Thinkpads Forum

This is odd, if I put my X220 to sleep it wakes up fine after a short period, all connections are available and Fn key works.
But if I keep it in sleep more than few hours (4-5hrs) while traveling, upon wake-up the connections are gone, wireless is disabled (as if switch is turned off) and the Fn key does not work. There is no way to enable the wireless or the Fn key, I tried everything, and I eventually have to restart.

This occurred after the mother board was replaced and I did not have this problem before.

Perhaps you need some of the Windows Install Supplements. Run Lenovo System Update 4 to see if there are any available.

Perhaps you need to update your BIOS. The latest update is currently version 1.22. I have 1.21 on my X220 and have not experienced your issue. Before that I had version 1.16 without issue. Version 1.04 had some issues on my X220 regarding standby.

Actually this started occurring after motherboard replacement. So there were no recent software changes.
I am running the same 1.20 that I was running before and I never had this problem. I wonder if there are updated drivers for the mother board or if I need to roll back.. This is odd..

I will run it and report back.

There are a lot of updates available! Including one for the wireless card:

I applied the wireless a/g/n update, bios update and intel chipset updates, non of these fixed the problem. This morning when I got to the office, it was the same.
Also I noticed that when I am using an external keyboard, anything that functions with Fn keys on the thinkpad does not work either (for example I cannot turn on/off num lock even using a USB keyboard.

Hi all, I just wanted to update that I am still having the problem as described in the first post, and after 3 phone calls and 3 remote sessions (pretty much same things were tried) they decided to try yet another dispatch and replace the main system board once again.
I think they rushed last time and shipped me a faulty system board...

Hyde,

Did you get your system back? I am curious to see if a new motherboard fixed your problem.

We see a lot of X220's that come to the desk and probably 20% of them have this problem. I have a hunch that it is the motherboard / wireless card.

Let me know

Thanks

Hi, I cannot believe it is that common, and Lenovo wasted all this time trying to "troubleshoot"...
Anyway, I have on-site warranty, so I am actually waiting for the part to arrive so they can dispatch a tech to replace the board in my office. I have to shut down and turn on everytime now, no more sleep for me..
I got an e-mail today, saying it is delayed.
Again, I have a suspicion that they used a faulty board to replace my old busted-USB board.

I can confirm that all bios / wireless drivers are up to date on the X220's. They have the intel wimax 6250 cards.

What led me to believe that it was hardware was when a customer comes to the desk with a hardware problem, we will take their HD out of their existing X220 and put it into the exact same spec X220 as a loaner so that there is no down time for them. When doing this there has been multiple occasions were they have come back saying that they have experienced this wireless problem on the loaner, but not on the machine they sent in for repair. Additionally we have one customer who we are currently working with that has the wireless problem on his existing machine, but when we put his HD into the loaner the wireless problem disappears. (The bios versions match for both the loaner and existing machines)

I read that it could be the way the networks are prioritized, but I have not had time to test it... doubt it would work though

Anyways as I said before, I will be curious to see if this fixes your machine. Just make sure you update your bios once you get it replaced because when we get ours back the bios is never updated.

John

The board is expected to arrive at tech tomorrow, and we will do the swap later tomorrow.
He said if I wanted he can specifically request a brand new motherboard instead of one that may have been remanufactured. He said he can tell once he gets the part, but since I don't want to delay this further, I will ask him to bring it in and replace it and then we will take it from there...
The USB ports are very tight and snug, I love it (compared to the original motherboard) and I hoping this replace will not bring back loose USB ports..
I will keep you posted.

Board is swapped, now it seems to work OK, but I have to wait for another lengthy sleep session to see if the issue is resolved,
however I have another problem now.. NO SOUND.
I checked everything when the tech was there, keyboard, USB, Fn Key, Wireless, etc.. I never thought of checking the sound, you figure if everything else is working, sound should be OK, but it is not.. I have no sound from speakers. The indicators showing the playback is fine, and the vol level is moving up and down, same with microphone, but no sound from speakers. I also had time/date problem, it was suddenly showing AM instead of PM. That's fixed now. Did the tech forget to plug in something?

It is possible that he forgot to connect the speakers, could also be another bad mobo. - lets hope not... Does anything show up in device manager? Have you updated all of your drivers to the latest version? You can run the thinkpad drivers and update utility they have on their site if you do not want to do your drivers manually.

Let me know.

Sound works fine via headphone jack, and the bars correspond to sound even though I don't hear anything from spakers when headphone is disconnected, so I assume hardware is fine. I texted him to come back and check before I call Lenovo, but he did not respond, so I have no choice but to call Lenovo tomorrow.

