Thinkpads Forum

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If you were to take a look at the image above you'd see a screen shot of part of my ubuntu desktop that is greyed out by the administrator password dialouge screen, and you will also see all these little dots on my screen.

I only notice this mainly in 32 bit mode, and when some type of grey over-lay is on the screen like said example. Otherwise its pretty normal. Another example of when i see it is in youtube, when i select a video, i'll see grey dots on the 'selection' box color.

This doesnt happen with all colors.. usually certian shades of color.. i've done a gray shading on my desktop, at certian levels the blocks show up and if i go darker they disappear, if i go a bit darker they show up and even more darker they disappear, and so on.. same as lighter as well.

Also, if i compile a video using the computer, the grey dots show up in the completed video as well, as you can see if you focus on the dark spots of this video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJEAi40QFAw

When out-puting the video through the VGA port.. the new monitor shows these grey dots as well.

This just happened one day, and it didnt get any worse since then.

I'm a computer tech, and i've determined that it is NOT a driver issue, because this exact same thing happens in windows or any other operating system that i have installed on this computer (hackintosh as well). My buddy is also a computer tech and he assumed that the registers of the gpu or its memory are not working right.. or something to that degree..

I downloaded the thinkpad diagnostic disk and ran all the tests and every thing came up clean. I flashed the bios to the oldest one available for the laptop to no effect. Then i flashed the bios to the newest one for the T60P, still with no effect. I wiped the hard drives and re-installed everything. Same thing.


This problem has baffled me. As you know, this video card (firegl 5250) runs really hot at times, and i've had to open the case to clean out the small bit of dust that is in there and it runs much cooler afterwards.

I have tried every thing i know to clear this up, but now i'm facing the following possibilities:
-The hardware is going bad
-The hardware got messed up because of heat
-hackingtosh may have messed up my video card bios

Would anyone offer insight on this problem, if you had any experience with it, found out how to fix it, or if anything, know of a way to re-flash the bios for the video card alone?

The video card flashing is the absolute last thing i can think of that may solve the problem, and if it won't work, i'll have to assume the video card got messed up a bit from the heat that got generated there, and i'll just have to live with it

Thanks in advance

my FIRST thought was video memory..

but after reading your entire post, i don't know..

what I would do is swap the HDD into another thinkpad and see what happens..

did you say that you compile videos and this appears on the completed video..?

just on the T60p or any computer..?

the last thing i would suspect is the video card bios..

OH!, how about on an external display..?
have you tried that..?
isolate this from the T60p's display..?!

My old A31p have this kinds of artifacts on the screen but was fine with DVI output. Seems to be some kind of transmission error in the LVDS signaling or video memory.

BillMorrow wrote:
........
what I would do is swap the HDD into another thinkpad and see what happens..


>>>>>I have not tried this yet.. i'm doubtful the hard drive is causing this video issue. May try it though.


did you say that you compile videos and this appears on the completed video..?

>>>> yes, when the videos are compiled on the T60P, the grey dots get compiled with them, even in the video as you can see in the link i posted above.. that was made on the t60p.. videos made on other computers are fine.

....

OH!, how about on an external display..?
have you tried that..?
isolate this from the T60p's display..?!

>>>>> yes, when i run the display via the vga port to another screen/lcd these pixels show up

It is a bit confusing no doubt.. strange.. i'm thinking it might be some burnt out processing transistor or something

sjthinkpader wrote:My old A31p have this kinds of artifacts on the screen but was fine with DVI output. Seems to be some kind of transmission error in the LVDS signaling or video memory.

I thought that at first, but when i plugged it into another screen it was still going on in the external display as well.

And to add to that, when videos are compiled in the t60p, those pixels happen to make it into the video output so they can be seen on all computers everywhere.. the video included the pixels.

Its definately something low level hardware.. which is why i was hoping that a video bios flash if there is one, might help

BillMorrow wrote: what I would do is swap the HDD into another thinkpad and see what happens..

I actually did a live cd boot of ubuntu, so it was running off the cd.. the grey pixels are still there during certian shades

I found a page that helped me figure out some more about this, entitled:

Diagnose video card problems by comparing with example corrupted screens
http://www.playtool.com/pages/artifacts/artifacts.html
(the first screenshot of that screen is quite similar to what i get when certian shades are on the screen)


Apparently, using that page as a guide, the memory on my video card is corrupt. I guess just a certian level of the memory is corrupt.. oh well, at least it is not so bad that i am seeing the blocks 100% of the time, just when certian shades are displayed.


Does anyone know of any way to mess with the bios of the ATI FIREGL 5250? Perhaps if i can permanently set it up to run at a lower clock speed it might help. Any tips on bios flashing/editing for this video card would be welcome!

If you still have warranty, get the motherboard replaced.

VRAM corruption is the best kept secret when it comes to T60p units (had three planar swaps by Ez Serv, although all of them were with V5200 and not V5250) and what you're seeing is exactly what it looks like in one of the scenarios.

Good luck.

This is not under warranty anymore. Anyone know how much it will cost to replace the motherboard? I can do it on my own i just need to get the motherboard at a decent price.

ajkula66: whats a planar swap? Is that de-solcering bad memory and soldering new memory in or something? how much does that cost?

A planar is just IBM-speak for motherboard.

Try ebay. There seems to be a vast amount of every last part of every computer on there. lol...Planar is geek speak for motherboard or system board.