A small question about the GPU

[karim_ps]

Hello
i have one question that is confusing me

How to avoid the GPU issue ? is it unavoidable ?

[Harryc]

The only suggested way to avoid it is to carry the machine with two hands at all times. Never hold it by one hand. It has also been suggested to leave it powered on all the times to reduce constant heating/cooling cycles that are reported to have an impact on the GPU coming loose over time.

[karim_ps]

thank you

[schen]

The only suggested way to avoid it is to carry the machine with two hands at all times. Never hold it by one hand. It has also been suggested to leave it powered on all the times to reduce constant heating/cooling cycles that are reported to have an impact on the GPU coming loose over time.

Or do everything above at the same time! I keep my T42p (and T41 before that) on a Targus folding laptop "board". It's very thin and has ridges so that air can circulate under the machine. When I don't have that board with me, I always use one of those folding portfolio pads under it so that it NEVER gets any pressure on the underside that's not spread out to the edges where the case is the strongest. Secondly, I virtually never shut it down so that it gets a minimum of temperature change cycles. Maybe once or twice a week is the most it gets, and even then, it's usually a reboot and not an actual shutdown.

So, I'm hoping all that will help me minimize the possibility of it developing the GPU issue (knock on wood)!

[Thomcat]

It's so sad that IBM and other manufacturers did not offer a recall of all the units to fix this issue. Car manufacturers do so. I don't know if that's because of legislation or to mitigate potential lawsuits.

This is a known issue. The manufacturer has the responsibility to correct this regardless of warranty status.

[rkawakami]

I don't remember ever seeing an instance whereby an auto manufacturer issued a safety recall on their product due to weak soldering bonds. However, in my opinion, comparing computer systems against automobiles in the recall department is not fair. There's not much of a chance of losing your life or causing property/personal damage if your laptop "crashes" . Certainly if it was found that a poor soldering job could cause a sudden loss of control in a vehicle, I'm positive that the car manufacturer would issue the recall. Would that be in response to the looming specter of class-action lawsuits? Notwithstanding the consumer product laws and the NHTSA, as the recent VP candidate would say, "you betcha!".

Yes, electronic manufacturers should have done better reliability testing. I believe that there were several industry reports out about the fragile nature of lead-free solders at around the time that the change-over occurred. If they chose to ignore that data and figure that most of the problems would not turn up until after the standard warranty period was up, then that would seem to me to be a corporate decision of "flipping the coin, making the bet".

[stuartf]

Is this GPU solder problem and issue with all T4x? I have a T43 with the x300 video card. Is my machine a high risk candidate for this problem?

I ask now as my 3 year warranty is about to expire and since I intend to keep this for at least another two years, the extended warranty makes sense for me.

[Harryc]

T43's are much less likely to develop the issue over time vs. T40, 41, and 42's. This does not apply to Intel GPU machines, only ATI. In my opinion, the extended warranty makes sense regardless of this issue.

[DaveG11th]

Just to be a bit contrarian, I went through the same pro and con internal discussion about extending my warranty (which expires today, by the way). I decided not to buy the extended warranty.

It was hard, because my unit (which cost $325 inc. shipping) arrived virtually unused, with only a single mark on the bottom from a docking unit, otherwise perfect. According to file dates and last-used dates on the HDD, it was purchased in 12/2005 and never used beyond 2/2006, possibly shelved during a corporate belt-tightening.

Mine is a late T42 with the epoxy-reinforced GPU (confirmed by pullling the keyboard and having a look for myself). Like the T43s, these have far fewer failures than the earlier production runs.

Then, too, my closest service drop-off point is 25 miles from my house. There are several others in the Boston area, at varying distances. All of the ones I called indicated at least 2 weeks would elapse before the ThinkPad was back to me.

What if I did not do the warranty? I asked. The answer: the roughly $200 for a 2-year waranty extension would cover either (a) a working used Thinkpad that was functionally the same (modern-ish CPU, 1 gig RAM, 60-80 gig HDD, USB, wireless, wired Ethernet)... at least a big chunk of it... or (b) a working used R5x motherboard w/Intel graphics with change to spare.

And my 'time to repair' would be shorter -- 2 days to reach my doorstep up to, say, 8 days -- with no need to expose my car to an hour of onslaught from Massachusetts drivers. Plus, if I went the used parts route, all my warranty work would be done by someone who really cares about the machine and has experience tearing down and rebuilding laptops -- me.

Note that my needs are relatively simple -- I don't need to accommodate gaming, computer aided design, or heavy-duty engineering computation. It makes no difference to me if the CPU cycles 2 million times between my wordprocessing keystrokes or 9 million times...