Display problems / pixel garbage appearing on screen

[Steve06]

Hi folks,

my display driver seemsto be broken. My graphics card is a nvidia Quadro NVS 140m and I'm running Vista SP2.
It started yesterday when during the booting process of Vista strange multi-coloured pixel garbage appeared (and then disappeared again) on the screen. From then on, the same thing happened over and over again in different circumstances while running Windows. The screen even gets black from time to time for a few seconds. After a black out, there was a small symbol in the system tray indicating that there had been a error with the display driver and that it had been restarted.

What display driver should I install? I had the special that allows me to play DirectX games... does anyone have the link to it?

I wonder whether my machine might have even more severe issues, since i keep getting other error messages of processes having failed and been stopped once in a while.

[beGi]

To use drivers that are not certified by Lenovo is not a good idea (unless you're really sure what you're doing)...

Find appropriate driver here (uninstall old one before applying new driver):

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-67853

[Steve06]

To use drivers that are not certified by Lenovo is not a good idea (unless you're really sure what you're doing)...

Find appropriate driver here (uninstall old one before applying new driver):

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-67853

i don't think the other drivers should be an issue, as they have been working for 1 or 2 years in my case and many other ppl use them to unlock DirectX / gaming capabilities that the quadro hardware doubtlessly has.

[dsvochak]

You may want to read this thread: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=76171

[Steve06]

You may want to read this thread: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=76171

I'm not sure if this guy is having the same display errors as i have.

In any case, the pixel garbage went even worse, going all the over the screen (see attachments) and with the computer rebooting automatically, so I reinstalled the newest Lenovo Video driver. I thought the problem was solved in the first place but pixel garbage still appears from time to time (I'll observe it and come back to you).

I now downloaded a little tool called PFControl that reads out all temperatures, and CPU temps seem pretty high at around 85°-90°C and GPU around 75°C-85°C.
I wonder why CPU seem to be overheating so much?

Just 2 examples of pixel garbage - it looks different every time and sometimes it only affects part of the screen and not the whole output, as in the following cases:

[rkawakami]

From the sounds of it, I'd suspect the video controller (GPU) or the video memory as being the cause of the problem; in other words, a hardware problem and not anything to do with the driver. If the 140M is operating in shared memory mode (a quick search seems to indicate that it has this capability), then I'd run a memory check on your modules using memtest86+. You should also download the PC Doctor for DOS diagnostic for the T61 from here:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-67910

and run all of the video tests.

[Steve06]

From the sounds of it, I'd suspect the video controller (GPU) or the video memory as being the cause of the problem; in other words, a hardware problem and not anything to do with the driver. If the 140M is operating in shared memory mode (a quick search seems to indicate that it has this capability), then I'd run a memory check on your modules using memtest86+. You should also download the PC Doctor for DOS diagnostic for the T61 from here:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-67910

and run all of the video tests.

I started memtest86 from a boot cd I had. Somewhere in the middle the display started to freeze with strange characters appearing. In the end, the machine hung up and rebooted automatically.
So I assume the RAM and/or the mainboard might be affected.

I proceeded to testing each memory module independently:
I have 2 DIMMs installed: A 1 GB DIMM pre-installed by Lenovo, and a 2 GB module by OCZ which I added myself.
I tried to boot with each DIMM seperately, keeping the other removed. I took care to have the DIMM installed in the lower slot ("slot 0"), as recommended by the maintenance manual.
Results: With the Lenovo DIMM, nothing happened at all. When I pushed any key on the keyboard there was just a beep and nothing more.
When I tried the OCZ module, Windows booted up - I'll run another memtest and report back here.

[Steve06]

Running memtest86 with only the OCZ 2 GB DIMM memory module on board performed without errors, but there was still some pixel garbage appearing while the test was running! So I conclude that the Lenovo RAM module must be defective, but that there might still be other issues.

[beeblebrox]

That's a graphics ram error.
Identical to the T4x Flexing.

first you might want to put on new thermal paste on both chips. Temps are very high.
second run the Lenovo Video stress test
third buy a new mainboard, because it looks like it is the typical Flexing problem. either the BGA balls or the internal nVidia bondings

[Steve06]

That's a graphics ram error.
Identical to the T4x Flexing.

first you might want to put on new thermal paste on both chips. Temps are very high.
second run the Lenovo Video stress test
third buy a new mainboard, because it looks like it is the typical Flexing problem. either the BGA balls or the internal nVidia bondings

Thanks for clarifying!

I'll have Lenovo tech support do this for me, since I still have warranty with on site service. If I do it myself, that will void the warranty.

[Steve06]

Today, a tech guy sent by Lenovo repaired my Thinkpad. He switched the mainboard at my home, which I found quite impressive - I've never had on site service before. The graphics problems seem now gone - hope they don't come back.