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Category Archives: Lenovo

[Solved] Lenovo Ideapad Wireless Bug

Hung on the phone for a total of four hours with Lenovo, but heck I got an answer. My wireless was not talking to my Lenovo Ideapads any more, yet it was communicating just fine with my Dell and my Lenovo Thinkpad. All were running various versions of Windows 7.

Ralph, in the Philippines, determined that this is a Windows problem, but he hung with me the whole time to figure out a workaround.

Hopefully, Lenovo will dish out this answer in the first hour the next time someone calls, not the fourth hour, thanks to Ralph for figuring it out.

So here goes:

The problem

Linksys E3000 router always worked just fine with Lenovo desktops, Lenovo laptops, Lenovo Ideapads, and a Dell. Suddenly on December 12, the wireless on the four Ideapads seemed not to work any more. After a lot of mucking, the situation got worse, in that four of our Ideapads could not also connect by Ethernet. Now I had two doorstops, and two others that could only connect wired.

Curiously, my Verizon Wifi did work. This led me, and the Lenovo guy, to believe it’s not a hardware problem.

I tried

I tried everything I could find from a google search, but none of these worked:

  1. Uninstall Lenovo Ready Com 5
  2. System Restore
  3. One Key Recovery
  4. Update device driver
  5. Change encryption type
  6. Stopping and starting the WLAN services using services. msc
  7. Changing the router channels
  8. Flash bios
  9. Update Intel Chipset Driver (the wireless card is on the motherboard, so maybe this was not unreasonable)

A misleading event

The first time I tried a Lenovo OneKey Recovery, the wireless came back, not just on the one Ideapad on which I did the recovery, but all four. This made no sense. After more mucking, I lost the wireless again, and it did not come back after another OneKey Recovery. This was a spurious event.

A misleading solution

Windows allows a connection through the MAC address. A MAC address is used by games such as Playstation or Xbox. The MAC address of each laptop can be hard-coded into the router’s configuration. Doing so will override whatever the Windows 7 problem is. Lenovo could go no further, but they are to be applauded for taking it this far.

On one of the Ideapads, I did this:

  1. cmd->(admin mode)->ipconfig /all
  2. look for wireless lan
  3. find the physical address and write it down
  4. go into the control panel for the router
  5. choose the wireless tab, then wireless MAC filter
  6. under MAC Address Filter List, type in the MAC address
  7. repeat for the next laptop (find the MAC address, then type it into the router’s control panel)

Reboot everything

The wireless now worked. Ralph from Lenovo thinks that a MAC address can always be used. So even though it’s a workaround, it can be a long-term one.


But the next day…

The next day, the ideapads couldn’t see the wireless again. Lenovo was perplexed. So I decided to introduce a change by switching routers. I bought a NetGear N600. It worked. SOLVED

The autopsy

I noticed that the netgear suggested two different router names (SSID’s). One name is for the 2.4GHz and the other is for 5GHz. I hadn’t made the distinction before on the Linksys. So I went with netgear’s example, and assigned two different names.

Bang! The ideapads seem to only find the 2.4GHz connection, while the Thinkpad found both frequencies.

My theory as to what might have happened: On the Linksys, the 5GHz frequency was maybe not working? This is over my head, but I’m just using pure logic. it doesn’t explain some of the spurious events, though.

Oh and the Netgear was cheap. See the ad above.

Lenovo X300 battery erratically charges

Lenvo Battery Solution

Lenovo X300 battery was sometimes stopping at 55% or some other random number; other times it was charging fully.

I tried all these things:

  1. Run Lenovo system update, and of course Windows Update
  2. Ensure that BIOS was up to date (it was)
  3. Drain battery to 20%, then charge
  4. Change the charge thresholds: Lenovo Power Manager-> battery info tab->battery maintenance->custom->enter preferred values of 85% to 95%. Do this for the secondary battery too, if there is one.
  5. Hard reset of bios

How to do the hard reset of bios:

  1. Enter bios setup on boot, by pressing F1
  2. Write down any and all custom settings (to restore later)
  3. Shut down laptop and unplug everything
  4. Using an anti-static wrist strap, turn the laptop over, and open the memory module cover (This requires removing the keyboard — see the handy Lenovo videos to find out how. It’s pretty easy.)
  5. Find the small coin cell with wires and plub
  6. Carefully unplug the wire
  7. Leave it unplugged fora few minutes
  8. Plug back in
  9. Turn on laptop again
  10. Enter bios setup, reset the custom bios settings, also reset the date and time
  11. Find ways to keep the laptop cool. That’s a post for another day.

Now it remains to be seen whether the external battery and the bay battery keep their charge consistently. They should max out at 95%.

My research shows that a battery that gets too hot can stop charging. It is generally advised to keep a battery cool whenever possible. Cooling may be a remedy to the erratic charging limits I’ve seen.

When you need your Lenovo motherboard replaced

About to send your Lenovo laptop to the shop to get the motherboard replaced? Find a way to send a love note along to remind the teks to update the serial number. You WILL care and they’re SUPPOSED to do it.

I sent my Lenovo laptop recently, still under warranty, to replace a fried motherboard.

When it was returned to me, Thinkvantage Toolbox reported my system model as invalid. But the problem was broader than Toolbox.

I discovered that the “system model” was trashed. When I typed “system information” in the search box, or navigated to the system tool, I found that the system model was INVALID. This can’t be good.

Worse, when I reported the problem to Lenovo, they told me I needed to reinstall my operating system. So I did that.

But then my laptop, an S10-3T, could not longer recognize its network adapter. Great. I had a new OS, but no means to connect.

And when I called Lenovo again, they told me they could not have said such a thing about reinstalling. They told me that I had now violated my warranty by installing an operating system from a disk. Unfortunately, I hadn’t saved my ticket number to prove that they were the ones who told me to do that.

They were now saying I had to pay to get it fixed because I had violated my warranty. They directed me to their “premium services,” which means you pay.

When I called their “premium services” line to pay to get it fixed, the tek there told me to hit the “one key recovery button,” which would reinstalling the original manufacturer’s installation and would also reinstate my warranty. So glad someone told me. I was supposed to know?

So I did that. Everything restored. However, I still had the problem of the INVALID system model.

So I had to pack up my laptop and send it back to their repair “Depot” in Gainesville, the very same guys who forgot to update the serial number in the first place. We’ll see if they get it right this time.

They told me there was nothing wrong with my computer and sent it back to me.

So I escalated the issue to their technical people in North Carolina. After some back and forths, they figured out how to fix my computer. It is my hunch that the Ideapad arrived into the world with some problems, which Lenovo is now trying to fix. In the end, Lenovo has redeemed itself.

After all, their hardware, software, and service are still better than that of their competitors.

I continue to try loving Lenovo. Irrational? Maybe. But the alternative is unthinkable.