Is My 5 Year Old T30 Dead

[Mikea560]

My old faithful T30 may be on its last legs. It will boot fine but after about 15 minutes the video goes streakie and the machine locks up. Let it set a while and the cycle can be repeated. I pulled the keyboard and confirmed the fan was running. I also used canned air to clean up the air passages.
Can anyone confirm that this is typical of a motherboard or video card failure or ? I would like to save the machine but a motherboard replacement is beyond my skill level assuming I could find a reasonable priced motherboard. I would assume paying to have it replaced would not be cost effective. Thanks in advance for you help.

[RealBlackStuff]

With the help of the Hardware Maintenance Manual
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-42308
any schoolkid can take the T30 apart and put it back together again.

Your video problem could be a bad CCFL (backlight tube), a bad inverter, or a GPU-board gone bad.
Only the last one may require you to replace the motherboard.

[tfflivemb2]

If the video is streaking, then it isn't going to be the inverter or the CCFL. It sounds like the GPU is going bad or overheating. The inverter and CCFL merely light up the LCD.

[Mikea560]

Thanks for your help. Could my problem just be the CPU/cooling and the motherboard be ok. The machine seems to boot fine but then dies after it warms up. Much easier to change CPU than motherboard. Any easy way to tell??

Mike