Advice? T20 Frequently Hanging

[ArtShapiro]

The T20 doesn't get much use these days, but I try to keep it updated with Windows patches and virus updates. The last few weeks it's been quite dicey - hanging, often but not always with the disk light on, after anywhere from a few minutes to an hour of being on. It requires a forced power-down to get out of the situation.

The last time I had it opened up, maybe three months ago, the CPU and fan area was quite clean. And the fan is obviously turning on and off in normal use. I'd think if it were a heat issue, the frequency of the problem would increase after the first time it happened, and that doesn't seem to be the case.

I have tried it with and without the battery - it is always on AC anyway. And I just replaced the CMOS battery without affecting the problem.

Any troubleshooting suggestions out there? Obviously it isn't worth having commercially repaired, but I hate to send it to the Great Recycling Bin in the Sky.

Art javascript:emoticon(':(')
Sad

[tfflivemb2]

What antivirus are you running?

I have also seen this as a symptom of a dying hard drive...but that is generally a rare symptom.

[ArtShapiro]

Corporate version of Symantec (10.1.401). What prompts that particular question?

Art

[dogma420]

Have you tried a power button reset? There is a capacitor attached to the power button.

To do a system reset:

1. remove battery, no AC attached.
2. remove cmos batt
3. remove anything possible
4. press power button down for 30 seconds. Release. Wait 5 seconds. Press for another 30 seconds.
5. put everything back in

6. if it still locks, go into bios and let it sit for a day or two inside the bios...does it ever lock up in the bios? If not, should be something associated with the OS, such as hdd (run a dft) or a possible checkdisk should be run... ie. c:\chkdsk /f /r

I used to work in an IBM repair depot and have fixed/repaired at least 1,000 t20,1,2,3 and t30's...if none of these, and you've reseated the cpu, pulled and reattached the cpu fan power clip and still a problem, it's a bad system board more than likely.

[tfflivemb2]

Corporate version of Symantec (10.1.401). What prompts that particular question?

Art

Excellent choice for an AV!!!

I was asking because some people think that AVG free, or even Norton Home, is impenetrable...which isn't the case.

I would try running PC Doctor on the system to see if everything checks out.

[ArtShapiro]

I appreciate everyone's input so far. The old 6 gig disk it came with is sitting in the junk pile, and I could give it a try to eliminate the drive as an issue.

I don't think the T20 ever hung in the BIOS, but I wouldn't swear to it.

I'll try the power reset, which was not familiar to me, and let it sit for a while.

Art

[Stargate199]

It could be the RAM. If the RAM has a problem, then it will cause Windows to hang while it "corrects" itself. Take out the RAM, clean out the sockets, and check the pins on the RAM chips for damage. Why you disk activity light is on could be something wrong with the hard drive, but if the computer is trying to do something and RAM is not cooperating, the hard drive will be stuck in what ever task it is doing. There also could be a program causing Windows a problem also. Run several scans with different programs to see what could be a problem. I know there was one Windows Update that caused one of my computers problems.

[ArtShapiro]

Last night I took out the mem, battery, CMOS battery, and mini-PCI card. I tried the "hold the power button down" reset procedure suggested to me. I put the stuff back in, swapping the two 256meg memory modules just for the sake of doing something different, and powered up.

It ran fine for an hour and a half, including two of the substantial Patch Tuesday updates - one because I told it to, and one because Microsoft was too stupid to realize that and kept prompting me to install the updates that were available! Between that, and the prolonged searching for updates in the first place, the machine got quite a workout. No problems! And the machine was blowing out substantially hot air, to a degree (no pun) that surprised me.

I took it to the office today, and have been keeping it busy off and on. Still no problems. This is looking promising.

It was suggested I run PC Doctor. Alas, PC Doctor for the T20 requires floppies, and I'm not sure where my floppy drive might be. Who uses floppies these days! I couldn't even make the floppies from my desktop machine here in the office; it simply fails to do anything beyond popping up the license agreement. The extraction program must have the irritating smarts to only run on a Thinkpad.

Anyway, I'll keep pounding on the machine today, off and on, as time permits.

Art

[ArtShapiro]

No problems with hanging today, and I thought the reported difficulties may have been solved, BUT:

I noticed the T20 seemed to be getting quite hot, and I even started to get the characteristic odor of burning circuit board when doing a disk defrag.

I installed MobMeter, removed a few files, and reran the defrag. The temp quickly went from about 42 into the 72-73 C. range! There didn't seem to be any air blowing out.

Upon removing the keyboard, I've observed that the fan is spinning when the laptop boots up, and when told to turn off via a USB trackball. It is NOT spinning when Windows (XP Pro) is up and running. When it reached 79 degrees, I quickly powered down.

Before I reinstall all Thinkpad drivers, does this symptomology ring a bell with anyone?

Art

[Stargate199]

Art,
You fan appears to be dead. If the fan is not coming on when past 55C, then you have a major problem. No wonder your computer is hanging, ITS OVERHEATING!!! Get a new fan and heatsink assembly, put some Artic Silver on the CPU and you should be fine.

[ArtShapiro]

[quote]
You fan appears to be dead. If the fan is not coming on when past 55C, then you have a major problem. [/quote]

Well, it turns out to be coming on around 80 (ecch!) and taking it down to about 73. So the fan is actually working, but clearly I have a problem with the activation. Whether that's the thermal sensor on the board, some misapplication of the data by the drivers, or something else, is not readily apparent.

But it would seeem that the fan itself is fine.

Art

[dogma420]

unfortunately, prob. not fan, since it's spinning...if it uses pressure against the system board for the fan electrical conn, try iso rub and pry out prongs a bit...if the fan justs plugs in never mind...i'd say the fan temp controller on motherboard could be going bad as well. hopefully not (it's a board replacement).

good luck on bad fan.