Windows 7 (Experience & Drivers)

I've been using Win 7 64bit since I got my T400 a month ago, starting with BETA 7059 which worked like a charm (and was faster than the RC). The only problems I have experienced has been minor problems, with the exception of non-working switchable graphics (I must manually change graphics in BIOS). Such as the Ericsson GPS/WWAN-module to be nonexistant hardware after sleep/hibernate sometimes. And On-Screen Display for screen brightness/volume etc sometimes (always?) fail to show up when using the integrated Intel 4500HD graphics.

On a side note: I tried installing & using the included Vista Business 32bit with my T400 for approximately 30 min before I got a severe headache over that crappy excuse for an O/S. My T400 has never been as slow as with that flavour of O/S, even the preinstalled WinXP was way faster and more responsive, with Vista my computer just paused and paused... for an eterity. When I first tried the Win 7 64bit BETA 7059 it felt as fast and responsive as a fresh installation of WinXP and when I stepped up to the Win 7 RC it fell somewhere between Vista and XP i terms of responsiveness (but much closer to Win 7 RC than Vista) and speed.

So for me it's a easy choice if I was to rank the different O/S:
1. Win 7 64bit RC
2. Ubuntu 64bit
3. Win XP
4.
...
9. Vista

 

Hi Everyone,
I am having an issue with Win 7 RC on my T400. Everything went well with the install and the drivers and everything, however, when I go on battery power, the CPU still operates at full speed all the time. I remember under Vista the CPU would down clock on battery power when it wasn't being fully utilitized. As a result, my batter life has gone WAY down from Vista to Win 7. I have the ultrabay battery and the 4 cell main battery. I was able to get over 5 hours of battery on Vista and now I can only get 2 1/2 on Win 7. I tried to play with all the power management settings in Win 7 but I have been having no luck. Anyone have any ideas how to correct this? I believe I have installed all the beta Win 7 drivers from the Lenovo website. Thanks!

 

Does anyone know when System Update will recognize Windows 7? No point in downloading Vista updates.

 

I had a similar issue. Please see http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=381755 and let us know the results.

 

Ok, thanks. Switching to integrated graphics in the BIOS did help some. I have gone from 2 1/2 hours to now 4 hours. I am still about an hour+ shorter than I was under vista. I still think its because the CPU isn't throttling down when on battery power. It stays at full speed even if I have it set in the power manager to drop when on batter power...

 

Also, which driver do I need to install from Lenovo's beta site for Win 7 for the Ericsson F3507g Mobile Broadband Minicard? I tried the ThinkPad UNDP Wireless WAN Driver & the WWAN Sierra MC8775 HSDPA drivers and none of them worked in the device manager. Maybe I have the EVDO version?

 

I had some inconsistent behavior from the power manager application. It would awake from sleep and the volume interface would not work at all. The sound itself was not even affected by the volume buttons. I had to restart every time to get it back.

For now I've completely wiped the power manager interface/driver away and am letting Windows handle it. It appears that the threshold functionality still exists. Still can't figure out of this is a windows option buried somewhere or if there are some registry entries from the power manager hanging around. Probably the latter would be my guess.

 

Update on my issue:

Apparently others using Windows 7 are having sleep problems. Some folks are finding that disabling the "USB Selective" option in power manager is eliminating issues. I decided to reinstall the Power Manager application and do this; so far it looks good.

I guess this feature is meant to suspend the USB device to conserve power; however, it's buggy right now. This makes perfect sense in my situation because when I would wake up the computer, my external hard drive via USB was triggering Windows auto play dialog. Now I know why.

 

NO. At the moment only XP and Vista SP1 are supported (Vista SP2 is planned, 7 will be a while).

 

There is a patch available adding support for Vista SP2...
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/s...GR-72758&selectarea=SUPPORT&tempselected=5#e3

 

Just brought my T500 out of sleep a short time ago and the volume controls didn't work. I'm going to go ahead and disable all sleep related functions until the dust settles. No sense in getting bent out of shape for it.

 

So apparently the volume issue I was experimenting isn't related to sleep mode.

Volume issue: stops displaying on screen; volume is not affected at all.

