network connections drop on screen blank

I recently got a new T500 with vista-64 and the intel 5100 wireless card.

I have the power profile setup to blank the screen after 1 hour. But whenever the screen blanks, my network connection drops (happens on both ethernet and wireless). if I press a key or move the mouse, the screen lights up and the network connection comes back.

Most of the time my laptop sits on my desk and runs voice-chat applications, so it will sit "idle" while im gaming on my desktop and chatting. But after 1 hour, the screen blanks and kills the network connections.

Ive already gone into the settings for the ethernet card and wireless card and turned OFF the setting allowing the os to put the card to sleep.

Ive called Lenovo tech support a couple times too, but I usually get some BS about "please call back between 9am and 5pm when our gold team is online". Which is really dissapointing because they have been really good with the other vista-related issues ive had.

I also went looking for updated drivers on lenovo's support site, but got conflicting results. ex: driver version 0.84 dated July 8 on my laptop, and driver version 0.40 on the website dated in August (huh?!?)

Ideas/Suggestions anyone?

 

check vista power options

 

Yes, check the Vista power options for the particular power profile that you use, because there are settings in there to enable Wireless adapter power saving and other things.

-J.B.

 

vista power options?
okay... thats going to take some digging. but when I find them -- I want to disable power saving for the network cards? ... or is there some other setting?

im just curious why the power savings would be started on screen blank (the problem goes away when i set the screen to never turn off)

 

ok i poked around in the vista power settings, advanced settings. There is an option for the wireless card and power saving mode -- I set that to maximum performance when plugged in.
but theres nothing for the ethernet card -- which is where the problem happens most of the time because I use the ethernet card most of the time.

 

Problem is still happening.

Anyone got any bright ideas?

 

IIRC, I think I had a similar issue with my T400 and the NIC. I think I went into Device Manager, Network adapter, right clicked on my NIC, clicked Properties, Advanced tab and set the System Idle Power Saver to Disabled. Give this a spin and holler back please.

 

Thanks BinkNR, your suggestion works.

 

I just got my T500 and noticed this annoying behavior too. How stupid enabled is the default for this!

I found the fix before finding this thread ... Intel should really should default this to disabled. I need to tell the guys at the office about this ... we are about to roll out T400's and this won't fly.