Issues with Fixing up an old T42/15"

[schen]

OK, let me just throw this out there to see if any one has any other perspective on this other than my already apparent stupidity. I have a "beater" T42/15" SXGA+ that's been my daily driver for some time. I got it from Underclocker for a song since it was bare, beat up, and had the famous detached GPU issue. It it went of to Superior Reball, which fixed the GPU (mostly), which brought up a nice, bright SXGA+ Flexview screen. Although it later developed vertical line down the left side, but I can live with that. Then came a new 100Gb/5400rpm drive, battery, 1Gb of RAM and a combo drive.

So, all was good till I recently got energetic. Fry's had a sale on Corsair 2700 RAM, so I bought 2 1Gb sticks, and while I was at it decided to replace the cracked, but working KB bezel and shiny keyboard since I was going to have to pull the KB anyway.

That's when I voilated the first law of upgrades....never do more than one thing at a time before testing! That was one the way to the second law...nothing is as simple as it sounded in your head!

The RAM of course, went in w/o a hitch. Then on to the other parts. Anyway, the replacement; an almost pristine KB and bezel that came in trade, had an FP scanner that I had forgotten about, so I had to remove and replace the HDD cage....which is attached to the UB-Slim cage....so more screws to remove and other stuff to unplug. So I did it all, and (major mistake here), put all the screws back in....before testing. And of course, it boots and proceeds to freeze IMMEDIATELY.

Now, here's the progression:
* Remove new KB thinking the mouse is bad.....it isn't the problem.
* Put the new KB back and unplug the UltraNav thinking that it might be the issue trying to talk to FP Scanner hardware that's not on the MB....also not the problem.
* Finally struck by the realization that maybe it's spitting up the Corsair ValueRAM that's been occasionally reported to be a problem on TPs.....don't know, but will find out tonight.
* Sit around all day at work feeling really stupid and antsy

[RealBlackStuff]

AFAIK only the T42p models have the hardware to support the FPR, not a standard T42.
That may be your problem (unless you have a T42p mobo in there...

[ajkula66]

Certain high-end T42s do support the FPR, but these are far and few between...

Have you tried to run PC-Doctor on it, or boot from a Linux CD? The GPU issue might be coming back, with somewhat awkward timing...

[sjthinkpader]

Yes, inserted a new Corsair ValueRAM and proceeded to update the WinXP to SP3. Wrong move, the RAM was bad. But it was too late, the SP3 update failed and mess up the OS in a major way.

MEMTEST86 proved the stick to be bad. Corsair replaced it but caused a huge amount of work.

[virge]

MEMTEST86 proved the stick to be bad. Corsair replaced it but caused a huge amount of work.

UGH. I understand the frustration. My last desktop machine had a bad 1GB stick of PNY memory that took me forever to track down. In my case, since it was a home-built machine with intermittent problems I went through the whole trial and error routine. I wasn't on this forum and had never heard of MemTest86 at the time.

[schen]

Well, my machine is back to normal after I replaced the 1Gb Corsair RAM with the old Elpida 512Mb sticks. I guess I'm having the same experience as sjthinkpadder with them. Apparently, what Corsair means by "ValueSELECT", is that the buyer has been selected to field test the RAM that they produced from the cheapest chips they could fine! I'll have to try and figure out which (if not both) are bad and send it back to them. Annoying!

On the bright side; apparently, my T42/15" had the FP Co-Processor on board and the FP Scanner detected and installed with no problems! I suspected that it might be the case since the original spec on that machine included a Bluetooth CDC and a SXGA+ Flexview screen. So, all-in-all, a pretty "high-spec" machine that's now been mostly restored to at least nice/user condition. I can live with the single vertical line, and will just hold my breath that it doesn't get worse!

I've got to say that, it's a really nice everyday machine, especially now that it looks pretty good as well.

Thanks for everybody's input on this.

[Tasurinchi]

Oh boy...

Sorry to hear all those problems. I can consider myself lucky. I have updated the RAM of my ex T30, my X31, X41 and a R50 for my dad and never ever had problems (knock on wood)

[dr_st]

Certain high-end T42s do support the FPR, but these are far and few between...

Quite a few of them actually. Going through the Ltwbook shows a lot of T42 non-Ps with FPR. Although how many units of each such model were ever made and sold is an entirely different question...

[ajkula66]

dr_st wrote:

Quite a few of them actually. Going through the Ltwbook shows a lot of T42 non-Ps with FPR. Although how many units of each such model were ever made and sold is an entirely different question...

Exactly. My uneducated guess would estimate them to be less than 5% of the entire T42 "population"...when it comes to real numbers, that is...

[schen]

Oh boy...

Sorry to hear all those problems. I can consider myself lucky. I have updated the RAM of my ex T30, my X31, X41 and a R50 for my dad and never ever had problems (knock on wood)

Yeah, up until this point, I've had good luck as well, having done a wide variety of RAM upgrades over the years. In fact, issues have really gone down since the days of PC66/PC100 SD RAM! This experience has really been notable more due to the problem that have occurred which are out of the ordinary. I've actually upgraded RAM on 4 machines in the last 2 weeks and the only one with the slightest hiccup.

Actually, I've successfully used Corsair's ValueSelect PC2700 modules in the past, so you never know. So now, I've got an RMA in and now just have to hope they'll send me something that works.

[sjthinkpader]

Testing is actually one of the easiest thing to reduce cost. Wafer cost is mainly fab capital depreciation. Not much can be done on packaging cost reduction. So they will reduce testing as the RAM prices fell to a historical low level.

[beeblebrox]

ValueRam actually is the same RAM as the most expensive one from a wafer line. However, as the previous post said, it is way cheaper because it does not undergo the strict qualification process for a trusted buyer.
E.g. if HP or Dell buy memory they usually buy qualified to standards memory. That is quite expensive (time and expenses). ValueRam (be it from Kingston, Qimonda, Infineon or Samsung) is the RAm that is just available right now, quickly put together to a stick, quick test and ready to sell.
There is no guarantee that it strictly obeys the timing diagrams given by the computer manfacturer.

Usually for us there is no problem using ValueRam. However, as I am driving all my T4x notebooks with the FSB533 mode, I found out that only the best memory work but no ValueRam. In ciritical timing (overclocking) diagrams, the expensive RAM shows its value.
Where ValueRam has no Value at all, but expensive RAM give Value.

[schen]

Usually for us there is no problem using ValueRam. However, as I am driving all my T4x notebooks with the FSB533 mode, I found out that only the best memory work but no ValueRam. In ciritical timing (overclocking) diagrams, the expensive RAM shows its value.
Where ValueRam has no Value at all, but expensive RAM give Value.

Which is why I use nicer stuff in my desktop where I do real work, vs. the more mundane tasks to which the ThinkPads are relegated.

[madkat]

I don't know if it will help - but last night after swapping 2 mobos between an TR451 and an R51 - both acted strange
first 2-3 attempt of booting ended in freezing - after that - both worked perfectly... without me doing anything, just restarting over and over foar several times.