A short time ago the volume acted up again (see line above). After toggling the mute button, the display and volume was working again.

I'm turning sleep functions back on now since there is no correlation here.

 

Hehe, this is like a personal diary of mine...hope it helps others...

Last night I was running on battery when I heard this very distinct "whining" nose. Apparently this is an issue with some ThinkPad models and seems to be better known as "CPU Whining". After disabling the "Deeper Sleep" option for the CPU, the issue disappeared.

(probably not win 7 specific)

 

The only real issue I've had with Windows 7 is that battery life seems to be reduced from what I'd have gotten under Vista. It's really not a deal-breaker since I don't need to go mobile for extended periods of time, but worth noting.

EDIT: I have the Integrated graphics enabled in the BIOS, BTW.

 

I'm having issues with my Intel 5350 wireless card, I've tried all the drivers I could find related to it but I just can't get it to work under Windows 7.

Any ideas?

 

Seems you also have to set the second BIOS setting to disable changing the graphics mode if the OS is capable. When I'd just set the first one I had awful battery life, but setting both to lock my T400 into Integrated seemed to be the trick.

 

I have done a clean install of Windows 7 on my T400, and for the most part, everything is running perfectly, with a few minor quirks:

-My Windows Experience index score for my processor (Intel Core 2 Duo P8600 @ 2.4 GHz) was actually a little bit lower than what it was in Vista SP1 (4.6 vs 4.7) but all of my other subscores increased. This isn't the first time either, as I also did a clean install of Vista once before (where the subscore decreased from 5.1 to 4.7). I am not sure what is causing this.

-On my computer information, it says that I have 4 GB of RAM, but 3.90 GB usable. I am not sure why this is happening, since I am running the 64-bit edition.

 

WEI is kind of an odd benchmark. The score is not necessarily equal even on systems with identical hardware. Additionally, Microsoft revised the scale for Windows 7 (it now goes to 7.9 instead of 5.9).

I have the same mark about my RAM (4GB installed, 3.9GB usable, 7100x64). I think it is probably discounting the portion of the RAM that is reserved for the x4500 MHD GPU.

 

I already did. I also had to cut off power management to curb the "whine" I've been hearing, but doing so doesn't eliminate the problem completely and it cuts my battery life down even more.

 

Did you try my method for cutting out the cpu whine completely? (previous page of this thread)

Did you happen to get a video of your keyboard flex? *wink* *wink*

 

Just installed Windows 7 64-bit, took me some time to get all the right drivers, but everything is running very snappy now. Only thing that isn't working is switchable graphics, but I can set that through the BIOS.

 

What driver are you guys using for your wireless card and what card do you have?

 

I'm using an Atheros B/G/N card and I'm using the 64 bit vista drivers. It works fine.

 

Using Intel 5300 with the default driver Win7 installed -- properties shows it to be Microsoft driver 12.4.1.4 (3/26/2009)

Works fine.

 

Hi! I am using Windows 7 for 2 weeks and everything till the switchable graphics works fine to me!
Now i have a question:
When i turn the hybrid graphic on at bios, and install the catalyst driver from amd (for win7), i have always a black screen! I cant use the mobility radeon graphics and use it. How can i fix that problem?

 

I'd stay away from the ATI drivers for now, just use the one from windows update. I tried the Catalyst 9.6 Drivers and my computer always freezes. Dunno if it's the same for you guys. Everything works fine with the driver from 4.28.09 though.

 

I am also using Windows 7 x64 now on X200. Everything is working fine except Verizon WWAN card. I found couples of tweaks, but non of them works for me. I really like built-in GPS feature on the card (was using Garmin Mobile PC on Vista x64). On Vista 64, I had no problem to get GPS working and connect Verizon network. But, on Windows 7, it simply won't work.

So I installed Windows 7 on my Samsung 256GB SSD drive and installed Vista x64 on 200GB 7200rpm hard drive and I am switching them if I need.

 

Is this news?

Intel has new GMA video drivers

Link for X64 (15.15.64.1808)

Link for X86 (15.15.0.1808)

 

Will this work with Intel GMA 4500m? and does it have most features? Like ability to adjust brightness (main concern)

 

Like I mentioned in the previous post, this works for all new GMA chipsets. I can adjust brightness fine - but no OSD.

