U330 + Windows 7 Drivers Problem & Solutions [ Edited ]

[feng303]

my friend, then you are one lucky man...because mine will not go away. it only alternates....you probably dont remember but if u could document what you did from stratch that would be great....im using win 7 x64 ultimate

Interestingly, if you search "u330 windows 7" in google you will find a slew of these comments and problems in the forums.....you best believe this is deterring lots of educated buyers from the U330 researching reviews before buying. **bleep**. take that lenovo, suck on lower revenue. fix our problems. jesus. and if your a mod removing this post stop being a "crazy volunteer" and start helping spread awareness of these issues. i will not stop until the problems are fixed or lenovo u330 revenue is $0. whichever comes first. 

[tonynca]

I don't have time to format and reinstall windows to test this out for you.

But....

I have some suggestions for you though. Switch to discrete graphics in the bios then install the ATI drivers. Then go back to switchable graphics and see if intel is installed already. Try that route it might make a difference.

[BushPilot]

I am curious. Did you install drivers, then flash bios (version 67) or did you flash and then install drivers.

Again, my U330 and win 7 is great. Im not sure why you are having problems. I got a new HDD for my u330. So i decided to upgrade to win 7. Here is the process i used to get working:

Installed win 7 on brand new hdd

Installed all lenovo drivers and software (with the exception of the camera software, and intel driver. I also later deleted ASP)

Had LOTS of problems. SO i then downloaded the bios update, and flashed my bios.

Everything worked great  from there on out.

I have discovered a weird problem though - If you unplug/ plug back in your U330 as win 7 boots, it will log me onto a new/temporary user account! really weird. Does anyone else have this problem??

[feng303]

i flashed and then installed....and i already tried installing the ATI under BIOS discrete mode and coming back to switchable mode....

[BushPilot]

Normally i don't think it would make a difference, but you flashed and then installed what?

Maybe you should have software (win 7 plus drivers) loaded up before you flash? I am really not sure if that would make a difference but flashing bios was last thing I did.

Also, since you are the only one that I know of reporting this problem, there is a possibility of hardware defect.

Please list the software that you are running  on your computer. Not all of it, but the major running processes such as your anti-virus and so on. There are known errors with Anti-virus, such as Symantec endpoint protection, and sleep mode. Additionally, please tell me what power saving setting you are using when you put the computer into sleep mode.  Please also confirm that you are using the latest ATI drivers from Lenovo, and that  the ati Control center is installed.

The whole "installing in discrete mode" is nonsense. That is not doing anything for you. If anything, i would  roll back your bios (possible?) to the version that you had, install software, and then flash. Before you do that, please answer the questions above.

[feng303]

Thanks, i will collect this information in a bit, but its not only me thats having this issue. I can cite two other guys:

http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/IdeaPad-Y-and-U-series-Laptops/poor-battery-life-on-U330/td-p/54142/page...

and 

http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/IdeaPad-Y-and-U-series-Laptops/poor-battery-life-on-U330/td-p/54142/page...

I used to work at City of Seattle IT department and I dont consider myself to be computer illiterate by any means...but if I've had this much trouble thus far I have to start to blame someone else other than myself. 

Bushpilot, to answer your questions 

Please list the software that you are running  on your computer.

NOD32 antivirus....thats pretty much it. chrome, firefox, office 2010 and foxit.

Additionally, please tell me what power saving setting you are using when you put the computer into sleep mode.

I put it in powersaving mode, but i testing energy star and that doesnt work either.

Please also confirm that you are using the latest ATI drivers from Lenovo, and that  the ati Control center is installed.

Everything in the discrete ati driver is installed., everything was checked. intel card was uninstalled then autoinstalled via win 7....wistronic second display driver was installed too. 

[frugal_economy]

Does anyone know what happened to the driver updates promised to us by customer service on November 16th?

[coldlazymo]

Hi guys, just thought i would let you know that i am having the same issues as Feng.

everytime the laptop goes to sleep, the battery life dies and lasts as long as it would as if using the ATI.

update the BIOS, reinstalled the drivers done all the usually voodoo rituals. and nothing works

also, when the system hibernates, the ati driver sops responding and i cant manually change the GPU, meaning i have to restart the laptop. this is very annoying and is part of the growing list of issues i have had with this laptop.

the worst of all being the broken keyboard

Any help on these issues would be great

[Deletham]

About how long does the flash take and does it reboot the machine?  I initiated the flash on my u330.  It completed the file write and then restarted.  It is now just sitting there with a black screen, but all the indicator lights say it is on.  Any ideas?

[feng303]

that sucks. flashing should take less than a minute and a reboot as normal...no more than 2 mins