Thinkpads Forum

I have an IBM Thinkpad R52 with a strange problem. It boots normally into windows, is responsive and works fine at first. Then it appears to freeze but will be unfrozen by me placing a bit of pressure on the mousepad or mouse ball thing on the keyboard. As soon as I remove that pressure it locks up again like I am pausing a video.

I am also getting a message that there is a power surge at the USB port and to disconnect the device, but nothing is plugged in. Wireless internet appears to be going up and down as well but that could be because the computer isn't communicating when it freezes.

I had a problem the other day where the computer completely died and wouldn't power up at all, not even the battery LED. I opened the case and plugged a loose connector in, it is attached to the part of the case that lifts off on a little ribbon of some sort and has a piece of foam on top. This has allowed me to get back into windows but the problem still exists.

Hey, welcome to the forum. Too bad it's with such a problem.

What is the type number of your R52? Let me guess, it has an ATI graphics adapter, right? Search the forum for re-ball and/or re-flow of the graphics adapter, and you will see that this is, sadly, a rather common problem with ATI graphics chips.

Or, another thing it could be is a Southbridge problem similar to what the ATI graphics chips.

You could remove the keyboard, and put a little pressure on the graphics chip and then the southbridge chip and see exactly which one is giving you the problem. Either way the fix is similar. Reflow the faulty solder.

Yea I have the ATI chip in it. So this is almost definitely faulty solder then? I'm wondering if I could just solder it myself...

Some have been successful re-flowing their own solder joints. I tried it once, and failed. Destroyed the motherboard. It wasn't a big loss since it didn't work very well at all anyway. Here is the forum thread about how to DIY: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... t=heat+gun

One other possibility is that the hard drive connection is loose or has some other problem, this was the case with my R31 and it had the exact problem (freezing without pressure) that you described. I had to very carefully unbend a few pins and clean out some dust, and now it seems to work fine.

My R31 doesn't have ATI graphics, btw.