 

I just installed these drivers and I have no ability to adjust brightness. I used the Vista drivers and brightness did work. my laptop is a lenovo g530-444623U

 

Just in case anyone is interested, my 3dmark06 score was 2650 on Vista and 2609 on Windows 7. Not a significant change in graphics performance.

Wish I could get the new catalyst drivers to work (the new ones always freeze my computer). The new catalyst control center is working fine though.

 

Have you installed all the Lenovo Win7 beta drivers? I think the important one for brightness adjustment is the hotkey utility?

 

no, the brightness issue stems from the graphics driver.

in fact, all the BSODs ive been having lately stem from that driver as well. anytime i launch zune software and lately even other apps, i get BSOD.

i really wish windows 7 released sooner than october because i want all my driver problems sorted.

 

Interesting...I haven't been getting any BSODs at all. Actually, I was having problems with windows Aero before and since installing the latest Intel beta driver I no longer have those problems.

I also wish Win7 would RTM sooner!

 

yeh ive been getting BSODs and my display not even BSODing, but simply turning off; ive been getting it alot lately.

yesterday and now today, its happened three times.

i cant wait for intel to release a better driver.

 

Interesting. I've been running the new Intel driver a couple days so far and no issues at all. Actually haven't had any BSOD's or crashes since installing Win7. I did a clean install of build 7100 on my T400 to a fresh formatted drive.

 

Well, I think I've sorted this problem, at least for people with the integrated graphics.

I downloaded the latest Vista drivers from intel.com and installed them. The ones fed through windows update are in fact newer, but they don't have OpenGL support (which I needed to run boxee).

Now that I have these drivers installed, I get the old level of brightness that I did before (much less bright, on average), and I get the brightness OSD indicator (even after waking from sleep).

With the newer ones, I could adjust the brightness, but I'd get no indication of the level on screen.

I apologize if this has been mentioned already.

 

i'm gonna try that james. ive tried it before with previous vista releases and those didnt work. perhaps this new one does.

are you running the 7.15.10.1688 driver? i just installed it with no success. i'll try to reinstall.

 

Ok, so I have been using Win 7 on my T400 for a couple weeks now. Still having some battery life issues compared to Vista, but other than that I like Win 7. However, I do have one annoyance that I'm sure if there is a way to fix it. I enabled small icons on the task bar to make the task bar thinner. However, now when I maximize windows they don't go all the way down to meet the top of the task bar any longer. There is a small gap and it looks kinda crappy. Is there a way to fix this?

 

Meson2000 -- thats weird. I don't have that behavior on my T400 and I too use the small icons. No idea what to suggest either other than to say it isn't a universal problem.

 

OK.. I will keep messing around with it.. Thanks for the info!

 

Nope, I'm running 7.15.10.1752. I may have gotten it off the lenovo site (Vista drivers), now that I think about it. It works like a charm.

I noticed from your sig that you have the switchable graphics. While I know that the switching doesn't yet work under Windows 7, that may have something to do with it.

 

i'll try the lenovo driver.

and yeh i have switchable graphics but currently only have integrated enabled through the bios.

edit:woah finally. thanks alot.

i dont understand why intels site still shows some older driver.

 

I find the Intel website to be a major pain. I'm always amazed that computer hardware companies can have such bad websites.

 

Now Intel has Win7 RC GMA drivers for mobile chipsets

Link for X86

Link for X64

 

yeh looks like they put up a ton of drivers for windows 7.

is Mobile Intel® 4 Series Express Chipset Family the driver for the T400?

 

Yes, but it looks like all the Win7 drivers point to the same file. That is the correct driver -- just know that the version appears to be the same as they had last week (15.15.0.1808).

 

yeh and i tried to install the driver for mobile 4 series and it tells me i cant install it on my hardware.

oh well i'll stick with the vista driver that actually works properly.

 

I'm fairly certain that these are the drivers being pushed through Windows Update. They didn't work as well as the Vista ones that I mentioned (from the lenovo site)