My T42 ain't doin' so good.

[fafaforza]

Hi guys, I'm having trouble booting my T42.

All day Sunday it was working fine; no issues at all. Wasn't dropped. Wasn't banged. It was sitting on a desk all day.

Monday I come into work. An hour in, all of a sudden every time I touch the case, the display flickers. If I press lightly above the HD, it flickers.

It began to get progressively worse where it wouldn't stop flickering, making all kinds of different patterns, etc. At one point, I had to twist either side in opposite direction, just slightly, to get a picture.

The OS appeared to be having issues, also. It seemed to freeze for a minute or two, then got the message from Winders that the display driver wasn't responding.

I rebooted.

Now I'm having serious issues booting up. If I leave it off for a while, Windows appears to boot up, but as the point that the logon scren would have come up, the LCD turns off and all other lights on the panel (below the LCD) turn off, except the sideways Z within the circle.

No HD activity light. Nothing.

So I reboot, and if I boot the machine up right away, I don't even get the IBM BIOS screen. Only the sideways Z. Only way for me to at least see Windows loading is to leave it off for a few minutes.

It isn't an OS issue, because I tried booting up with Fedora Core and the same happens. This time, the read light on the CDROM drive becomes solid, and the same situation on the panel lights as above.


Does anyone have any idea what could be causing this? The obvious answer would be a loose connector. Or a short somewhere.

The machine is out of warranty, so I'm looking at $100/hour plus parts. Hoping to fix it myself if possible.

Any insight on what I would be looking for inside the case?

[K. Eng]

After reading this, my first reaction is that your graphics processor has gone bad. My T40's Radeon 7500 blew out last year, and when it went, it gave the same errors and then would not boot.

Certainly check for loose connections first. A system board replacement, if necessary, will unfortunately be very expensive.

The OS appeared to be having issues, also. It seemed to freeze for a minute or two, then got the message from Winders that the display driver wasn't responding.

[fafaforza]

I guess that checking for loose plugs is all I can do. I'd have to take it to a specialist for them to figure out what went.

Just saw that a replacement board is around $850. Ouch! Used T42s go for around $1000 on ebay nowadays. It is really close to being considered totaled.

[kyrotech]

Your problem is indeed the video card is damaged, must replace system board.

You can get a T42 replacement system board FRU 39T5448
(gigabit lan, radeon 7500 32, hdd protection, security chip) under $500

Not that hard to install, just download the HMM for ThinkPads T42

[fafaforza]

I've noted a few topics about T42 boards failing after about a year, so in retrospect an extended warranty would have been good to have.

Does any place offer a warranty on the system board? IBM direct probably could offer this, but I am doubtful of other online retailers.

I saw a refurbished board for $150. I suppose it isn't that bad of a deal.

[smadnell]

As fafaforza mentioned, this is becoming more and more common. I passed by 5 similar topics since this one. Here's the latest one: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 948#117948

[stangri]

I saw a refurbished board for $150. I suppose it isn't that bad of a deal.

where?