W520 intermittent shut down, with or without BSOD

[tbaugh]

My W520 I7-7220 w/8 GB Mem, 160SSD, ultrabay 500GB seagate XT Momentus, win 64 pro, office 2010 pro has had issues from the start.

BSOD occurred on original setup with very little software.

Lenovo replaced memory very quickly (swapped in their package very efficient)

Learned to live with "occassional" BSOD.. kept updating BIOS.. being patient as I have 3 of these and only one is a problem.

Later the system was unable to dock (mini dock 3) and operate with Ethernet at full speed. Sometimes no connection other times 2.0 Mbps. Unit sent in and motherboard replaced.

Now have had shutdowns with and w/o BSOD:

1-at start up after going into sleep or hibernate

2-when relocating from one location to another

3-when going on dock after relocation

The following BSOD Messages have come up over that past 2 months

Bad Pool Header

IRQ Not less or equal

Power manager stopped working

Page fault in non paged area

It looks like this issue affect others as I saw a long post from 10-14-2011 07:53 AM which is very similar.

I have run memory tests but no errors.

I'm NOT a technician but looking for improvements.

Unit still under warranty but last service took 7 days and I don't function well without it.

Likely to update warranty to faster turnaround.

Any suggestions appreciated.. sorry for any long delays.. (probably rebooting ;-)

[eos]

I got similar random BSODs when I upgraded fron 8GB to 16GB ram. I dumpted the additional ram, and have not had a problem since. Memory test produced no errors, and Crucial say there was nothing wrong with the RAM. Howeer, my BSODs were not tied to starting up/sleeping/docking - they happened anytime, even idle.

If you have upgraded everything (BIOS and Lennovo drivers/apps), then you could try removing one ram stick (I think the one under the keyboard shoud be left in) and see if you still get them. Its a very long shot.

I had to uninstall the access connections as it was causing problems with connections, and regularly dying. I can recommend this route.

[ColonelONeill]

Try BluescreenView. It'll pinpoint the errant module/driver, in which case you can try to update the driver or check for corruption.

[tbaugh]

Continue with screen shutdowns.. have had a few intermittent without bluescreens lately also had a couple indicating video driver stopped but recovered. Sometimes the computer just shuts off. Lots of fun.

[Mark_Lenovo Administrator]

tbaugh,

As an experiment...

Try disabling CPU power management in BIOS and see if the random shutdown events continue...

We have a long running discussion on Wt520 random shutdowns and there seem to be multiple possible causes and we are working to address these.  Some have been addressed in prior BIOS updates.

Also, be sure you are running the latest BIOS.

Best regards,

Mark

[eos]

I switched my addtitional RAM from Crucial to Samsung and my BSODs have gone away.

[tbaugh]

I believe that memory has been an ongoing "Known issue".

My memory was replaced early on by Lenovo.

I am going to assume that the replacement memory that was provided to me by Lenovo is working correctly.

I just upated the Bios and switch the CPU power management to disabled. Give it a couple days and I'll report back. This is not something I can replicate with any certainty. Relocating from home (non dock.. either wireless or ethernet on small home network) to work (dock typically ethernet with 2nd monitor) at some point triggers the event but most recently (even with the flash of a blue screen) does not set a bluescreen view event on the bluescreenview.exe software.

Thanks for the help and suggestions..

[mdjtlj]

I was having this problem real bad with 4 x 4gb of SAMSUNG memory.  It would BSOD at idle and other times, sometimes it was two or three times a day.  All with the same errors that you show.  I replaced the memory on 12/29 with 4 x 8GB Corsair and I have YET to have a BSOD or shutdown.  I did not do anything to the power management.  

[eos]

Interesting, I was having the same pattern - would sometimes BSOD idle and sometimes when doing something, and sometimes 2 or 3 times a day. Swapped ram no BSODs since. I did the ram checks - nothing wrong with them found.  I sent them back to Crucial for a refund, but expect they were ok.

[tbaugh]

Well, it has been a little while and random BSOD continues. I was able to see "System Service Exception" once. The BSOD happens very quickly,very randomly. Sometimes on initial startup, at least once it happened twice at startup. It has happened when no activity was occurring.. I was on the phone and BLINK.. and it has happened while in the middle of an email.

I have not successfully collected any information on bluescreenview.. although I can't honestly say I know if it is configured correctly. There are no files in the "minidump". Is it worth just replacing the RAM? Woould that be covered under warranty "Again"?