[weaponx71]

Thought I would ask here as this might tie into Bubba's post about vid drivers.

Call it in the right place at the right time.

I as at work and a sales guy came to me to ask about his work supplied laptop. It would blue screen almost constantly on boot up. He also couldn't get the finger reader to work right, so basically to him, it was useless. He didn't have anything saved on there that he didn't have backed up with his work desktop. So, not much rush in fixing it.
I poked around and the only way I could get it back to somewhat normal would to be a restore of the factory default which is supplied through the IBM Thinkpad utilities.

I was about to do this, but wanted to ask the sales guy first. At that point our manage comes by and says that all the sales guys are getting new laptops and can keep their old ones. The sales guys says he hats Think pads and wants a Dell, fine says the manager and leaves. Sales guy looks at me and says.. "Here, want it?" handing me the laptop. POOF! Weapon gets a new Think Pad.

NOW...

I wiped it. First I did the restore, it was still buggy as some of the installed items wouldn't reload even with drivers from Intell, ATI and such. So, I wipped it, and I mean... wiped it clean. Did a full hard drive wipe, can't remember the program off hand but its one that writes the hardrive with 0's.
Anyways, I put Ubuntu on it, that would work a little bit, but i'm not at the level to get all the correct drivers into it, so I wiped it again and put XP pro on it.

It was a pain because the XP pro disk I have doesn't have the SATA drivers built in, so I made a slip stream disk and finally got it all loaded up with XP SP3.
Also, I was using a program to slip stream stuff and those never made it through a full install without crashing the laptop, so I went through and found a way to do it through command prompt and that one I was able to get to load fully.
It's a legitamate copy of XP by the way.

The only way I could get every thing on the laptop loaded and seen by XP was to use the IBM update utility that came from Lenovo.
All except one PCI card that just wouldn't load for nothing. Until I updated the BIOS, it was the HD Sound driver.

So now the laptop works pretty good. I still get blue screens though. I've seen um... ntfx.dll and navag.exe, I think those names are correct, I'm going from memory here.
I have the physical dumps of each.
Also, my Photo Shop would say that my Lenovo LCD file I am using isn't correct, but the system likes it, so I just ignore that warning and Photo Shop looks fine.
Most of the blue screens have come when I am playing games, nothing fancy really, some are PopCap games although I have lost it playing NWN and UT2K4. Other blue screens happen just browsing the web. Then when a BSOD happens I have to shut it down for a while otherwise it will just blue screen shortly after the restart most times.

Here is the big question I pose to you guys.
Would it be worth it to go through the dump files and try to fix it, OR does anyone here have a magical install process for an IBM Lenovo T60?? Or even a way to double check driver files or updating?

Weird request I know, but it's not a bad computer really, plus it was free. Just would like to get it to a solid working state.

[Iron Monkey]

Tell ye what...I have a copy of XP Pro (retail) I'm not using (won it through a Microsoft online training site). PM me your addy and it's yours. It's SP1, so I'll include a copy of SP3 (I have one on CD). I'd try a straight install of XP...I've had problems in the past with the vendor reinstall (except Dell, as theirs is a straight copy of XP, 'cept for the Dell eq ID).

[weaponx71]

Well, the disk I have is SP1 as well and it's not a Vendor copy. All my MS stuff is straight from MS, I have unused product keys for the XP that I used for it. Just the disk itself wasn't usable for a new install as it did not have the SATA drivers on it to access the laptops hard drive, that was the reason for slipstreaming the files into it.

Maybe it's just the act of slipstreaming that is making it buggy, not sure why that would be, but just maybe.

Wonder if a disk of XP with SP2 on it would have the drivers I need.

