T42 screen intermittently goes crazy.

[sagara]

Hi, after a couple of hours - sometime more - my T42 screen (Radeon 9600, 64Mb, 1400X1050) just flips and displays what looks like the kind of picture one got on an old black and white TV when no channels were transmitting - just messy black and white threads rushing across the screen. Even Ctl+Alt+Del produces nowt. I just have to hold down the power button and restart - then it's back to 'normal service'. The Radeon driver is 6.14.10.6547, dated 16.11.2006. I can't see that this is caused by anything I do, and wiggling things like the video cable doesn't produce the fault.

Anyone any ideas?

[sagara]

Ah, it just happened again after I sent the first message - but this time I had vertical lines that resembled film strips about 1/8 of an inch across, then it switch to a similar picture with a bit of colour but the 'film strips were about 2 inches across. Then it automatically rebooted!!

[Johan]

... I don't want to bring bad news (particularly if there is no need to!), but I believe you might want to browse the sticky here in this forum: t42 shuts down when i move it - what you describe could potentially be the (in-!) famous "loose GPU problem". But, have a look in that thread and see if anything seems familiar with your problem.

... and if it sounds familiar, then better check if your ThinkPad is still under warranty!

PS: See the blog: ]Thinkpad T42, ATI RADEON 9600 Driver, and the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) which also discuss this type of problem, on T42's.

BR,

Johan

[sagara]

Well I'm hoping the problem has just been solved. When it automatically re-booted after the last crash, I was presented with a page saying that the problem was with the ATI driver, and gave me two options to download a file (only 19K) to fix it, one from Windows Update: 'Lenovo - Other Hardware - Thinkpad Display'; the other pointing to the AMD/ATI site. I chose the former and installed it. Since then I have has no problems. So let's see if this has fixed it.