Hello all!

I just upgraded my IdeaPad to Windows XP SP2. (Y510 - 1.83GHz dual core - 160GB HDD - 2GB RAM - nVidia 256MB - Bluetooth - A/G/N wireless) All of the Lenovo drivers were installed successfully except for the touchpad (which works anyway with the generic driver). I have also installed a perpetual (lifetime) subscription of McAfee 8.5i anti-virus. So here are my concerns... if anyone knows any way of diagnosing these problems, let me know!

1. Battery indicator lights (near the hinge) don't work.
2. USB transfers are noticeably slower. (For example, from a 7200rpm external HDD using USB 2.0)
3. Windows "Automatic Updates" can't be turned on. (When I hit "turn on Automatic Updates", the control panel window freezes and I have to ctrl-alt-del and kill it manually)

@CrankTh3musicUP :)

Question: What or how do you know your USB transfer speeds when using XP SP2 on your Lenovo Y510 IdeaPad are noticeably slower?

Did you check to insure your PC wasn't being heavily used for something else while at the time of transferring your data? Have you taken a look in the Windows "Task Manager", for how much the CPU usage at the time, under the folder tab "Processes" and "Performance" for an overall visual display and "Networking" to sort of gauge the percentage of bandwidth in usage?

Also, it helps to insure your PC isn't indexing the USB Hard Drive at the same time while your attempting to transfer file too. Another area that I have seen to slow up USB HDD response, is when using Windows Explorer viewing the video files as thumbnails, especially when there are unsupported OS codecs here (like Xvid or your got an older codec installed).

I have a suggestion, take a look at your "Event Viewer" and check for any errors or warnings. Also, have you checked your Device Manager to insure all your hardware drivers are correctly loaded and working properly?

You might try to get the Windows "Automatic Updates" working by just going to your control panel > administrative tools > services and right clicking over "Automatic updates" to stop the service and then trying to restart the same service after you delete all the files in the folder located at C:\WINDOWS\SoftwareDistribution. See if that works for you and report back.

Can you describe more in detail about what you mean by how the battery indicator lights don't work? Are you saying when the correct battery lights don't display correctly as in a solid blue, blinking blue, blinking amber light?

Could it be that the Lenovo Y510 battery lights are not displaying only when the battery is at a full complete charge?

Did you drain the battery some and then looked to see if the battery lights up to recharge the battery when the PC is NOT booted and plugged into electrical power? And then again when Windows was booted?

Furlong:

Thank you for your input! It turns out that I actually discovered the solution to at least two of the problems last night.

I simply redid my Windows installation. After installing the Lenovo drivers, I allowed Windows Update to download everything it wanted (about 100 updates, over the course of about 5 restart cycles) BEFORE installing McAfee.

This eliminated my Automatic Updates problem, and lo and behold... the battery lights came on too!

I don't actually know my USB transfer speed. It just seemed slow in general, but maybe I was overlooking something... in Vista, the file transfer progress bar usually fills really fast, and then hangs (a lot) right before the transfer is complete. I think it amounts to the same period of time.

But maybe you can answer me this... is it really necessary to install SP3? Since it's not known as a "critical update", it seems rather useless to do so.

Well , SP3 contains lots of critical updats, so I think it's neccesary to install.

@CrankTh3musicUP :)

XP Service Pack 3 contains about 1,073 patches/hotfixes. Of the 1,073 included updates, 114 are for security-related issues. The remainder are updates to performance & reliability, bugfixes, improvements to kernel-mode driver modules, and many BSOD fixes.

Windows XP SP3 adds the following:

1) New Activation Scheme (30 day usage without product license key without activation)
2) New Network Access Protection Module (NAP) for "enforcing compliance with system health requirements"
3) Black Hole Router Detection Algorithm
4) Microsoft Kernel Mode Cryptographics Module

Additional Notes:

1) XP SP3 will also support FIPS 140-1 Level 1 cryptography implemented as a DLL at kernel level, opening up new algorithms to developers via the Kernel Mode Cryptographic Module.

2) Network Access Protection module, which allows network administrators to establish policies that ensure each attached XP machine has a high enough health level. Health levels can be based on any combination of antivirus signatures, firewall and port settings, and the current update status of the PC according to Windows Update. When an XP machine attempts to contact the network, it must pass a health test. If the system fails, the network can prevent or restrict access.

3) When installing it replaces and backs up 2,848 files (456 MB) to C:\WINDOWS\$NtServicePackUninstall$
As before it also archives the SP3 itself in C:\WINDOWS\ServicePackFiles\i386 2,921 Files (552 MB).

For a list of fixes that are included in Windows XP Service Pack 3 go here:
www.support.microsoft.com/kb/946480/

Comments:

Windows XP with SP3 (except for Volume License Editions) will be tracking your hardware configuration in much the same way that Vista does, which could lead to your computer being disabled in the event that you change out fundamental components such as your motherboard or processor.

