T30 won't boot unless shaken (likely video card issues)

[MarkCot3]

Yesterday my T30 suddenly developed a few problems:

1) About 90% of the time, pressing the power button when the computer's off will not bring me to the IBM welcome screen. The fan powers up, the LED's come on, then the LED's immediately go off again except for "power" and "battery", and nothing else happens.

2) This is virtually always fixable by picking up the laptop and gently shaking it once or twice. Once I do that, I get the welcome screen and can boot normally.

3) I'm dual booting Xubuntu 7.04 and Windows XP Pro SP2. In Xubuntu, when I log into X (ie the GUI), after some random amount of time between 10 seconds and 5 minutes the computer will lock up, if I have an external monitor hooked up it will go blank, and if I have the LCD on it will go crazy. It seems to take whatever's on the screen and progressively add lines to it until it looks kind of like an impressionistic painting. Booting into the Xubuntu command line doesn't do this, and no Live CD that I've tried (including Xubuntu's!) does either. Windows will also work fine, except that when I try to hibernate this "lockup+lines" thing will happen about 50% of the time.

4) The "lockup+lines" thing also happens during the video portion of the PC Doctor CD's quick test. Again, an external monitor will go blank and the LCD will go impressionistic. I tried the video tests alone and the ones that cause it are: ATI Ragemobility 2-D Test, ATI Ragemobility 3-D Test, and ATI Ragemobility Quicktest. (The ATI Ragemobility Display and Memory test is fine.)

So I assume this is a problem with the video card. Has anyone had (and ideally fixed) this problem before? Assuming I'll have to open it up and look for visible problems with the video card, could anyone point me to where on the motherboard it is, and what kind of problems or loose connections I should be looking for? Of course any other ideas would be welcome too. (I have 2x256 DIMMs and the full 512 MB always shows up fine, but if this sounds like it could be the memory slot issue instead of the video card, let me know.)

BTW, I had the whole thing apart for the first time about 2-3 weeks ago removing dust and oiling the fan, so I could easily have knocked something loose accidentally. But it's worked fine since then and this problem only started yesterday.

Thanks!

[Harryc]

There is a known problem with the T30's where a DIMM slot will go bad. I'd try that avenue first ...remove one stick of RAM and try to power up a few times. If that doesn't work install that stick and remove the other one. Post back if that doesn't work and we'll tell you what to do to isolate a bad video chip.

[tfflivemb2]

I agree with checking the ram, especially if you only have one stick in. The movement could cause a better connection with the ram stick.

[MarkCot3]

Thanks. I have two 256 MB sticks. I tried each of them alone in each slot, and both configurations with both of them in. The problem returned each time (and no matter what the configuration of the DIMMs was, the system always recognized the correct amount of RAM).

I also noticed that when the computer locks up and puts all those lines on the LCD, shaking it will cause some of the lines to go away and return to something more closely resembling what should be on the screen. It's still locked up, though.

So if anyone could help with where to find the video card and what to check for that may have come loose, that would be great.

[rkawakami]

If you can, push up on the bottom of the laptop right about where the PCMCIA cards plug into the slot (i.e., about 4 inches in from the left edge of the system). That's about where the video chip is soldered down onto the motherboard.

Most, if not all, of the thinkpads are like this. Certainly it's true for the T30. It's not like a desktop PC where you can simply unplug or re-seat the video card. It appears that several systems have had video issues (T4x, A3x) which are assumed to be caused by one or more of the solder connections underneath the video chip breaking. There have been several success stories of a homebrew solder reflow solution using a heat gun documented here. The main thread appears here:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=33952

[MarkCot3]

Thanks, Ray. After pushing up from where you suggested, popping open the keyboard to push down a bit on the sides of the chip, and generally shaking it around a bit more, it's working quite a bit better than it was yesterday.

1) The laptop will pretty much always boot up if it's been off for a while (has cooled down), but I still have to shake it (harder and harder each time it seems) if I try to power up while the machine's still hot. There's also been a heat wave recently that broke last night, perhaps contributing to today's improved performance?

2) I'm now passing the "ATI Ragemobility" tests in PC Doctor.

3) I can now use the Xubuntu GUI for basic tasks for as long as I want without getting the freeze and screen distortion. But playing "Supertux" (a video resource hog) will freeze it consistently within a few minutes.

4) Still having hibernation problems in Linux, don't know if they're related or not (but they also started yesterday).

I'm basically using it as a desktop now, since I don't want to move it around too much and risk making it worse again. Not ideal, but far better a desktop than a paperweight. I'm not under any illusions that it's fixed, though, so if/when it gets worse again I'll try the Post-It Note trick from the other thread (the solder reflow trick might be a bit beyond me!).

It's annoying, because this is the second time something like this has happened on this machine. About 2 1/2 years ago, I started getting screen distortion problems similar to the ones I'm having now (although the other symptoms were different). Since it was still under warranty I sent it in to IBM, and they seem to have just replaced the whole motherboard. So the same component's failed on me twice now, and it seems to be an even more common occurrence with the T40 series.