T43 BSOD - ATI X300 related crashes

[gradas]

Hello all, I am a long time lurker here, posting for the first time.

I have my T43 for almost a year and it has been very good experience. Lately, it started to BSOD about once a day or so. I did not do whole a lot of investigation and re-imaged it to a factory default setting, since I had so many things loaded for school and did not need them any more.
After the reload I patched up the system to the current version (both from MS and Lenovo). Installed MS Office and thats about it. It BSOD'ed the same day!
Googling the error itself did not yield anything, so I installed the debugger and ran the minidump through it. It appears that BSOD is related to ati2dvag.dll file.

Anyone have seen this?
I can post exact hex code/minidump if it would help.

I am thinking about installing older ATI driver. Or a driver from ATI website, is that a good idea?

[GomJabbar]

Interestingly, I just saw a post in the T60 series forum where the OP noticed that Power Manager was N/A for his model T60/p. It turns out that all the ATI based T60's show Power Manager as being N/A. Power Manager is available for the GMA based T60's. Perhaps an incompatibility was discovered with the latest Power Manager and the ATI graphics adapters (or maybe just some of them). I do see that Power Manager is available for all the T43's.

So all the above is pure speculation on my part. Take it for what it's worth.

[gradas]

Laptop was services by IBM for this problem. They replaced system board and shipped it back to me. Same BSOD crash next day... I will be sending it again, but this is getting frustrating.

Is there a policy to replace the whole laptop after X attempts to fix the problem?

When I submit error data to MS it says that video driver thread was stuck (or caught in the infinite loop) and I should update driver. Driver is up to date...

[rabbarba]

Is there a policy to replace the whole laptop after X attempts to fix the problem?

Yes I actually think there is!
Talk to them and see.

[Ken Fox]

Is there a policy to replace the whole laptop after X attempts to fix the problem?

Yes I actually think there is!
Talk to them and see.

If they replaced the system board, there are only so many other hardware causes remaining that can cause blue screens.

I've had blue screen problems from time to time with various systems, although I don't remember having them often (maybe not at all) with either of my current Thinkpads both of which I've owned for about a year and a half.

The hardware related blue screens I've had have to the best of my recollection been due to bad optical drives. The majority of blue screen problems I've had on all systems have been SOFTWARE related. The fact that you have had your system board replaced and you still have the problem suggests to me that (most likely) the cause in your case is also software related.

Have you considered looking at your ATI driver version numbers and trying to find out if Lenovo has TP compatible versions that are more current than the one you are using? Perhaps if you uninstall your current drivers (if they are old) and replace them with the more recent ones, if there are any, you will find that your problem will go away.

[gradas]

What makes me think it is HW related:
1. HDD was wiped to factory default state and had the same BSOD 2 hours later.
2. ATI driver is the most recent through software updater and whats on the website, verified with tech support regarding driver version number.
3. I tried older ATI driver with no success.

[Ken Fox]

What makes me think it is HW related:
1. HDD was wiped to factory default state and had the same BSOD 2 hours later.
2. ATI driver is the most recent through software updater and whats on the website, verified with tech support regarding driver version number.
3. I tried older ATI driver with no success.

given the factory Hard drive state, I'm inclined to agree with you that most likely it is the hardware. But the majority of the hardware is on the mobo, and if that has been replaced it doesn't leave that many more things.

Fortunately, I've not had to deal with this sort of thing in a notebook. My most vivid memory on a desktop system was one I was building two years ago that I never could sort out what was the problem. After RMA'ing the video card and the mobo, it continued. In the end, after a month, I called up Newegg and told them I couldn't sort it out and sent them back all the pieces, paid a restocking charge, and started over. No problems since.

Sometimes this sort of stuff is just not worth your time.