The hardware tracking in Vista and that's now going to be in XP SP3, is a real drag for people like me who use VMWare. Sometimes moving a VMWare image from one machine to another (One of the big benefits of VMWare), causes Windows to cry out for reactivation.

NAP is a policy compliance feature coming from Windows Server 2008. Basically, NAP use three different "enforcement" mechanisms. One is DHCP based. The client simply does not get a proper lease. One is IPsec based - the client does not get the proper material to negotiate IPsec security associations. And the third is 802.1x-based - the switch won't open the port to the correct network until the client is considered good.

As you can probably tell, the DHCP based "enforcement" is extremely weak. The user on the client, or some piece of malware, can simply configure a valid IP address and go to town on the network. 802.1x can be easily defeated by installing a hub in front of the switch, letting a legitimate client open the switch port, and then stealing the port by setting your MAC address on a rogue host on the same hub to the same address as the legitimate client. The IPsec enforcement is considerably more difficult to circumvent, but you can still do it by making the NAP client lie.

NAP still relies on the client to tell the Network Policy Server (NPS) what its state is. If the client lies, the NPS server has no way to know the difference, and will trust it. NAP does NOT provide "Secure Access Control" to the network and NAP cannot prevent malicious clients from getting on the network. NAP also cannot prevent a malicious client from communicating with any other computer on the network. I'll leave you to decided what you think about NAP... Anxiom, "asking the drunk if they are drunk".

WARNING:

1) Before installing the XP SP3 service pack on AMD CPU PC systems go to a command prompt and run: sc config intelppm start= disabled

2) There's also a compatibility issue between Microsoft Dynamics Retail Management System (RMS) and Windows XP SP3 as of June 03, 2008.

3) Adobe has confirmed that Version 9.0.115.0, included with XP SP3, is vulnerable to the ongoing attacks. Just update Adobe's Flash Player released April 8 to v9.0.124.0

Recommendations:

1) Before installing SP3, always backup your data (Acronis True Image Echo Workstation)!

2) There is also ISO-9660 CD image (different languages) for users who wish to create an update CD for Windows XP Service Pack 3, for example for offline installation by administrators here:

www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=2fcde6ce-b5fb-4488-8c50-fe22559d164e&DisplayLang=en

3) It's a good idea in this situation to disable any security software before installing SP3. If you do not, it is possible that you will get various kinds of corruption during the installation.

4) Also you'll need to reset the simultaneous incomplete outbound TCP connection attempts. As SP3 makes the default only 10 connections. It needs to be around 100 for bit torrent to work faster.

Message Edited by Fulong on 06-03-2008 05:54 PM

Fulong, great issue. Seems like making a nuclear strike when a man needs matches :robothappy:
In addition can say that you can integrate SP3 in distributive of XP (copy installation CD files to D:\XP and run SP3-update with key /integrate:D:\XP) and also can install SP3 without making this garbage of unnecessary old files that are backuped to make uninstall of SP3 - just run SP3 with key /n.

@skripatch :)

I'm sure there are many trying to install Windows XP Extended on Vista-Ready PC's. Customers should have easier options here, without having to resort to all of this.

Why doesn't Lenovo offer to pre-load Windows XP instead of Vista, being how it already provides all the Windows XP hardware drivers online? Unless this is because of Microsoft's unwillingness to provide product licenses for OEM???

An OEM Lenovo Windows XP Restore DVD with all the hardware drivers and software would have been nice for Lenovo customers I think who wanted XP instead. From what I understand customers already paid for this anyhow as Vista is considered an upgrade, right? lol

Didn't prior IBM ThinkPad provided their own software method of creating a backup image, right? So why hasn't Lenovo thought to provide this valuable utility unless they already do and I'm not aware? Thinking, as a total commitment to the customer experience, rather than as third party solutions, or even missing software or limited incomplete applications that would do the task simple, easy and efficient.

Anyhow, I sure hope it doesn't take a nuke here to get XP warming up! lol

No answer on theese questions since they are adressed Lenovo, and me is not Lenovo =)
Lenovo is a company, I'm a man.
Ask Lenovo. All my suggestions I said.
I hate Vista too, by the way.

@skripatch

I will also add, that in Windows XP which came out in 2001, still hasn't been fixed regarding the "mapping a network drive issue". Meaning, when you map a network drive, every time you boot that wireless only PC, it will complain with a popup stating the network drive couldn't be connected at this time. That's only because the bloody operating system checks before the wireless client has been connected. If I am not mistaken, the great new and better from the ground level up Vista, as Microsoft continues to recommend, still has this very same exact XP problem, right?

Just go to your Windows Explorer, right click over "My Computer" and then select "Map Network Drive", and then reboot to see the effects on a wireless only PC. Obviously RJ-45 Ethernet cable is going to be faster connecting as compared to a wireless client OS, thus why couldn't Microsoft provide a patch to confirm the wireless connection was up and running before performing the check?

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