Windows 7 (Experience & Drivers)

I'm having a similar strange issue. Using RTM here for some time as well. Now my BT driver leaves an unidentified BT peripheral. I have no clue what it is. I have installed and uninstalled more BT drivers than I ever thought I would have to trying to resolve this. But nothing works to this point. The drivers worked fine beforehand... GO FIGURE! :???

 

I have done a clean install for Win7-Home-64 on my W500. Through lenovo update manager, I have updated everything possible; also via Microsoft. Most difficulties are with problems in the graphics with this HD screen.

1) My two gpu's work OK on their own, but not through switchable graphics settings via bios. On that setting, fan runs constantly and no switchable option. So back to using integrated gpu on its own, non-switchable.

2) Latest gpu drivers from Lenovo seem to run the screen brighter - but, unfortunately, with accompanying glare. I preferred softer look of old drivers...perhaps they have been tweaked a little differently?

3) On my previous 15.4" WUXGA, I had an OS PPI of 120, and suspected that the default PPI of 125 set for this screen by Win7 was not to my liking, so changed it to 120 again. So far that is much better. As usual I also changed other fonts in menus etc.

4) Win7 seems to be a bit "cleverer" with HD than XP and Vista, but in the end many settings have to be altered anyway. With tweaking, I managed to get the visual end result of XP and the 15.4" WUXGA better than Vista, which in turn worked better than Win7. Win7-64bit is very snappy, but a devil to get its "advanced" settings right, compared to previous Microsoft OS's. Ubuntu is a piece of cake with WUXGA!

5) 64-bit programs are blindingly fast, and look great; on the other hand, 32-bit programs are not only considerably slower but look awful - it looks like they do not have full graphics support - no anti-aliasing, or something? maybe it would be better to go back to 32-bit Win 7?

6) The fan runs far more in Win7 than Vista - even with the integrated Intel gpu - with Vista the W500 is silent 95% of the time - not what I expected. Perhaps also connected to the problematic Win7 Lenovo graphics drivers?

Followup: I got a new set of drivers from Lenovo site and removed exiting gpu drivers and did a manual install of new set of gpu drivers. Now have switchable grapics working! Other things appear to be better too. Hoping that is the fix!
See http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?sitestyle=lenovo&lndocid=MIGR-73641

 

I have switchable option now; however when I switch to ATI I can't seem to control the brightness level. Anyone else experiencing this?

 

Works for me. I bumped the thread on the clean install guide for switchable graphics. Follow it, the steps are the same for Windows 7.

 

I had that and multiple other graphics problems and fixed it by getting newest set of gpu drivers form lenovo site, removed existing drivers, and did a manual install of new . fixed things well. (see my post above.)

 

Even if your key is a OEM key, you can use it to reinstall the same machine. If it is a retail key, also should be no problem at all. You can just activate again after you have installed the operating system.

 

Hey bro, everything you said is in order, but win 7 still seems choppy on high performance dedicated setting. I guess I will just wait a bit and see what happens.

 

Lenovo recommends uninstalling all these applications before installing window 7:

Applications that are recommended to be uninstalled before upgrading to Windows 7 (Lenovo applications)

The following applications are not compatible with Windows 7. It is recommended to uninstall them before upgrading to Windows 7. You can upgrade to Windows 7 without uninstalling these applications, but you might encounter problems when running them on Windows 7. After upgrading to Windows 7, find either a newer version of an application or an alternative application that supports Windows 7 from the Lenovo Support Web site at http://www.lenovo.com/support. You may not see all of these applications listed in your system.

* On Screen Display
* Lenovo News-Shop
* PC-Doctor for Windows
* Tablet Button Driver
* Tablet Shortcut Menu
* ThinkPad® EasyEject Utility
* ThinkPad Power Management driver
* ThinkPad Power Manager
* ThinkPad UltraNav Driver
* ThinkPad Presentation Director
* ThinkVantage® Access Connections
* ThinkVantage Active Protection System
* ThinkVantage Client Security Software
* ThinkVantage Fingerprint Software
* ThinkVantage Rescue and Recovery®
* ThinkVantage System Migration Assistant
* ThinkVantage System Update

Has anyone actually done this? Any problems with these apps after install?

 

Shouldn't be like that at all, I've been running Windows 7 x64 RTM since August (MAPS) amd 32 bit programmes look exactly the same as 64 bit ones, and seem to run the same speed. If you've got less than 4GB of memory I'd say go 32bit.

 

I just installed Adobe Master Suite Collection CS3 on my T400 running on Windows 7 Professional 64bit. Acrobat 8 freezes as soon as I start it, I've tried updating, nothing works. Same goes for Adobe Photoshop CS3. When I try to uninstall the package the uninstalling process freezes too.

