My T41 has been struggling with a new issue. I haven't added any hardware and can't think of any new software. It's running Windows XP SP2. Connected to a Mini Dock.
I have an intermittent issue that I think I've narrowed down to happening only when I write (or read?) to one of my USB-connected hard drives. I'll probably get a delayed write failure (with perhaps data corruption), followed shortly by a blue screen crash BAD_POOL_ERROR, stop x19. It's happened with various drives, which are completely different enclosures/different brands. I also sometimes notice when I'm starting the machine that my USB-connected keyboard will have its lights flash a lot more than I'd expect (and, if a drive is connected at the time, the drive will sound like it's repeatedly starting). I've never noticed this keyboard symptom once the machine has been running, nor have had any trouble with the keyboard going unresponsive. So far, it's only happened with external drives that are mounted via Truecrypt, so I've suspected Truecrypt, but I am lately leaning away from that theory, because a) the keyboard light flashing, and b) my built-in system disk uses Truecrypt and I haven't had any failures there. I originally suspected Truecrypt because what would start to happen was that I'd mount a volume on an external drive, and the volume would immediately dismount itself. I have advanced my theory to thinking that Truecrypt is dismounting because of some intermittent USB interruption. These symptoms/failures happen whether the device(s) are connected to the built-in USB ports or the Mini Dock's USB ports. I haven't tried disconnecting the Mini Dock from the computer and seeing if the failure recurs. Memory and disk tests find no errors. So, does my theory that there is a USB issue make sense? What's puzzling is that it'll happen on the MIni Dock or the laptop ports. Are they driven by the same hardware within the laptop? Could there be a software issue with the USB drivers? I also might expect more keyboard symptoms, but maybe the problem is so brief when it happens that it only impacts a sensitive operation like disk access, and is virtually undetectable to my human-speed finger I/O. And, if it is an internal USB problem, would that mean I need to replace the system board? I've just enabled capturing of a system dump for the next BSOD (it wasn't dumping, because I had virtual memory disabled for performance reasons). I've read up on dumpchk, and installed Windows symbols table, but I worry I won't be able to parse anything useful from the results. I've done plenty of web searches on the subject, and haven't turned up much of specific use. BAD_POOL_ERROR seems to occur from a broad range of causes. Any ideas? Like some others on the list, I dread having to "upgrade" from my T41, because I like the 4:3 screen. I've had this thing going for over 6 years. I sure as heck don't want to have to tweak/configure a Windows installation all over again. Thanks a lot for any suggestions. - TK _______________________________________________ Thinkpad mailing list [email protected] http://stderr.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/thinkpad
