ram/motherboard problem

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thedonnybrook · #1 Post by **thedonnybrook** » Sun Sep 25, 2005 12:28 pm

So before i got my t42p, i purchased a gig stick of Curcial RAM. After recieving the machine, i installed the part, and the computer worked fine for about two weeks. Then, thursday night, while i was in teh middle of working on a paper, and had been using the machine for about 8 hours straight, the screen froze, blinked, and windows crashed. After a hard restart, everything seemed to work fine for about 10 min, then the same thing. Eventually i got an error that said my graphics driver was bad, followed by a memory dump, and a similar frozen screen from before. Now when i boot the machine, it won't always get to bios, and when it does, it only gets to the windows xp start-up splash screen.

I called IBM, since its under warranty, and told them the problem. The tech guy said it was the motherboard, specifically the ram slot where i put the Crucial ram.

Has anyone ever heard of a third party ram chip crashing a motherboard like this?

DIGITALgimpus · #2 Post by **DIGITALgimpus** » Sun Sep 25, 2005 5:23 pm

Bad ram can do just about anything.

Try removing that stick, and see what happens. If it goes away, then it's the RAM, if not, it's something else (likely needs to go in for service).

thedonnybrook · #3 Post by **thedonnybrook** » Sun Sep 25, 2005 5:32 pm

yeah, i took the stick out, and had the same problem. i guess i am trying to figure out whether it was the ram that broke the motherboard, requiring me to get ibm ram, or whether i can use that stick when it comes back from being serviced. I had that ram in another computer before putting it in the ibm and never had a problem.

DIGITALgimpus · #4 Post by **DIGITALgimpus** » Sun Sep 25, 2005 9:01 pm

I've never heard of RAM causing a problem on the motherboard. The only way I could even conceive of that is a short circuit or something along those lines. But typically if the RAM doesn't check out at least somewhat OK, the BIOS rejects it and you find out on boot. Unfortunately, IBM's BIOS is pretty lax (not as bad as Dell, but still lax compared to Apple, as Mac's reject anything that isn't perfect).

I'd call IBM about a system board replacement.

thedonnybrook · #5 Post by **thedonnybrook** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 3:17 pm

its going in for a new board today, but i think its going to a repair depot, so i hope i get it back before the end of the year. notwithstanding, the expansion slot didn't appear to have any shorts, and the only thing i can think of is the other ram and slot is causing the problem, or the graphics card because one of the first errors i recieved was becasue of a corrupt video driver. still seems odd that the crucial ram chip, which was new, would cause the problem. guess i will find out for sure if and when i get a call from the guys fixing it. Thanks for the input.

smadnell · #6 Post by **smadnell** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 6:26 pm

Oh come on guys! I'm surprised there weren't thousands of people jumping to post at this one. It's not the ram.

The company I support has about 200 T4x's and it seems like eventually they will all go back to IBM for motherboard replacement.

Thedonnybrook, our T4x's have the exact same problem and except for the T30's bad ram slot issue, it's got to be the most common one we've seen.

I'm so glad to see someone else with this issue. First you start noticing an ATI error popup, not long after that comes the random/chronic BSOD. Sometimes you don't even get a BSOD, for some users it just crashes if they breathe on it.

When I call IBM, I don't even describe it anymore, i just say the ATI/Motherboard problem and they know exactly what i'm talking about.

I never heard a good description of what causes the it but, they must know what it is. Fortunately, their turnaround time is great, always less than a week.

Good luck with the replacement board!

Steve

Kenn · #7 Post by **Kenn** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 6:33 pm

I never had an ATI-specific problem, but I have had a motherboard problem that prevented the machine from posting 9 times out of 10, and every so often when it did, it would lock up if you moved it at all (or played with the LCD hinge). Funny thing was, the problem was NOT with either the LCD, video-out port, or APS.

After a motherboard replacement a few months ago, everything seems OK now...fingers crossed!

#8 Post by **GomJabbar** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 7:55 pm

smadnell wrote:Oh come on guys! I'm surprised there weren't thousands of people jumping to post at this one. It's not the ram.

The company I support has about 200 T4x's and it seems like eventually they will all go back to IBM for motherboard replacement.

Thedonnybrook, our T4x's have the exact same problem and except for the T30's bad ram slot issue, it's got to be the most common one we've seen.

I'm so glad to see someone else with this issue.

Seems like you're extrapolating alot. If thousands, hundreds, or even tens have not responded on this forum with simular or identical experiences, the problem must not be quite as common as you indicate. Your own comment: "I'm so glad to see someone else with this issue" seems to imply you have been searching without much success for others with this problem. I see this is your 1st post here. Have you searched this forum successfully for a number of others with this problem? There are over 7000 members listed on this forum, and I venture to guess that over half have a T4x ThinkPad.

You say that the company you support has about 200 T4x's, but you didn't say how many of those 200 have actually had this problem. It's certainly possible that your company and the OP purchased from a 'Lot' that has had problems with this issue. The T4x motherboards come in a variety of flavors. Likely not many of them are affected with this problem.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that the problem you describe is extremely rare, just that it hasn't seemed to have shown it's ugly head with too many of the members, here on this forum.

thedonnybrook · #9 Post by **thedonnybrook** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 10:20 pm

glad to know its not the ram, keep me from having to drop another $130 on ibm specific repalcements. i hope the turnaround is as good as you say, i really need this machine, my spare can't keep up. thanks again.

smadnell · #10 Post by **smadnell** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 11:08 pm

You're right GomJabbar, maybe I jumped the gun with that comment. I haven't really been searching for validation though, too busy filling out depot forms.

It's really just out of curiosity anyway, I already know the solution and it comes in the form of a DHL/Airborne delivery guy.

I would guess we sent about 10 T4x's to IBM for similar problems last month. I don't know what the totals are but, it get's worse each month as they get older (our oldest T40's are about 20 months old). I wish I could blame it all on a bad lot but, the T4x's were purchased about 10 at a time across 22 months.

You're also correct in that this doesn't appear to be an overwhelming problem among members but, I did find some threads that were getting close, "Could be something weird in the video drivers causing the blues-screen" sort of thing but, none as dead on as this one. I did find all of the other problems we've had scattered across the forums, things like what Kenn posted (been there too man, DEPOT!). For example, Kenn's problem is very similar to this one (http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=14965), We see this maybe 3 or 4 times a month. Today I opened up another box from IBM depot and the thing acted like that right out of the box! Anyway, After this one I avoided the urge to post replies just to show the guy he's not alone. Problem is, once you get past all the usual replies (memory, heat, blah, blah, blah) it usually ends up in the same place- "Welcome to IBM remote support in Atlanta, GA!"

Here's one that sums it up: (http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=5438). Now if someone would just post to that thread with "Don't bother troubleshooting it's THE ATI/Motherboard problem."

Hey here's another group of lost souls, http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=1819

So, in the end I did learn something very useful as a result of your suggestion to search the forums. I found out that other members have been getting new laptops as replacements for machines that got depot'ed 3 times for the system board. No joke, that means we should have about 30 new laptops coming in soon, plus about 2 a month until warranties start running out!

Thanks for listening, I'll put away my tissue box now.

Wait!!! This is perfect and I swear it's true. As I was writing this reply I got an email saying "Deude, this thing keeps crashing because of some ATI driver issue..."

ram/motherboard problem

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