Strange: Screen Blanks, HD stops when moved, but can recover

[gaiageek]

It's a 2373-1FU. The system runs fine, for days on end, when resting on a table top. When I pick it up, sometimes the screen goes blank (but still backlit) the HD activity lights stop and the system basically freezes (fan still whirring). If I'm lucky, I can move it again in just the right way that everything kicks back in (including music if it was playing) and the system seems to be fine except for some noise in the video, which is cleaned up by maximizing a window. It's quite odd in that everything goes dead for sometimes 10 seconds or more, but then I can get it back to life.

If I can't get it to come back to life, I power the system off by holding the power button for 5 seconds. If I try starting it back up again right away, the symptoms are the same: blank, backlit screen, no HD activity, no beeps - just a whirring fan. This is true regardless of whether I power it with AC or just battery. Removing both (no power source) and then plugging it in doesn't help. However, after 5 minutes powered off, it powers up just fine and will stay stable unless I move it again.

Tried different HDs. I was going to try hooking it up to an external monitor, but because the music is stopping when the screen blanks, I'm thinking it can't be a display issue.

It's not using the original power adapter, but the adapter is a genuine IBM adapter with the same 16V 4.5A specs, so I can't imagine that's the problem.

Any suggestions?

[richk]

Unfortunately, it means that the graphics chip's solder connections to the motherboard have failed. One of the "sticky" topics at the top of this forum covers the issue. The solution is a new motherboard.