System board failure...undervolting the cause?

[eri7154798]

About a month ago, my T42p flickered and died...I called IBM, sent in the laptop, and got it back telling me they replaced a bad planar board. Not bad...service was fast and efficient.

Now, my computer is starting to exhibit the same symptoms that occured two days before my first planar board had died...If I agitate the computer(pick it up, close the lid, and run/walk around with it) while being on, the screen will flicker and go blank, the power and battery light will still be on, and nothing else will respond. I'm about ready to call up IBM again to have them replace yet ANOTHER board...which seems like a lot of bad coincidental problems. In fact, another user had started a thread about his system board failing, which can be found here--> http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=17858

Now, I don't want my board going south again on me once I get it replaced for the second time...so I was wondering if undervolting could quite possibly be damaging my system board.

I undervolt with CHC, tested the threshold voltages with Prime95 for at least 8 hours for each multiplier(6,8,10,12,14,16, and 18), and then set the voltages one step higher to guard against any voltage dips that might send the computer into the BSOD.
I do also run my computer often...like, leaving it on for several hours at a time, carry it all of campus with me, little bumps and tumbles in my backpack(never dropped onto a floor though), and I havn't played any crazy video intensive games on the second planar board. Lots of normal things that should occur to a laptop.

[christopher_wolf]

Undervolting, I am 99% sure, shouldn't cause that kind of problem. If it did cause some problem, it would affect the CPU and definitely not affect the system board as a whole. It does seem like a repeat of that old system board problem. I have undervolted for about one week with a perfectly stable system, no problems; I ran PC Doctor in both Windows and DOS and found no problems. You might want to run PC Doctor on your system and see if it is the system board again.

[Kenn]

That sounds a LOT like what happened to my system board last year (right before finals, too). If I was very quiet and polite (and if I took out the battery and drained the capacitors, maybe plug in an external monitor), I could boot it up. But if I moved the system or touched the screen, the video would corrupt and everything would freeze, and I wouldn't be able to reboot until I drained it again. IBM thought it was a video cable or LCD problem and I had to call a few times to convince them otherwise.

System board replacement fixed the problem, and it hasn't happened since (fingers crossed).

From what I hear, it's a fairly "common" problem in that it's been referred to on here several times.

And as to the point of posting, I wasn't undervolting back then, but I am now to 1.132/0.700 and have had no problems.

[christopher_wolf]

Oh...Finals....That could be one of those thingys I blocked out for 3 hours on the calendar for tomorrow.

Just curious, wouldn't PC Doctor detect a Problem with the System Board? Or is this similar to the concept of a loose connection where it only pops up certain times but not others and, when it does, it completely blows everything away until a reboot?

[eri7154798]

So I've run PC Doctor, no system board issues. However, the problem was still occuring..and so I decided to call IBM support. I told the person how my planar board had died before, and this time this board was starting to exhibit the same problems. The guy then told me that this problem occurs quite often, and depends on user to user. He told me that I would have to reset my memory(RAM)...by just merely taking out the chip, then reinserting it. THis worked, and so far I hope it keeps working. He also told me that there are alot of people who think that their system boards are fried, and get them replaced, when really their RAM just has to be reset. This is due to the fact that the RAM chips can get moved around due to vibration...and thus the connections don't match as well...so I guess it does wacky things.

Now, I'm pretty sure my RAM is stuck in place pretty securely...so I was wondering if anyone had any programs I could use to test my RAM for issues(I have IBM stock 512 mb RAM, and then Kingston 1 gb RAM that I bought myself(newegg.com)).

[beeblebrox]

1.) No car got ever damaged when it ran out of gasoline. So undervolting is perfectly safe. Overvolting and overclocking kills, on the other hand.

2.) Contacs are just contacts. They erode, oxidise and more. Oxidation is invisible, just a layer of few atoms. If you have gold contacts, just use a eraser, rubber, etc. and clean it.
That's why high integration is the only solution to this. The less contacts and movable parts the more reliable a system is.

[kc]

Funny this post should appear this morning. I just received my t42 2378 back from EZServ. Fix: replaced planar board. I can't tell whether my problem was unique or related to the above.

About a week ago, the case cracked on the front of the laptop right in front of the right select button nearest the edge of the case. A few days later, I picked up the open Thinkpad with one hand by gripping the front right side (over the IBM logo). Next thing: screen flickered, went intermittent and ultimately froze. I rebooted and developed all the symptoms described previously, including finding that video performance reappeared when pressure was placed to the right of the touchpad. Thus, off to warranty repair.

In my case, I surmise that the board "failed" due to flex induced by the crack and the force of picking it up on one side. I wonder if this generalizes into other people's experiences.

Hope this helps.

[eri7154798]

Is it really safe to clean gold contacts with rubber? I was always taught not to touch...but I'm not sure. I did try spraying my contacts with compressed air...but I highly doubt that'd remove any oxidation that is stuck onto the contacts themselves.