I got this package through my university, it's legal and not an illegal download. I have no idea what's wrong. Other than that my experience with Win 7 and other programs has been great. I used to use this package with no trouble on my old Toshiba Satellite laptop which was running XP 32 bit.

Is there any way I can uninstall this package without going through Control Panel? Are there any ccleaners or third party uninstalling utilities I can use with Win 7 to get rid of this install?

 

I can say that CS3 works fine on my T61p with Win 7 Enterprise 64bit installed. I can say that once installed you have to launch Photoshop or Premiere before launching Acrobat successfully. GL

 

I can also say that CS3 works fine on my T400 with Win7 Ultimate x64. Run Adobe Updater manually by navigating to it in the following location:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\Updater5

Create a shortcut for AdobeUpdater.exe and put it somewhere like on your desktop, in your CS3 Program Group, etc. This gets around Adobe's lack of foresight so you can run the app without executing a CS3 program.

Alternatively, download the Adobe Reader 8 updates from Adobe's website and install them manually. The current round of patches brings the program to 8.1.7.

 

What power profile do you have activated in Power Manager? The only other time I can think of when I sometimes get choppy performance is if I have a profile set that lowers the CPU performance too much and it cannot keep up with the video it gets.

I almost never need to use the Maximum Performance profile (as the Power Source Optimized gets me all the power I need), but you could give it a try if it has any effect on the choppyness you are experiencing.

 

I reinstalled Windows 7 yesterday and wrote a little guide about it into a separate thread. Please feel free to read and comment:

Windows 7 clean install (micro guide)

 

Any news on when we'll see a 7-compliant System Update and some graphics drivers?

 

Windows 7 compatible system update is already available...
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?sitestyle=lenovo&lndocid=MIGR-73695

Although they havent pushed too many windows 7 drivers/software down the tubes yet.

 

System Update 4.0 is out. I don't know which graphics driver you need. My advice is to check the driver matrix for your laptop.

Edit: I should have known that a Super Mod would beat me to it.

 

We are just that much awesomer than you.


Its System Update all right, in all its buggy glory.

 

many 32bit programs don't look clear visually in 64bit windows 7. they look muggy, as though not using a severely reduce resolution. anyone know the problem?

 

I have never, ever seen that before.

 

Me either. I don't know what to make of it. Care to mention the particular applications that have this behavior...

 

It looks like antialiasing / cleartype is not working, though settings show it...gpu drivers look OK. problem is worse with dedicated gpu than integrated. maybe a problem with driver install?

 

Andre: are you using 64 bit 7?

 

I have gotten the switchable graphics to work on my T400 but when I switch to the Intel card I get weird artifacts when Aero is turned on. Is there a fix for that? I updated to Windows 7 Ultimate 32 bit now.

 

I had exactly the same problem. I just solved it this afternoon (accidentally... ) by upgrading my BIOS to the latest version. See if this helps. Good luck.

The BIOS version (3.09/3.10) I used is attached below.
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/MIGR-70351.html

By the way, the link above is for my Lenovo T400. You should choose the correct BIOS version for your own laptop.

 

Thanks! That solved my issue as well.

 

Thanks, that did the trick for me as well

 

Never seen this, and I've been running 64-bit Win7 since Beta 2.

 

I have changed to 32-bit Win7, and it looks a whole lot better! Not as quick, obviously, but it looks like the graphics drivers are working properly. Will see how it goes.. I have Vista recovery ready....(smile). For me, Lenovo's 64-bit drivers are lacking. reminded me of trying out a Linux beta!

 

antskip, what drivers did you miss in 64bit W7?

You have the W500, which should be fairly similar to the T500 I have been using - or at least as far as I know.

I have had no problems whatsoever with the drivers, even when they were in beta - other than not all of them were available from start. But currently all devices seem to be supported. I have tried linuxes (that weren't even betas), and I must say I feel they are far worse than anything I have seen for W7.

 

Well, with 64-bit Win7 I downloaded and upgraded to the inch of its life, plus reinstalled the switchable graphics driver (which I guessed to be the key to the problem) manually, as per instructions with driver. No deal. Everything "worked" but some poorly. There were multiple issues left that made me think:"beta". Not Win7's problem, but Lenovo's. Too difficult for me to figure out what. I have re-installed with 32 bit Win7 and everything works as expected (after same sequence of downloads and upgrading as for 64 bit). I wasn't prepared to struggle with the 64 bit stuff for another day. Maybe try again in a few months. For now, I am very happy to have a Win7 that at least is not worse than a Vista.

 

Does anyone know how to switch between power profiles without having to open power manager? I miss being able to left click the battery icon and switch that way, hopefully there is a work-around.