Bios is back to 1.19, I will upgrade it tomorrow when I get to office, but the interesting thing is that the Lenovo Update 4 is showing the latest BIOS as 1.21 even though the last one was showing 1.22. This is strange.

Hey Hyde,

Whats the verdict with the sound? Is the Tech coming back?

How is your wireless? Still experiencing the same problem?

Thats odd about your bios, I wonder if it is something that was saved on your HD from the previous spec.

John

Thinkvantage Tool Box is now showing 1.20
System Update 4 is showing latest available bios 1.21
Tech has not come back, asked me to open another ticket So I did, Lenovo said someone will call me back soon.

I have another problem, Left Fn, CNTR and Windows keys are clicking and travel deeper than other keys. While all other keys are whisper quiet, these three rattle and feel uncomfortable now. I did have a problem with Esc and F keys not registering until I hit dead center, but I had learned to live with it, but with this new issue, Lenovo said they would replace the keyboard as well. So maybe tech is waiting for a new keyboard. I don't know the previous tech did not attach it properly or broke something behind those keys. Does the palm rest above your express card supposed to feel empty when you tap on it? When I tap, I can hear metallic chime like two loose very thin plates.

Wireless is OK now, although for some reason it does not reconnect automatically to next access point when I move from one office to another, it just finds the network but waits for me to connect, even though connect automatically when within range is checked. I guess I can live with that.

edit: Tech just called me, the same guy, he will be here tomorrow pm.

Hey Hyde.

Sorry to hear about your keyboard. It does seem defective and you should not have to deal with something like that if its under warranty.

Thats odd about your wireless. If your wireless networks are set to connect automatically it should be connecting to the networks when they become available 10-15 seconds after you wake it up, or move there. Make sure that there is no other software controlling your wireless, take a look at programs and features and see if there is something that may also be related to wireless and remove it if you don't use it. Make sure you have an ethernet connection available, then uninstall / reinstall your wireless driver. Take a look at your network adapters in device manager and verify that you only have 1 adapter for wireless. After you have removed the driver, restart your computer when plugged into Ethernet and let windows load the generic driver. Or you can go to Lenovos website and download it directly. Let me know if that fixes it.

Also, (my personal opinion) remove Tool Box... It has caused more problems then it has fixed where I work, it also seems to bog the system down. I really haven't found a good reason for it yet...

When tapping where you had indicated it does not feel "hollow" on our X220's and I certainly don't hear any metallic chime. - I would say the tech needs to take a look at that.

John

Thanks John,
The tech came in and reviewed the wiring and reseated/plugged all the wires, the speakers (both of them) were mounted on a single bracket, held down with a single screw. I got my sound back.
He also removed the keyboard and re-installed it. It also may not have been seated, now I have no more travel on any of the three keys, they are also back to being whisper quiet. I don't have the hollow rattle/metallic click when I tap on top of Intel sticker above express card slot, unless I tap all the way at the edge of it, but that's really nothing it's just normal flex since there is nothing supporting it underneath.

Regarding the wireless, I removed my custom power profiles and set everything to default, with a minimum adjustment to CPU and brightness, and now wireless is picking up within few minutes of moving locations. I remember it being faster before, but I don't have any noticeable delay in reconnection.

Next step will be to upgrade the BIOS but unless I have no problem with fan noise, I rather stay where I am for now.

Great to hear things are finally getting back to order.

I have seen that wireless problem on an older X201 model laptop. I was able to fix it by removing all programs that would run the wireless card (in this case they had an intel wireless manager managing wireless) . Then I uninstalled their wireless driver and rebooted. After that it picked up wireless within 15 seconds of coming out of sleep.

John

I am not running Intel wireless, it is thinkpad b/g/n, and I don't see any programs managing it/running. Anyhow, I can finally order my dock now that it looks like I am going to be keeping my X220.

Very disturbing scene this morning... After I left my computer to sleep and went to bed myself around 1am last night, this morning at 11:30am I woke it up and logged in... The screen had the dreaded [1] with up arrow sign (indicating NumLock on) and the wireless was showing "no connections available" with a gray connection bars and red x.
Simply put, the same thing that the board swap was supposed to fix.

This is terrible. Does this mean it was not a hardware problem? Or could it be something else and not the system board?
I mean what else can affect both Num Lock to be active (and Fn key to stop working) and the wireless to malfunction like this? It's not that Fn key, it is the function of Fn key (since I have it swapped).