Really weird T43p hardware problem

[nickperry]

In 8 years of ThinkPad ownership this is a new one on me.

My T43p keeps freezing from a couple of miliseconds to several seconds and then continuing as normal. Sometimes I'll notice audio glitch, sometimes I'll notice the cursor jerking when moving, sometimes I'll notice when I'm typing it's simply not registering key strokes.

I've run perfmon, graphing interupts per second during a period when it's been doing this and interupts go to zero during the freezes.

It is not an OS problem as I experience it at the bios password screen and running from a live disc.

When it misbehaves any USB devices get disconnected (which has made backing up my important files to USB2 disk a nightmare). Frequently at boot the fingerprint reader just spazzes out and does 3 failed authentications without even touching the sensor.

I've dismantled the machine and disconnected the trackpad and fingerprint sensor to eliminate them and the problem still occurs.

Gently flexing the chassis often seems to make the problem go away for a few minutes or even a few hours.

Anybody this problem or have any suggestions?

[richk]

You have the "dreaded GPU problem". Please see the sticky in this forum about "my T42 freezes when I move it", or something like that.

[nickperry]

Thanks. I had thought this was just a T40 - T42 problem, but I guess not. I guess it does seem likely GPU as I can alleviate the problem for a while by using the nipple rather than the trackpad. I've still got a few months RTB warranty on this so I'll order a T500 and once I've got that I'll return this for a new board. Then this can be my spare machine for when the T500 breaks.

[sjthinkpader]

The 533Mhz FSB CPU and V3200 GPU chips ramp temperature very quickly and these thermal cycles eventually cause GPU solder balls to detach. Best is to set power profile to Adaptive instead of Performance and watch the temperature via utility such as NHC closely. Avoid SW that reduce fan noise and let temperature go higher.

[nickperry]

Must admit I've always used TPFanControl as the fan noise without it is unbearable.

After being on all day under the control of TpFanControl the GPU temp is only 64C.

[sjthinkpader]

If you use Adaptive CPU profile, temperature doesn't run that high then the fan would not run that much. You have to mitigate the heat problem from the source. My T42p runs mostly around 45 deg C and I keep NHC displayed on the desktop always. Web page ads can push CPU usage as long as it is on the desktop. So it is important to close those pages.

I loaded Windows7 beta on a T43p yesterday and surprised to find it ran the T43p to 60 deg+ with only a web page open. I haven't found a way to set CPU profile to adaptive yet. The ThinkVantage Power Manager Vista version running on Win7 has many functions grey'ed out.

There are many places that can fix your T43p MB now, Superior Reball, Hammerhead Technology...