 

Have you tried Fn+F3?

You can set Fn+F3 to either bring up the power menu or to turn off the display. Now that the left click is not working I use that for switching between profiles.

BTW, I miss the left click as well. Seems very stupid that it now opens the application itself when left clicking.

 

Ahhhh, perfect. I knew there was a shortcut, I think I tried everything but that Thanks!

 

yes, that's the only way to go.

 

I just upgraded to win 7 yesterday. So far so good except for the color contrast. Is there a way to get ATI Cataylst control centre (CCC) back somehow? I downloaded ATI install manager (full version), but I didn't see an option for installing the CCC.

 

I got Windows 7 installed on my T500 and it's working pretty well except for a few nagging issues.

My battery seems a bit worse than with Vista. My battery gauge says I have about 4:30 with a fully charged 9 cell battery. That's with my brightness at 1/2 and power profile set to max battery and using the integrated graphics.

Also, I'm not able to adjust the brightness when the ATI card is enabled. I've tried reinstalling power manager and installing the graphics driver, but it's still not working.

Aside from those 2 issues, Windows 7 is much better than Vista.

 

update your bios.

 

Apparently there is an issue with the switchable graphics and the sleep function, as it causes both integrated and discrete to run (but this was also an issue for me on a fresh boot-up). I set my bios to integrated and saw my wattage usage drop from 12-14 to 8-10, so I got a bit a battery life back that way.

Still though my battery life is still less in Win 7 over Vista, but hopefully this will be fixed as drivers mature.

 

i dont get how you guys get worse battery life in 7.

ive been running the RC for months and i get the same life in 7 RC than i did in Vista with the Thinkpad Power Manager settings enabled.

 

Afternoon everyone,

I just did a clean install of win 7 32 bit on my z61T all went well and installed the win7 drivers off the lenovo site. I have 3 ! in device mgr. 2 are for the intel 82801gbm interface controller- 2789 and 1 is for the built in cam.

In ata controllers I have 82801G ultra ata storage controller and
Intel ICH7M sata-AHCI controller which was installed after installing the Intel matrix storage controller.

Whats with the other 2 controllers that have ! points

lenovo's cam driver says its included in the software does anyone know where I can get that.

Thanks

Evan

 

I just updated win7 and it installed one of the intel controllers and the cam driver but I still have 1 ! in an intel controller Im wondering if I should just disable that

 

I activated my Windows 7 Ultimate today, and everything went fine, as expected. Thanks Lenovo for taking forever.

However, my copy of Windows 7 still says 6.1.7600.16385. Alright, 7600.16385, that's the RTM (right?), but I had always wondered about the 6.1. Vista was "Windows 6", and became 6001 and 6002 with Service Pack's 1 and 2.

That's in the past now, and the geniuses at Lenovo told me that it would display 7.0.xxxx whatever, once activated.

That sounded like BS from the moment I called this idiot, but until 10/22, I had really had no way of complaining for one, and for another, it has been working tremendously well, with the exception of the WEI (Windows Experience Index).It never really worked, and when I checked out the winsat.log file just now, it still displays 6.1.7600 in the logfile. It does say "Windows 7 Ultimate", though, so now?

Can anyone please tell me what the deal is with 6.1, and what's with the code name "VIENNA"?? It was "Longhorn", no?

Thank you!

 

6.1 is correct, as is Vienna. Longhorn was vista's codename, and Vienna was/is Win 7's. And since 7's kernel is just a "minor" upgrade over vista, its considered 6.1.

 

It's really like it was with Windows 2000 and XP. Windows 2000 == Windows version 5.0 and XP == Windows version 5.1. Those were also pretty close to one another, at least internally.

 

All seems fine with my new T500 and 7 Professional except i can't get the displayport-link working. I've tried connecting the laptop into a LCD TV with a displayport-HDMI-adapter, but the computer won't recognize the screen at all.

Any ideas?

 

Does the switchable graphics still work with you set it that way in the BIOS?

 

No, you need to set it to switchable for it to work. When you set it from the BIOS you lock your system into using either dedicated or integrated.

 

This seems to be true - sadly. An interesting observation. I hope they can fix it soon, for the sake of switchable graphics.

However, if after sleep you switch graphics again, it will stop running both of them simultaneously - or at least I see a major drop in power consumption. But still not the 8-10 you are seeing when you lock it into integrated from BIOS.

 

On W500, I find that the Intel graphics driver for Win7 is not up to the standard of the one for Vista. It creates a lot more heat, and thus forces the fan on too much. With Vista, the fan almost never came on using the Intel gpu. Switching to the ATI gpu for a while does calm the system down a bit, but that should not be necessary. It wasn't with Vista drivers. Anyone have a solution?