Windows 7 (Experience & Drivers)

Why he won't be able to upgrade ??

 

To all the T500 Owners who have upgraded to windows 7. There is one major problem hindering a lot of t500 owners. Someone mentioned earlier in this thread to download the catalyst 9.9 drivers from ATI.

They install properly but after a restart this is what happens as mentioned by another user

"Hi I have a big problem with my lenovo T500. I installed Windows 7 RC x64 to my lenovo T500 (2082-53G) and when I install the ATI catalyst beta driver v9.9 from ATI's homepage, my computer freezes at startup (some activity on HD but I can't move my mouse and many processes faile to start at boot). I'm not the only one facing this problem: Lenovo T500 Thinkpad - WDM Radeon 3650 Driver Update Causes Screen to Freeze"

I have the exact same problem.... have formatted twice already, gone into safe mode, theres no getting around this problem.

Any help? I have the 32 bit version of windows 7 enterprise 90 day trial.

 

You can go back to the state before the driver has been installed by using System Restore (boot from windows dvd).

Is the 9.8 Catalyst working for Win7? Have you tried this version?


M.T.

 

Yes, he *will* be able to upgrade. Comparable editions only, and x86 to x64 will never work. I upgraded my Vista Ultimate x64 to Windows 7 Ultimate x64 without a hitch.

Having said that, a clean install is usually always recommended.

 

CrunchDude, I did clean install. I have Core 2 Duo P8600, 64GB SSD, DDR3 2GB RAM... not sure why there's lag/freezes all of sudden.

 

Your entire computer freezes out of nowhere? Has it worked before? Also what type of machine do you have?

 

I mean it starts to lag then freeze for few seconds every once in awhile when I only have about 60-70 processes running. Physical Memory is around 35% but CPU Usage hits 100% many times. I've been looking at it for about one minute. It goes up and down in 80-100% range.

I used to have 90+ on Vista and I never had any problem.

I have X200 with P8600 and 2GB DDR3 RAM, Windows 7 Ultimate RC.

 

It's probably one problem program that's bugged. Trying opening up the task manager and seeing what program is hogging all your CPU usage.

 

It seems like the thief is Chrome but Chrome never caused lagging problems in Vista nor Win 7 (for about first one month).

 

The one issue I'm continuing to have is that it seems FireFox 3.5.x crashes Explorer in Win7-x64 RTM version. I'll have a problem scrolling, things will freeze for a couple of seconds and then all of a sudden, my screen will blank, and things will be back to normal (seems that explorer.exe may be crash/restarting).
Could be Firefox, could be Windows, could be the UltraNav drivers (seems to happen most often when I'm scrolling) but I've also updated to the latest Win7 Ultranav drivers (they have updated them recently) and it hasn't fixed things.

Also, logging on seems very slow once I've swiped my finger on the reader. I'm trying to pin that one down, but there could be a number of reasons for it, so I'm not too concerned.

 

I am having a very similar issue. Most of the time for me I was not able to recover from the crash however. Once, I was able to get the task manager up and restarted explorer.exe and all was well. Most times though, when it happened I was not able to get any graphics after logging in. I ended up going back to Vista. Even reboots would not let me back in to the system with a desktop that I could see after the crashes. Check my earlier post on if your curious.

 

I installed Catalyst 9.9 onto my T500 (x64 W7Pro RTM). After rebooting, the entire machine froze. I removed power cable, removed battery, waited 10 sec, reinserted battery, plugged in and have had no problems whatsoever after this one. But this might be a different problem than what you describe, because that seems to happen all the time.

Something else related to Catalyst ... If you installed Visual Studio 2008 SP1, Catalyst setup will crash ... evidently VS2008 installs a new version of MFC80U.DLL and Catalyst setup does not like that. Same problem persists in at least version 9.7, 9.8 and 9.9. Only solution is to run the setup manually in command line mode. Sucks big time.

(Although this is not W7 specific and also other programs suffer it from time to time. For example: Olympus Master 2 software. It took Olympus a good half year to fix their program to work with latest patches as well.)

 

Hi guys. I am having problems installing thinkpad power manager on t500 with win7 x64 rtm. I downloaded from the lenovo win7 beta drivers site. It installs, I restart, but it doesn't show up in my programs. It never asks where to install to, and I can only find it in the swtools, and I get an error message when I run it from there. How did you guys get power manager to work? thanks

 

I see a lot of people are still having issues with Lenovo drivers/software for Windows 7. I think I'll wait a little longer since I need the utmost reliability and functionality for my school notebook.

 

Clean installed Win7 Ultimate on my X200. all the driver runs smoothly etc

only one problem a little bit annoying, sometime when coming back from sleep mode, the computer freezes completely, i have to pull the battery out

the same thing happens sometime when I boot up too. It probably happens once out of 8 boot up or so... any ideas of what might cause this?

 

Have you tried using a Vista driver? When I first installed Win 7 on one of my machines, my approach always was to try to use all Vista drivers , and none of the Win 7 Beta drivers. Win 7 got itself some add'l drivers that it needed at the time of upgrade, and it's been nothing but smooth sailing. Even the TVT programs that I use.

