enable permanently- is this function found in the BIOS?

Edit: I have a Windows 7 Enterprise DVD sitting here but I won't pull the trigger unless I know what I'm getting into-- it could easily cost my grade in several classes if certain things don't work by Monday.

 

timosy8, everything works, including Switchable Graphics. Lenovo released a driver for it a few weeks back. I have been using it since, and the switchable feature works. There are some problems with power consumption of the integrated graphics (power consumption is higher than expected). There is a new driver also on Lenovo page which I have not tried, so I don't know if this issue persists.

Anyway, as long as you get the Windows 7 switchable driver and power manager, switching will work in Windows 7. No need to hold off on this issue.

If you have done clean installs before, I don't see any reason why you couldn't have a working machine by monday.

But yes, you can pick a graphics card manually from the BIOS. In that case you can use the default drivers provided by Windows 7 for either ATI or Intel card. If you turn the setting in the BIOS, remember to set both options. That is, set the graphics to either Dedicated or Integrated, but also set the OS discoverable option to off/disabled. But you don't need to do this if you use the above mentioned drivers.

 

If you could help me a bit here. I also have a t500 and have clean installed a fresh copy of windows 7 like 4 times but I cannot get the switchable graphics to work properly. The Power manager and switchable graphics drver install properly, everything seems fine. But when I switch to the high performance graphics option with the power manager swtich option. Everything in windows seems to run choppy. Videos online including youtube run at a bad clip as if I didnt have a video card in the first place. When full screening youtube videos it gets even choppier. I dont know whats wrong here, I have installed all the drivers, I downloaded the last 2 versions of the switchable drivers from the beta website. I played a demo though and it worked just fine. So I think its some minimal issue with the driver not being implemented properly. I know its not a big deal but poor viewing experience on youtube can get annoying.

So far I am just waiting for the stable release to arrive.

 

khajure, the final driver has indeed arrive a few days ago. You should find it among all the other released drivers on the Lenovo website. Here is a direct link to it: ThinkPad Switchable Graphics Driver for Windows 7

Can you verify that when switching the correct device appears in Device Manager? When you are on integrated, you should not see the ATI card. When you switch to dedicated you should see both (or at least I do).

You could also check in device manager the driver loaded for your ATI card. Just right click on the ATI card, select Properties from the menu and check the Driver tab. You should see that the driver was provided by ATI, and dated september 2009 (if I remember correctly).

Also when switching, the system tray icon is replaced (instead of the Intel icon there is an ATI icon).

Also make sure your BIOS setting is ok (switchable graphics, OS detectable).

You might want to check the actual settings for the power profile in Power Manager or Windows Power Settings. There is a setting for the ATI card that tells it to run at maximum performance while plugged in, or something like that (sorry I am not with my T500 at the moment, I cannot verify the exact name of the setting).

Other than these, I don't really know what could be wrong. I am currently still using the beta switchable graphics driver with Power Manager 3.05, and have had no problems.

 

I used System Update 4 and I'm not getting the option for switchable graphics...weird.

 

Hmmm, others have said that they got drivers for the fingerprint reader automagically from windows update (or they were built in), however, I've got an Authentec reader in my R500 and it's just not being found so I've had to rely on the lenovo driver. Any ideas - it was found automatically in the RC? Running windows 7 pro.

 

Same.
I'm only getting Power Manager, HOtkey driver, System Interface, and HDD fix.
Very odd.

 

I have a UPEK reader, and I got it automagically. Could it be that the Authentecs are not there yet?

 

hi guys i got one question.

i have upgraded my t400 from vista to 7 pro. i have installed it and activated it. all are okay. but now i wish to do a clean install. so my question is, when i do a clean install, can i re-use my activation key again?

or is it that after i have activated the key, it cant be used again (even in the same laptop)?

thks in advance.

 

Possibly, just strange they were in the RC and not in the RTM (I've had the RTM since 20th of August through the MAPS program). Never mind, I'll just install the Lenovo one.

What is the general concensus for drivers? Install most of the drivers that are available (i.e. chipset, matrix storage manager, wifi, audio) rather than relying on windows 7 RTM/windows update?