I'm hoping someone from Lenovo monitors this forum...
System: T500 2242-CTO w/ Integrated Graphics, Intel P8400, 3GB DDR3
I have two 2.5" SATA drives, on one I loaded Windows 7 32-bit and on the other I loaded Windows 7 64-bit.
I have discovered some lenovo software/driver bugs in Windows 7 32-bit, these bugs are not present in Windows 7 64-bit:
- Power Manager/Power Management Driver: In Windows 7 32-bit, if you choose to enable the optical drive power off feature the optical drive will not resume from the powered off state unless you reboot or remove the optical drive from the system and re-insert it into the bay. This feature works appropriately in Windows 7 64-bit.
- Windows 7 Device Experience and Registry Patch to arrange icons in Devices and Printers folders: The product information in the Devices and Printers folder does not update properly in 32-bit. The icon does not update to be a picture of a ThinkPad and double-clicking the icon does not provide lenovo specific information, it only provides generic information. (Not a big deal, but I think of it as one of those "it should work" things.) This works properly in Windows 7 64-bit.
Now for the opposite situation (things that work in Win 7 32-bit and not in 64-bit), in Windows 7 32-bit the system fan rarely runs. Most of the time passive cooling is sufficient. However, in Windows 7 64-bit the fan runs almost constantly, albeit at a lower speed. I'm still trying to pin down whether or not this is actually temperature related, although at this point it does not appear to be (which makes sense - 1% CPU usage is 1% or am I wrong here?)
I much prefer the quietness of Windows 7 32-bit (less fan noise and more battery life since the fan doesn't have to run as often) but I like the fact that everything works in Windows 7 64-bit...