 

Another method you might want to try install one application at a time, reboot, see if the vendor's website has a driver for Win 7 yet. Rinse and repeat for everything else you want installed for both hardware and software. This is a more tedious operation, but you will get rewarded with a stable system in the end, and find the culprit of your current situation in the process. A lot of people do this with every upgrade.

 

Don't be afraid of it just because people complain on this forum. The system is a very noticable upgrade over Vista and there are a lot of people who have it running with no problems at all. They just don't come here, since they don't have issues they need solved.

I am one of them, everything worked straight after the instal on my T400, only thing I miss is the switchable graphics, but all the rests works just fine. I only had to download 1 or 2 drivers myself, other things Win 7 took care of.

 

Exact same story on my end—Windows 7 is running very very beautifully for me on numerous systems. However, since Windows 7 hasn’t been officially released yet, hardware and software manufacturers are still tweaking things in preparation for this.

 

Count me in. If it turns out that it will run even better when released, I can't wait as to what that might be.

From a marketing perspective, I think it was an excellent decision for Microsoft to release the initial Beta, and then later, the RC. MS also had the benefit of getting "real world" usage feedback from people on a novice level all the way through to IT experts and vendors.

Beyond that, Microsoft is likely benefiting further by gaining a bit more trust and confidence on the part of its customers and partners alike.

 

This happens frequently with my X200 in Vista. Thought it was a problem with the docking station for a while, but it happens when it's not docked as well. So, I don't think that's a Windows 7 issue.

 

Hey Guy's got the Win7 RTM installed and everything I need to work seems to be working except for I can't seem to get the on screen display for brightness / volume controls etc.

Any advice?

edit: It was the Productivity center that was hosing it up. Still nothing for video but the volume seems to be working now.

I need a working graphics driver in order to get the brightness ODS to work right? And that is not out yet? Or do I just need to update my bios?

Is it even possible to update my bios without a docking station? According to lenovo's site I must have a docking station. I have s bootable flash drive and a USB CDRom though.

 

Just try update your video drivers via Windows Update. It works for me. And don't forget to install HotKey dirver for win7.
Also my brightness OSD is not always working on ATI, but is always working on Intel video card (Thinkpad T400). There are no such problems with volume and flashlight OSDs. And CapsLock/NumLock on-screen notifications are not working at all (but they did on Vista).

 

No sure how to do that. I mean I checked for updates and there was nothing.

I uninstalled the driver and ran windows update and it re-installed a driver but still nothing.

Battery life is down from 5-6 hours to 2 hours!

 

What graphics adapter do you have? Other OSDs (volume, for ex.) are working?

 

Yes, you can. Update the BIOS *without* needing a dock. Sometimes, you can even upgrade without having to burn a CD, and instead boot from an ISO that you can just mount and treat like a drive.

 

So the link at the start of this thread is dead. Anyone know where to get 7 related Thinkpad apps and drivers? The actual download page for Lenovo is listing some completely useless stuff under 7 right now.

 

Try here: http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?sitestyle=lenovo&lndocid=WIN7-BETA

 

Hello,

I have a t60 running win7 RTM 32 bit. I followd the link to the win7 drivers page (thank you for posting that), however it seems like the active protection system (APS) icon will not show up in the tray. I know its working however (if i move the laptop the hard drive suspends) but I would like to be able to get into the APS program to change some settings.

Has anyone else had this problem?

Thanks

 

Nevermind, I found it. It is under Control Panel -> Lenovo's Airbag Protection. The tray icon is not enabled by default but you can restore it from there.

 

How do you enable Fingerprint? I tried to enroll fingers but it says 'Cannot Communicate with serve. Please confirm sensor is ready. ' I have the Authentic brand version.

 

Is it enabled in BIOS?

 

You can pretty much go by this rule of thumb. If your system is able to handle Vista, Windows 7 will run equally as well or better on it.

 

only one more month til launch.

cant wait for the new drivers. hopefully we get em a week early.

 

Especially graphics switching...

 

Hmmm...can someone please explain the whole gfx switching thing? What is the benefit besides power consumption savings I guess..?

Thanks...

 

How do you check BIOS? Fingerprint was working fine in Vista though.. I did the clean install.

 

Is your fingerprint reader from UPEK, or AnanTec (spelling escapes me ATM)? Have you tried one of the Windows 7 beta drivers from Lenovo?

Check this out: http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?sitestyle=lenovo&lndocid=WIN7-BETA#hotf

 

Mine is from Authentic.

 

7 pro 32bit here on my T61

volume controls don't work - i tried the hotkey driver but it didn't help
PCI Memory Controller show in device manager with no driver

 

Did you install System Interface Driver?

 

That's it!

Anyway, there are drivers for both UPEK and Authentic fingerprint readers for Windows 7. Both 32-bit, and 64-bit ones.

 

Strange..I have the same machine/OS and everything (including the one yoy mention) is working very nicely

 

Reinstalling seems to have fixed my volume controls. Thanks!

Just have the PCI Memory Controller showing with the exclamation in device manager now.

 

Maybe it's Card Reader? Try drivers from here.

 

I found it's the Intel Robson for turbo memory.

 

switchable graphics drivers are released. Seem to work on my T400

 

And where is the link?

 

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?sitestyle=lenovo&lndocid=WIN7-BETA#m8xswitch

 

Thanks for the heads up… Nice to see it’s only a 160MB download…