[WIDOWMAKER99]

you need the drivers from the vendor ..verify model number from the stickers on it

http://www-307.ibm.c...itestyle=lenovo

also yes SP2 disk of Win Xp installed fine on my laptop .. it has a SATA 80 gig harddisk ..no special sata driver needed

and i'm almost positive XP SP 1 had SATA support .. but i could be wrong on that one ..i KNOW YES SP2 disks do have SATA support

but i did need all the original drivers from the manufacturer ..well other then one for the pointer and of course i upgraded my vid drivers to CAT 8.6


blue screens could mean a heat issiue also so make sure the fans are clean

mines a dell ..BUT i did use the same XP SP 2 disk in a guys system and it was an IBM/LENOVO thinkpad t 60
which also had a SATA harddisk ..on his tho i used omega drivers for the vid card as it was probably 6 months ago i did this and ATI integrated drivers had no support for his VID chip

came up clean too ... no activation required

love that DELL XP SP 2 cd ..didnt even ask for a product key

what i did step by step ....PULL THE BATTERY ! very important ..dont forget this step you can damage the system easily if the battery is still installed and you open any of the little doors !


opened case bottom ....clean fans ..be careful blow air in watch the dust fly


pulled hard disk verified it was a sata drive ...and it was a seagate ..well maxtor .. used sea tools to low level the drive (wrote zeros to all sectors ) fuck saving that IBM partition..useless waste o space ..need software ..get new free stuff

installed XP (dell SP 2 OEM CD)

got the rest of his drivers from the IBM /lenovo site from another computer why the system was low leveling ..

i e vid ..again used omega drivers , sound , network , modem ,display,firmware ,wireless all in separate folders named for what their function was

burned them to a cd

and installed e m after XP was installed

charged the guy 60 bucks he gave me $80 and bought me a case of beer for haveing it done in less then two days

also UT 2004 is a bit much for that laptop ,,stick with the original UT ..and nothing new ..it'll heat up like a frying pan

my lapppy (DEll) inspiron 1521 has a Atalon64 /tiurion? dual core 1.8 in it TK 55
ATI radeon 1270

and heats up like a SOB when i try UT the original game .. as well as COD 1 the original game

laptops are not made for gameing .. unless you buy a gameing laptop

think pads are not designed for games ..they are business use laptops ..you can get away with some older titles tho

i have COD 1 , COD uo , unreal tournament (the original game) , COD 2 and SOF 1 and 2 working now

also for some odd reason far cry runs great @ 1024 X 768 ! as do
CS source
HL 2
HL2 first and second episode

TF2 is a choppy mess as is portal

BF 2 is a slide show

and was a pain in the ass to get COD 2 to run right .. hadda increase (i know makes no sense ) the res to the default res of 1200 X 800 of my LCD panel and the frame rates are ok now..nothing over 70 nothing under 28

[WIDOWMAKER99]

also WEAP if ya open any of the panels in the back or pull the harddisk to look at it .. REMOVE THE BATTERY FIRST

and lemme know what kinda ram it has ... i have a gig o ram for a laptop i'm willing to sell pretty cheap .. 2 512 meg ddr 2 200 pin SO-dimms Pc 5300 speed..tho i bet yours has PC 3200 or 4200 ..depending on it's age

also i may have some memory for it as i have an older dell laying around .. think it has only a single 256 meg chip in it .. not sure on the speed ..have to find it and open it up ..so let me know if ya have an open ram slot ya need to fill

[weaponx71]

Well, here is my brief specs:
T2400(1.83GHz), 512MB RAM, 80GB 5400rpm HD, 15in 1024x768 LCD, 64MB ATI Radeon X1300, CDRW/DVD, Intel 802.11abg wireless, Modem, 1Gb Ethernet, UltraNav, Secure chip, Fingerprint reader, 6c Li-Ion batt, WinXP Pro

I ran that SiSoftware program. Ran a report and will attach it to this post.

My MS software I get from my Action Pack Subscription. The XP SP1 disk didn't work by itself, so I dumped it over to a folder, put the SATA drivers and SP3 into it and that worked fairly well, just still get some BSOD's from time to time.

I know UT2K4 is hard on it, but I needed something to pass the two 12 hour days I did last weekend. It runs it pretty good, very playable.

