T43P Freezing up till pressure applyed to parmrest

[boac69]

I have been given a T43p that boots ok and passes all the Lenovo tool box / pc doctor tests but after about 15/20 mins it freezes up till light pressure is applied to the palmrest or the palmrest is lighty squeezes between the thumb and fore finger in the ares of the HDD connector, then the hdd light flashes and off we go again for another few mins, these events can all be viewed in Task managers performance screen.

My first thought was the HDD, it looked ok, all the pins where straight and clean so I replaced it with a good known spare. No change still freezing up as described. Next I stripped it down and closely examined the board and hdd connector, I gently pushed both rows of the vertical hanging pins into the connector and then resoldered the connector to board pins. There was no change to symptoms on reassembly.

After much head scratching and forum reading I had a thought that the palmrest could be at fault so it was changed for a non finger print type, again no improvement it still freezes.

My next thoughts were to pack the case and palmrest with felt/plastic to load the hdd connector area but while the keyboard and palmrest were removed I thought I would fire it up to determin where the exact spot pressure was required, to my total surprise it runs fine, no problems at all, so I stress tested it overnight and again no problems, but when I reassemble the fault returns. I have again carried out a bright light and mag glass detailed inspection of the board, the case and the palmrest with no faults found, I am stumped.

With the vast experience of the forums membership has anyone got any ideas that may help?

[Harryc]

It's a loose GPU. Put direct pressure on the GPU to see if the symptoms change. It's a large chip with ATI on it. Run the machine with the keyboard out but still connected or in a dock.

[Tony.Yarwood]

With the vast experience of the forums membership has anyone got any ideas that may help?

Nick Paton will fix that for you.

Best regards

Tony

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More privacy, no tracking.
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[poshgeordie]

Hi Boac69

I'm the 'Nick Paton' Tony mentions. I've just sent you a PM.

Hi again Tony - good to hear from you again and hope you're keeping well.

Cheers

[boac69]

A big Thank You to Harryc, you sir were spot on! any pressure on the fan heat sink extension plate over the GPU changed the fault.

Further bright light and 10x glass inspection of the base of the GPU revealed nothing I could see, the chip does not look or feel loose but obviously is, so as per the other replies (tony & Nick) it needs to be reflowed, not a job I would undertake myself but I do remember reading about some DIY methods for the T40.

I spoke to the friend who gave me this machine as spares for my 2 T43p's and explained it could be repaired quite cheaply and act as a spare for his new T400 but he said no keep it as he had lost faith in it since he had dropped it and changed the fan unit which was all new info to me as it looked in v/good condition.

On reassembly as suggested by Harryc I am running in a dock without a keyboard, it begs the question what else can be removed when using a dock with an external monitor?
The battery ?
The screen assembly ?
I would rather ask than experiment and blow up good spares.

Again my thanks to all who replied

[RealBlackStuff]

You can even run the mobo on its own, with only CPU/fan, some ram, the video-connector (which goes to an external monitor) and holding the (attached) keyboard in one hand.

[Harryc]

Yes you can run a base without battery and LCD as well as what RBS said ...