Lenovo Touchpad Freezes
Posted by Widget on September 13th, 2007I just got a good deal on Lenovo 3000 N100 machines with a free memory upgrade, so I bought three for the office. Vista still isn’t ready for prime-time, so I got Windows XP Pro recovery disks with the machines and downgraded from Vista to XP. This makes them great machines, especially for the price. However, browsing in Explorer or Internet Explorer causes the touchpad to lock up for a few seconds.
I’ve removed all unnecessary programs (including Diskeeper Lite), have patched Windows XP and upgraded all drivers, and I even upgraded to IE 7, but the touchpad still hangs for a few seconds.
The problem is definitely software related since it doesn’t occur in Safe Mode, and it doesn’t occur in Firefox (my preferred browser anyway). But it does occur even when an external mouse is attached. Because there’s no replacement for Explorer itself, moreover, it makes file management go slower. Every time a user opens a new folder in My Computer or Explorer, the cursor freezes for a few seconds.
I saw one other post on this, in Notebook Forums, but no reply was posted. I guess I’m going to have to contact Lenovo or return three otherwise great laptops.
September 16th, 2007 at 1:43 pm
Mystery Solved.
I had to call Lenovo tech support to get this unpublicized fixed, but I was relieved they at least had a fix. I asked the support tech specifically to check for notices mentioning Lenovo freezes. I was on hold less than two minutes before support came back on the phone with the culprit and a solution.
It turns out that the Realtek High Definition Audio driver that ships with WinXP version of Lenovo 3000 N100 laptop (possibly other models, too) was causing utilization spikes that made the laptop freeze periodically. Their solution was to update to driver version 5.10.0.5366 or later. The driver is available on Lenovo’s site by searching for support article
MIGR-66525.
I downloaded the update and followed the online instructions for loading: run the *.exe file to extract installation files, browse to where installation files are saved, and then run the AdDrvLdr.EXE file. Accept defaults to update audio driver, and then reboot. It worked; no more freezes.