NWN is quite good on the laptop also. Will be putting SoF 1 and 2 on it soon. Other than that I won't need many games on it as I do my real gaming on my desktop rig.

That link you gave me Wid, that is where I got all of my files from already. Using those were how I got all of my hardware updated and seen. Except the one PCI card that wasn't seen until I flashed the BIOS.

I will see if I know anyone with an Dell XP SP2 cd. Otherwise I can probably get one from the TV station that I still work at part time.

If you could look at the report that was ran, and maybe let me know which section your talking about the chipsets, that would be great.

Thanks again for the help, I think this coming weekend I will open the laptop up and check things out, and I will for sure take the battery off first.

The RAM for this one is listed as, PC2-5300 DDR2 SDRAM, I was going to max it out for $90.

 SystemReport.txt (49.04K)
Number of downloads: 4

[Iron Monkey]

Ahh...OK, I missed the detail where you'd already ran a straight XP install.

FYI Wid: SP1 did have SATA support.

You know, I've seen this behavior before in IBM products, going waaaay back to IBM servers. Check recalls status on that unit...it might have a recall. IBM's had issues in the past with memory (bad memory)...if you've done a straight install of XP and it still BSODs, that screams, as Wid said, of a hardware issue.

If anyone needs a Dell XP SP2 CD, lemme know..I'm swimming in 'm.

[WIDOWMAKER99]

weaponx71, on Jul 15 2008, 11:40 PM, said:

Well, here is my brief specs:
T2400(1.83GHz), 512MB RAM, 80GB 5400rpm HD, 15in 1024x768 LCD, 64MB ATI Radeon X1300, CDRW/DVD, Intel 802.11abg wireless, Modem, 1Gb Ethernet, UltraNav, Secure chip, Fingerprint reader, 6c Li-Ion batt, WinXP Pro

I ran that SiSoftware program. Ran a report and will attach it to this post.

My MS software I get from my Action Pack Subscription. The XP SP1 disk didn't work by itself, so I dumped it over to a folder, put the SATA drivers and SP3 into it and that worked fairly well, just still get some BSOD's from time to time.

I know UT2K4 is hard on it, but I needed something to pass the two 12 hour days I did last weekend. It runs it pretty good, very playable.

NWN is quite good on the laptop also. Will be putting SoF 1 and 2 on it soon. Other than that I won't need many games on it as I do my real gaming on my desktop rig.

That link you gave me Wid, that is where I got all of my files from already. Using those were how I got all of my hardware updated and seen. Except the one PCI card that wasn't seen until I flashed the BIOS.

I will see if I know anyone with an Dell XP SP2 cd. Otherwise I can probably get one from the TV station that I still work at part time.

If you could look at the report that was ran, and maybe let me know which section your talking about the chipsets, that would be great.

Thanks again for the help, I think this coming weekend I will open the laptop up and check things out, and I will for sure take the battery off first.

The RAM for this one is listed as, PC2-5300 DDR2 SDRAM, I was going to max it out for $90.

SystemReport.txt

Legend Ltd 955XM/945GM/PM/GMS/940GML Express
it's a Intel chipset so make sure you install the chipset drivers

for ram try crucial .. i had great luck with mine ..it was pretty damned cheap too @ newegg ..dont waste cash on 4 gig of ram tho XP wont see it all ..XP limit is 3 gig i belive ..2 gig o ram is fine for a laptop also check IBM to see what MAX installable memory is ..might max out @ 2 gig ..

and YES according to your report it does max out @ 2 gig of ram ...

< System Memory Controller >
Location: Mainboard
Error Correction Capability: None
Number of Memory Slots: 2
Maximum Installable Memory: 2GB
Bank 0/1 - DIMM 1: SO-DIMM Synchronous DDR2-SDRAM 512MB/64
Bank 2/3 - DIMM 2: Empty


http://www.newegg.co...N82E16820148086 thats what i bought .. ..$ 44.99 but it's not too bad for a 4 gig set either

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16820148201 thats only 82.99 for 4 gig of dual channel mem

[weaponx71]

I would love one of them CD's Monkey.

