Lenovo Ideapad 530s Random Freezes in Windows 10

Simptoms

While using Windows 10 sometimes the touchpad and keyboard stops working or the entire laptops seems to freeze for a few seconds, sometimes up to a minute, and then resumes as if nothing had happened.

This can be caused by the poor implementation of the Panel Self-Refresh feature offered by the integrated Intel Graphics.

Solution

Disable the Panel Self-Refresh option in Intel Graphics settings.

1. Right click on the desktop and select Intel Graphics Settings

2. In the Intel Graphics Control Panel window, click on Power

3. On the left-hand side select On Battery.

4. For the Panel Self-Refresh option select Disable

5. Disable this option also for the Plugged In profile

Asus Transformer Book T300LA Trusted Platform Module (TPM) confirmation

Simptoms

You are asked to confirm a change in the TPM configuration on an Asus Transformer Book T300LA laptop with a message similar to:

"A configuration change was requested to clear this computer's TPM (Trusted Platform Module)

WARNING: Clearing erases information stored on the TPM. You will lose all created keys and access to data encrypted by those keys.

Press F12 to clear the TPM

Press ESC to reject this change request and continue"

Unfortunately, the keyboard does not seem to respond, the F12 and ESC keys are not working. USB keyboards are also useless.

Turning the device off and on also comes back to this message. There is no way to get rid of this message without confirming or rejecting it.

The root cause of this is that the TPM uses a special restricted startup mode to display this message in which all non-essential devices are disabled. For the Asus T300LA this includes the USB ports, and the wireless keyboard.

Solution

Force the laptop to enable the USB ports and keyboard on startup by using the direct USB booting method (Power button + Volume Up key combination).

1. Turn off the device

2. Press the Volume Up button and keep it pressed until the TPM message appears

3. Turn on the device

A small hourglass will appear in the center of the screen, and the text will probably look a bit larger than usual.

The standard wireless keyboard should now be enabled, and you can confirm or reject the TPM message with the F12 or ESC keys.

Note: For this to work you might need to be running BIOS version 206 or newer

Dell Vostro A860 slow network in Windows XP

Simptoms

Copying files from the network is very slow on the Vostro A860 under Windows XP. This laptop is based on the Realtek RTL8102EL chip.

Solution

Set the MTU (Maximum Transmit Unit) for the LAN card to a lower value.

In order to change the MTU under Windows XP:

1. Open the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces

2. Indentify the subkey that matches your network adapter. To do this, open each subkey and check on the right for the corresponding IP address.

3. Under the correct subkey, create a new DWORD value named MTU with the value 1400 (decimal).

4. Reboot

XYZ setup is running very slow and eating up all the CPU

Simptoms

The setup of an application is running very slow and is eating up all the CPU

Solution

Try minimizing the setup window to the taskbar. Apparently some setup programs are so "great" that they use all the CPU time to display the progress bar.

Till now, I have encountered this behaviour on the following setup programs:

IBM DB2 8.2 Content Manager under Windows XP

Microsoft Expression Studio 3 under Windows XP, running in a virtual machine