T42, 14.1 screen problem and hard drive ticking sound

[jdrake]

First time thinkpad owner and I'm a little concerned about a few things, hoping you can help me out. The first T42 I received had 2 bad pixels AND an annoying discoloration of the top 1/8 of the screen when IE is open (or my computer or anything else that opens in an explorer-type window). I thought the problems may be related and shipped the laptop back.

The replacement has no bad pixels, but the same problem with IE. I can't describe it well, but the entire width of the screen has hundreds of rectangles (average of maybe 10 pixels tall and 3 wide) that makes the grey IE background and buttons at the top part of the screen varying colors from almost white to grey to pink. This does not appear to be a problem on other programs, and if I shrink the window size, the problem shifts so the top of the screen is fine and the IE window remains distorted...so maybe it's not a problem with the thinkpad; however I've had four other laptops and obviously have used hundred of computers and have never seen this before. As I tilt the screen back, the problem gets worse. Thanks for any assistance!

Also, my second thinkpad has a very annoying, but soft ticking sound from the hard drive...I've read on this board that this is a relatively common issue (not a 'problem') but hopefully it will become less noticable.

[eriqesque]

The discolorations:
Check your color depth in the display properties
make sure it's at 32bit should take care of the problem.

The ticking sound:
This is normal and will get better and should go away after a while a use. It is beleived that it is XP sorting out the boot files for a faster load time.

[jdrake]

Thanks, you were right; I changed color setting from 16bit to 32bit and the problem was solved. Sorry to bring this problem to the thinkpad forum, as it clearly wasn't a problem with the laptop...I just couldn't find the solution anywhere else. After this little issue was resolved, I couldn't be happier with the laptop. Very sturdy, sharp and fast!

[eriqesque]

No worries
It's never a problem to ask a question.

[Flightvector]

Yeah, the ticking sound is quite common to the T42 and apparently not an issue. I have heard people hypothesize that it is some HDD optimization or something of a similar sort. The first few days had the ticking going for a while, but having had it for two weeks, I can still hear it from time to time but for the most part it has stopped doing this. I can't distinctly remember the last time it did this for me, so it is a lot rarer now.

Don't confuse this with the normal sound of the HDD when loading or working however. The ticking I suppose you are hearing is a soft tick about once per second (sort of clock-like). Here is the post that refers to the issue: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... highlight=