T60p acting flakey - slow resume from sleep, wifi dropouts, mouse skipping

[SiliconClassics]

Ever since this weekend my beloved 15" T60p has been acting up - wondering if the big solar CME could have damaged it? Symptoms:

I usually close the lid to put it to sleep. Normally after I open the lid it wakes up in a few seconds. Now it's taking about 30 seconds to wake up, during which time the screen stays black.

The mouse cursor intermittently freezes on screen, sometimes for as long as a few seconds.

The wifi is dropping out every few minutes.

I tried a complete shutdown with battery removal, resetting the power manager, etc. No luck. Worried that my motherboard might be fried. Anyone seen these problems before?

[dr_st]

Welcome to the forum.

This can be a software issue or a malware infection, not necessarily a hardware fault.

[RealBlackStuff]

If you live anywhere near the fallout zones of hurricanes Harvey or Irma, that might explain.
They have so many power outages and problems there, it's not even funny.
But as dr_st already said, software needs to be checked too.


Just in case, should you need a replacement motherboard, I have those cheap: http://theboardroom.info/stock1.html

[SiliconClassics]

Thanks. I've been using it with Windows XP SP3 for years and never had problems with malware, but I'll investigate the software angle as suggested.

I'm posting from it right now using a bootable Linux distribution (Linux Lite 2.6) and so far it seems to be ok - no wifi dropouts or mouse weirdness.

If the OS really does need to be repaired / reinstalled, any recommendations? I'm interested in either moving to Windows 7 or to Linux if it can run most of my applications (mostly older XP-era stuff like Office 2002, CorelDraw 9, Dreamweaver 3, etc).

BTW, is there any way to enable an avatar on here?

[RealBlackStuff]

It can run 32-bit W7 and any Linux you care to throw at it.

Avatars are only for Administrators, Moderators and VERY special users.
You'll eventually get a 1-4 feather(s) avatar, based on your number of posts.

[SiliconClassics]

So it seems that this actually is a hardware problem - even on a cold boot it will freeze at the BIOS startup password screen (I have startup password enabled) and then restart by itself. Eventually it will boot and run mostly normal, but there seems to be some malfunctioning low-level hardware device.

This system has the ATI FireGL 5250 and 15" FlexView IPS display. Would any replacement T60p motherboard be compatible or do I need one from a machine with the same specs?

[RealBlackStuff]

Any non-widescreen T60 or T60p mobo (both Intel and ATI graphics) will fit and work.

I have two T60p mobos with ATI FireGL V5200 (not 5250) for sale, see: http://theboardroom.info/stock1.html

[SiliconClassics]

Is the GPU swappable or is it soldered onto the motherboard?

[RealBlackStuff]

Soldered.