T500 freezing with Windows 7

[YellowJersey]

Newbie to these forums.

 I bought a T500 back in 2009 and it came pre-loaded with Vista. In the past few months I've since upgraded to Windows 7 64bit and have had problems with the computer freezing up, seemingly at random.It never did this with Vista, so I'm inclined to think it's a software problem rather than a hardware problem.

Symptoms:

-screen goes black

-computer completely non-responsive (have to force a restart by holding power button down)

-if any music was playing then the speakers get stuck on the last sound and cause a buzzing noise

 I think the issue might be with the drivers, but even after installing all the seemingly appropriate drivers, the problem persists. Any thoughts? I figured I'd ask here before taking it into the shop.

-

[lead_org Microsoft MVP Contributor]

1) Try to do a hdd diagnostic from the BIOS menu.

also which graphics card does your machine have? ATI switchable or Intel only?

[YellowJersey]

I've got an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3650 graphics card.

Just ran an hdd diagnostic from BIOS and everything checked out.

[Drcompute]

did you do in place upgrade, or fresh install?

[YellowJersey]

I did a fresh/clean install. My brother got a new computer that came with Windows 7, so he gave his other copy to me. This is why I'm inclined to think there's some kind of software or driver problem.

[lead_org Microsoft MVP Contributor]

what if you switch to the intel gpu?

[YellowJersey]

Do I have an intel GPU? IHow would I find out? I've checked my graphics card and it's the ATI Radeon Mobility HD 3650.

[Drcompute]

Have you tried the Lenovo software update?

http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/detail.page?LegacyDocID=TVSU-UPDATE

[YellowJersey]

Yep, all my drivers are up to day, installed Lenovo system update. I just reinstalled Windows 7 last night and less than 24 hours later I had my first freeze up.

I'm beginning to think this is a harddrive issue. I remember my little brother with his custom built desktop had the same problem and it turned out that the harddrive needed to be replaced. Unfortunately, I've got a solid state drive, which isn't going to be cheap to replace.

[tripplec]

I have seen a few instances of SSD failing and the results are total lockup, BSOD, etc I am not sure if there is HD diagnostics you can run on them or even running HD tool on them.

Having see that the recovery on a typical HD is very high while on SSD when its failing/failed that it, you'd done. Pickup a good HD EG Momentus by Seagate and go down that road and get it working and enjoy your system. You can move it via eSATE externally if you want later or attempt the Ultrabay track.