Thinkpads Forum

Hey all-
The first T61 in my signature below, (the one w/the SSD, Nvidia, 8gb RAM) developed some interesting problems today. First a variety of applications began showing error messages, my Evolution mail reader (it's a Linux box) stopped working and showed an error indicating that the database was corrupted. I've been getting some really weird video problems...files images showing up on the desktop when the directory they were in was not open. I don't think this is the classic nVidia chip failing...it seem logic or memory source related.
Does anyone here have experience when SSDs bite the dust? I've had this SSD for 2years with no problems until today. Curiously, I also have a Win8 partition on this machine. When I booted into Win8 for a few minutes I observed no problems. This leads me to think that I may somehow have a bad install (Last November, openSuse 13.2), or possibly my nVidia driver on the Linux side is corrupted...but that would not account for what appeared to be logic/memory related issues. Other possibilities....Fried processor? Bad RAM?
I'm in the process of firing up my #2 T61 right now. Thoughts on this? The SSD or a corrupted install are my two prime suspects at the moment...

The easiest first thing to do is burn a memtest86 CD: http://www.memtest86.com/

The most common mode of SSD failure is sudden and catastrophic. But I've found it's of little help to theorize. You just have to whack away at it. Memtest is easy, because you don't have to move any parts. Be of note that if the T61 is anything like an X61, memtest must be run with just a single core, selectable in the memtest menu. With two cores and that chipset, spurious errors are reported.

Check temperatures.

Mount the SSD in another machine. Perhaps the maker has a diagnostic utility. Usually, the drive can report something about its own health.

Nvidia GPU failure was the problem

portsample wrote:Nvidia GPU failure was the problem

Sorry to hear that.

Thankfully, a planar swap is not all that difficult on these machines.

Thanks for your condolences.
I do have a Merom board on my workbench for the 14.1" standard T61, (42W7648).
Question: I've already got a Penryn T8300 from my defunct Nvidia machine...what is the major disadvantage to putting this in the above board and then installing Middleton's bios?
I'm not seeing many of the native Penryn boards on Ebay, (w/either Intel or Nvidia(...!) GPUs...) and Merom 14.1" planars are a dime a dozen.
Thanks in advance....

You'll have to flash Middleton's BIOS on that Merom board before swapping in the Penryn CPU. After that, all shall be well.

Merom boards don't fully support Penryn CPUs but for average daily use that's a non-issue in my experience.

Thanks for the quick response. I run Middleton's BIOS for SSD reasons. Is there anything other than the Penryn temperature sensor that will have reduced functionality on a Merom board? Thanks again.

portsample wrote: Is there anything other than the Penryn temperature sensor that will have reduced functionality on a Merom board?

Not that I'm aware of.

With a mild CPU such as T8300 there should be no noticeable difference. With something like X9000 I'd shoot for a native Penryn board, just to be on the safe side.