Sylvia,
thank you for your response.
I have the newest BIOS installed (Verson1.6.1).
My ThinkPad E540 came with Win7 64bit preinstalled. Here in Switzerland you can choose between Win7 and Win 8(.1).
As the machine is quite new (1 month) and I have only installed some common applications - like MS Office - but nothing exotic. So I'm skeptical that a reinstallation of the OS does help.
(a) At the Intel download site I found a newer graphics driver than the newest from Lenovo, that I have installed (Version 9.18.10.3272). Do you think the newer driver from Intel might help?
(b) I don't need remote management of my computer. Do I loose any local functionality, if I deinstall the Management Engine Interface? In the descriptions I found there are some vague hints about Wake-On-LAN, fan control, grafics, etc.
In fact, I could not find a clear statement what it does.
Thank you for your help !