Maybe it might have been my SATA drivers weren't on the disk. I don't know, I think I got that Subscription pack back in 2001 or 02.
I will check into the recalls and like I said, this weekend take it apart and be sure all things are sitting right and cleaned out.

So far, with no gaming, just email and browsing it has ran great for the past 2 days.

But, I am still going to want to do a good install without having to streamline a CD for the install.

OH...

Mark Gardner
221 Scott St #525
Wausau WI 54403

Let me know if you want reimbursement for the shipping of the disk.

[WIDOWMAKER99]

you can get your chipset drivers here

http://downloadcente...s...4&submit=Go!

if you didn't install these that could be why your blue screening

also when you upgrade your mem issiue may go away .. i too remember bad mem in IBM units

keep in mind your chipset should support a faster mem speed ..you could possibly put in PC2 pc 6400

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16820148161

since your Front side bus supports that mem speed

[WIDOWMAKER99]

Iron Monkey, on Jul 16 2008, 02:59 PM, said:

Ahh...OK, I missed the detail where you'd already ran a straight XP install.

FYI Wid: SP1 did have SATA support.

You know, I've seen this behavior before in IBM products, going waaaay back to IBM servers. Check recalls status on that unit...it might have a recall. IBM's had issues in the past with memory (bad memory)...if you've done a straight install of XP and it still BSODs, that screams, as Wid said, of a hardware issue.

If anyone needs a Dell XP SP2 CD, lemme know..I'm swimming in 'm.

send me one too mr monkey

Kevin Conver
1210 Park Springs Blvd
Spring City Pa 19475

i'm on my last good one and i fear the day i scratch it ..i'll need it

already have 1 that will no longer install ..big scratch on it

[weaponx71]

Wid...

The way I read the report, it was 2GB per slot. As if it was running the 64 then it could take the full 4gb, where as now it would only "see" 3GB, which is fine with me.

I will prob get that one from Newegg then, as that has the others beat by a few bucks, even with shipping.

Now if I can just find a sweet looking Wolverine skin for it... I'd be SET!!

And Nope.. I didn't install that set of drivers yet. I will and see what happn's cap'n

[WIDOWMAKER99]

see above edit about mem speed .. your report shows your chipset supports 800 mghz


mine does too but i didnt find that out till after i ordered my mem

< Chipset 1 >
Model: Legend Ltd 955XM/945GM/PM/GMS/940GML Express
Processor to DRAM Controller
Revision: A4
Bus: Intel AGTL+
Front Side Bus Speed: 4x 166MHz (664MHz data rate)
Maximum FSB Speed: 4x 200MHz (800MHz data rate)
Width: 64-bit
I/O Queue Depth: 12 request(s)
Maximum Bus Bandwidth: 5312MB/s (estimated)

from what i have seen it seems you have a decent little lappy there !

and the price was great too !

and no max mem on that is 2 gig ..not 2 gig a slot.. sandra shows mine as 4 gig

i'll make up a report and post it from my dell

[weaponx71]

The only reason I brought that up as the PDF said the true max was 4GB, but then mentions the XP Pro 32bit to limit that to 3GB. So it wouldn't make much sense to buy the 4GB, I can just get the two sticks of 1GB and be full up.

The laptop is really great, and a lot quicker than my last one, which was a Think Pad T40. So... I likes it.

[WIDOWMAKER99]

yep ya can use win XP 64 but the draw back is you'd need 64 bit drivers for all your hardware

stick with 2 gig o ram for now .. it's not only cheap but i bet you dont wanna invest alot in a laptop
that was not made for games

[weaponx71]

****Update****
So far, after the chipset driver install it has been rock solid. This weekend I am going to try and break it by playing the games that usually crash it and see what happens.

Thanks everyone for your help.

[WIDOWMAKER99]

good to hear ..most likely thats what ya missed was the updated intel drivers for the chipset