T40 Bluescreens and Reboots Randomly

[SebastianProoth]

Hello all,

I don't usually resort to asking for help but this one has me stumped.

I have an IBM Thinkpad T40 - 2374 with 1024MB DDR. I have installed the latest BIOS, video drivers and Windows updates. The system is running XP Professional.

The problem is intermitent. Sometimes for no apparent reason the system will reboot or blue screen. It seems to blue screen more when watching videos in Windows Media Player or other player app. Yesterday it blue screened twice when I made it go full screen so I decided to make it do it on purpose and read the message and it didn't do it again. It did however do it when I had it on full screen and I used the keyboard volume control.

As you can see this has something to do with the video/sound and I am just confused as to what.

I have researched the problem and found things similar but not identical. I am hoping that one of the experts here knows exactly what is wrong and its not that my system is totally broken!

I read somewhere to try reseating the RAM. I am going to shut down and do that now. But other than that...HELP!

[FTC]

Hi,

I would say it's either a bad memory dimm or the 'loose GPU' known problem, where one of the 'pins' (really balls) of the graphics processor fails intermittently after few working years due to flexing of the unit and/or too many heat/cold cycles. If this is the case then the solutions are either to change the system board (expensive) or to reflow the GPU chip (quite risky and a quite a bit of work also).

So I'd try to determine first the cause. To check memory, you can use one of the available tests like memtest or so.. or try to swap and/or reseat the modules. To see if you have the GPU problem, you should try to add some pressure to the GPU and see if this improves things (suggested methods have been adding a small blok of 'post-its' between GPU and keyboard, or a pencil rubber cut to the needed size...

You can find a few of threads devoted to the GPU problem by using the 'search' function within this forum..

[GomJabbar]

To me it sounds like one of your chips is overheating - likely the GPU. Try running some software that will monitor the CPU and GPU temperatures such as NHC (Notebook Hardware Control). If the temperature of either approaches 100 deg. C, then overheating is likely your problem. You can try cleaning out the ventilation ports and the fan. If this is insufficient, you may need to apply new thermal paste between the heatsink and the offending chip. You may find a termal pad under the heatsink. If this is the case, you can place a thin sheet of copper between the heatsink and the chip along with using thermal paste. You should not fill up the gap with thermal paste alone.

See the ThinkPad Utility Work Area forum for more info on NHC.

[SebastianProoth]

Hello!

Thank you for all your helpful advice guys. Right after I posted that question I reseated the RAM...and actualy swapped the dims around and there has not been one problem since (touch wood)

It seems that might have taken care of it. I also cleaned the "thermal exaust port" on the side lol...

Seems all is well in Thinkpad land. Thanks again,

Sebastian.