t41 not-so-random freezes

[thequackdaddy]

I have a t41 that has worked wonderfully.... up until the past month or so.

Anyway, every once in a while, the screen will fritz out and the laptop will just freeze... completely... I can increase the chances that it will fritz out by pickup up and moving the laptop. What will happen is the screen will will have like 2 or 3 lines of "static" appear, and the image will just get stuck... and the laptop will just freeze.

To top it off--and I swear this is happening--is that sometimes it won't turn back on. I can push the power on off on off... repeat... and the screen will just be blank. To get the computer to turn on, I have to firmly push down on the case just to the right of the touchpad during the entire boot. If I hold that down during the entire boot, it boots to like it was and no problems... If I don't hold my hand firmly on the case to the righ of the touchpad, it won't boot or freeze during boot. It will then run fine until I move it or it just decides to fritz out again.

The frustrating part is that I can't seem to find any problem when I run the diagnostics. No problems at all are found. The cpu temperature seems pretty low... I have a feeling there is something going wrong with the power. From my limited computing knowledge, that would suggest the easy way to fix this is to buy a new motherboard. Of course, that is very expensive. (yes, I got suckered into a refurbished one only to realize the warranty is now expired)

Anyways, is there an in-depth way to figure out what the problem is and if so, a cheap way to fix it?

Thanks!

[noghri]

I've got good news and bad news. The good news is that this is a known issue. The bad news is that its not cheap. There may be several causes for this, but more than likely you have a flex issue. What happens is that the system components flex when you move the computer around. If you tend to pick your T4x up with one hand, particularly the lower right side of the base, the motherboard tends to flex with some damage in the area of the graphics chipset (broken solder contacts, maybe?). Unfortunately if this is the case the only fix is a motherboard replacement- generally not particularly cheap. If your out of warranty IBM will do it for around $400. If you're still in warranty it should be a covered fix. I've got this problem on the T40 I'm typing this on right now- my temporary solution is to leave it in the same place and try *really* hard not to move it until I get my T42p back from EZServ, etc.

[noghri]

One other thing- the reason why this is an intermittent problem is in many cases because some trace or contact is only partially broken, so if the laptop is in one particular position, the stress (or lack thereof) will hold the contact together, and as long as it remains together the machine will function perfectly. However as soon as the case is moved to a position (and it may not be a large move at all) it can seperate the contact, which, in my experience is something that causes an immediate freeze. Sometimes the screen will go black (backlight still on) but if you move the PC a bit you will see some flickering and the image will return at the time of the "error", frozen of course. Whatever it is that is disconnected (I'm again generalizing from my experience) prevents the system from POSTing- it will power on and the LCD will light but that's it. To (temporarily) fix this, try turning the machine off, moving it around a bit, (picking it up, moving the screen) and then rebooting. As long as the contact is still partial, you'll eventually find a position that will allow POST. The trick then is not to move it once it boots. FYI- this problem generally gets worse as the contact moves around. I'd highly suggest preparing for service because eventually you may not get it to boot.

[thequackdaddy]

Specifically, the it not being cheap part.

I might call them up and see what I can do. $400 is still cheaper than what I was expecting...

Where is the contact? I have an adventerous friend who is an expert and soldering... if it's not that difficult I would be willing to risk it...

Thanks!