T60 (8744-5BU) BSOD/Random Freezing

[noleman233]

I have a user who is reporting issues with a T60 that I for the life of me cannot figure out. He is reporting that the notebook is randomly freezing and/or BSOD'ing on him without notice and upon restarting his machine is getting this (image link below).

http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/3779/15937286pi0.png

The machine is only a month old and nothing has been installed/uninstalled aside from basic applications which have not given any of the other T60's in use problems. First thing up obviously is to get onto the most recent driver. Checked Windows Update, ATI's site directly and Lenovo's site. Neither Windows Update or ATI listed a newer driver that could be installed. I ended up having the user download the most recent available driver update from Lenovo's site to see if that would help. I had him verify the driver before and after install and it appears that he was already running that version of the driver.

This is the information listed in the driver tab for the ATI Radeon X1400.

Driver Provider: ATI Technologies
Driver Date: 4/5/07
Driver Version: 8.362.2.0
Digital Signer: Microsoft Windows Hardware Compat. Pub.

Anyone who has any ideas or is/has been in a similiar boat, I would greatly appreciate any assistance or insight, as none of my other T60's are having this problem......yet

[ryengineer]

Sir, I suggest to start things from scratch. Do a factory restore, disable optional Windows updates, install critical ones or install all and leave out ATI driver update from Microsoft, install drivers and other applications via Thinkvantage System Update. If the problem still persists then it could be hardware related, IBM warranty services is just one call away or you can take your machine in person to any IBM authorized repair services for full analysis in your local area.

FWIW, I have an experience with the exact same machine Type, it never BSOD-ed on me no matter which OS (Windows XP, Windows Vista, Linux distros) I had installed on it, I think I had the same ATI drivers on it as well.

P.S. Please check if there is any user installed additional memory on it, bad memories also contribute to BSOD.

[Bagels4All]

I just posted this in another thread, but try this MS hotfix:

"There are stability issues with some graphics processing units (GPUs). These issues could cause GPUs to stop responding (hang)."

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=938194

[noleman233]

The machine does have an additional 1GB of memory installed in it (Kingston 1GB PC2-5300) so maybe it is a bad stick of memory. Upon further correspondence since my original post the user has stated that the issue has been occurring for the 3 weeks, yeah I know what a great way to let a problem linger, ugh but I digress.

I looked at the hotfix that was posted as well and the machine is running XP Pro so that won't work unfortunately. Getting the machine back to its factory contents isn't really an option at this point as our users are not in our phsyical office and are constantly traveling so I may have to call IBM Warranty Services and see if they have any ideas.

If anyone else can come up with any ideas I am all ears at this point. I have two more of these exact machines in the field and none have reported such issues so it's hard to say at this point without physically being able to mess around with the machine if there is anything else going on, due to being about 1500 miles away from where the problem child machine is located. Thanks in advance for any other ideas.

[GomJabbar]

I think it would be good to try and run some GPU temperature monitoring software and see what it reports. Here is a link to Notebook Hardware Control.
http://www.pbus-167.com/nhc/nhc.htm#anchor_download

Here is a thread that discusses it.
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?p=281585

Here is a related 8-page thread.
NEW T60 Temperature Thread - Especially high GPU Temperature