Lenovo / IBM T41 Laptop Random Crash

February 5th, 2007

I have an IBM (Lenovo) Thinkpad T41 Laptop - and it is an absolute cracker.

In its three year lifetime, this little beauty has survived a couple of years rattling around in cane harvesters, has endured numerous beer spills and generally amazes me with the way it seems to effortlessly handle no end of punishment.

So recently when the IBM (lenovo t41) laptop started to randomly crash, I thought that perhaps my luck had run out, especially since the warranty had only just expired, and we all know that the ‘magic smoke’ generally waits until just after the warranty expires before it beats its wispy path to freedom Whilst the lenovo laptops are tough, I don’t think they are exempt from that tendency.

I was proven wrong - when I tracked back the problem, I realized it had only been occuring since I re-installed Windows XP professional, and used the lenovo update software to install all the necessary drivers for the laptop.

Since that time, the Lenovo (IBM) T41 has a problem. This crash occurs without a Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) - the t41 simply hangs or freezes.

One of the great natural laws is that the probability of faultless operation of any electronic device is inversely proportional to need - translated, the bloody bugger ‘murphy chip’ makes the t41 crash occur usually right when you’re in the middle of doing something important - not fun - I had to find a solution.

After some testing, I realised that this problem only occurs when I don’t have the lenovo (IBM) T41 laptop plugged into mains power.

The solution couldn’t be easier - simply go to the windows XP control panel, select “Add or Remove Programs”, and remove the program called “Lenovo Power Management” or “IBM Power Management” or something simillar. This stops the T41 random freezes, and doesn’t seem to adversely effect battery life. The random crashes are apparently associated with the EC unit, and does not occur when using linux - for those with a mind for such things, you can see the following t41 link for more information -

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