T41P shuts off with internal monitor

[nascarfan]

HI, I have a T41P (2373-3U2) that started just shutting itself off at random times. This got progressively worse until it only stays on about 2 seconds before shutting off. It does not give any error codes or display anything on the internal monitor. If I disconnect the internal monitor, clear CMOS and boot it up hooked to an external monitor it will work perfectly. After one boot I can hook the internal monitor back up and lights etc work properly and it boots, but if I try to send video to the internal display the laptop instantly shuts off.

My first thought was that the monitor or cable was bad so I tried an old one that I had with a broken panel. Still no luck it would shut off and it will also shut off if I try to output to the internal monitor with nothing hooked up.

I have removed every component I can in the computer for my testing and with one exception it makes no difference. If I remove all of the RAM and try to output to the internal monitor it will throw me a RAM error and not shut off the laptop, It just sits there with the fans running, lights on, and no display on the monitor.

These symptoms don’t seem to match what I have seen browsing through the Internet and these forums so any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks James

[schen]

Sorry to say this, but the symptoms that you describe sound very much like the infamous GPU problem that's relatively common in the T4x Series. If you'll do a little searching on this forum and look at the "stickies" at the top of this conference, you'll find that quite a bit has been written regarding this phenomenon as well as the various attempts to cure it. There are other possibilities (such as panel or backlight going out), but some of your experiences such as no display to an external monitor either will eliminate them.

[Johan]

Welcome to the Forum, James!

First, did you check if your T41p is still under warranty? (check this at Warranty Lookup). If not, and while I don't have any "I know exactly what is wrong" explanation to the problem you describe, I would nevertheless suggest the following to try hunt down the source of the error:

If you are able to (as I understand you are?) boot from a CD-ROM, I would strongly suggest you try all the following:

1) Download and burn a bootable CD-ROM with PC Doctor for DOS bootable CD - ThinkPad - and run it numerous times. Note that there was just released a new version of the Lenovo "PC Doctor" - see Which PC Doctor for T41p? - but I am not quite sure if it will run from a CD-ROM?

2) Download, burn a bootable CD-ROM with memtest86+ - and run it numerous times.

3) Consider enabling "Extended Memory Test" in the BIOS; see where in the BIOS simulator - ThinkPad T42/p with fingerprint reader (--> Config --> Memory) - I guess the same would apply to T41p's.

As schen just mentioned, there is a chance that you have been hit by the "loose GPU" syndrome; see the sticky T42 shuts down when i move it.

Johan

[nascarfan]

Okay, thanks for the replies!

First off its no longer under warranty so that's no good. I am running PC doctor right now to see how that comes out.

As for the loose GPU problem that is what i originally thought was wrong until i found out that it works fine when on a external monitor. I can go into windows boot off a CD ROM or whatever normally that way. Also i can move it around and it never causes any problems, I do have a heat gun though so i can try the reflow if need be.

Thanks James