T61 nVidia thinkpads being repaired N/C [until March 2011]

[SaabScott]

Not even any beeps when pressing the power button?

Not that I recall.
First off, it was 2.5 years ago and it was a very traumatic experience.

Fortunately, working for Lenovo Canada, I was able to pull some strings and managed to deal with it without too much headache.

[eecon]

....... it was a very traumatic experience.

I can only imagine ....... not so much the concern for the motherboard, but rather the potential loss of data if the hard drive was damaged!

[eskimochaos2]

So does the new MB incorporate a fix from Nvidia or is it guaranteed to fail again at some point?

Cheers!

[eecon]

So does the new MB incorporate a fix from Nvidia or is it guaranteed to fail again at some point?

Cheers!

Incorporates proper spec internal soldering material from Nvidia .... just Google or Bing "defective Nivida laptop graphics chips" ..... or skim though the last couple of pages this thread for a link to the actual technical details of the issue.

[eskimochaos2]

Cool Beans.

Thanks!

[kaede]

1st of April now. if anyone managed to repair after this date. please share it here. anyway i fixed mine with local "macgyver" already giving up with lenovo warranty. so far so good.

[davidhbrown]

On April 19th 2011, the tech I spoke with in Atlanta (USA) was very happy to try to get the case started under that MIGR and even seemed slightly familiar with it. Unfortunately, because I'm currently getting no beeps at all, my T61p is not eligible for this repair. The 1-long, 2-short beep code pattern is what they're looking for and would have to be seen at the depot for out-of-warranty service under MIGR-75087.

FWIW, the troubleshooting steps suggested were to first try powering on with just AC power (no battery). When that failed, he asked me to remove AC (and still no battery), press power 10x in a row and then press-and-hold for 20 seconds. Then reconnect and try again.

As a last-ditch attempt before offering optical drive, dock, etc on the Marketplace, I will be removing the RAM I put in to see whether I can get it to a Long-Short-Short state and start the call again.

[eecon]

@davidhbrown:

You may want to give these guys a try before scrapping everything .... I talked to them and they claim to have done about 150 or so T61/T61p units with good success using reflow, but also do the more permanent and better reballing of the GPU.

$70 for a reflow (not a totally permanent solution IMO) or $200 for reballing (a more permanent solution):

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... K:MEWAX:IT

Here's a couple of videos describing the difference between reflowing and reballing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5TsifWIbjM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFf_1Utp ... re=related

[davidhbrown]

Thanks for the suggestion, eecon, but since the lack of beeps could be anything and I already have my W520, I think it's time for me to move on.

[eecon]

Thanks for the suggestion, eecon, but since the lack of beeps could be anything and I already have my W520, I think it's time for me to move on.

I would agree ..... it's time for an upgrade cycle ..... also looking myself at the W520 and starting to get that upgrade bug.

[sebastek]

Hello everyone, i'm a new user in this forum, and i have a T61, model 7663, with an NVIDIA G86-740-A2 graphics chip. I bought it second hand and it worked fine ONLY 2 DAYS, only it work enough to run a hard disk test software and that was all, the laptop just turned on and no video on the screen. I immediately know that was a GPU issue because i'm a laptop technician with experience on HP DV series laptops having the same symptoms, so i take apart the laptop and i did a reflow to the GPU chip, (i know that reballing/changing the chip is better, but i have no access to a rework station ), the mainboard did not revive however.

Not learning the lesson on buying second hand laptops with faulty Nvidia chips, i bought a replacement second hand motherboard on american ebay site, board FRU: 41W1489. the same board installed on my laptop. I live in Colombia so i had to resort to an intermediary person to do the purchase and pay the shipping and taxes, a month passed since the purchase and yesterday i receive the motherboard, it came with the chassis, lower cover, modem, and palm rest. i imediately test it and show the first screen with no problem. The board was very dirty and had old thermal paste attached to the GPU chip, the same NVIDIA G86-740-A2 on the previous board. after a REALLY CAREFUL DISASSEMBLY AND CLEANING, and aplying new high quality thermal paste, guess what.... THE CHIP ALSO DIED!!!!! the machine turns on, no beeps, the screen backlight turns on but the screen is blank, testing with an external monitor shows garbage but apparently i can enter to the BIOS setup. (now i really conviced that someone threw a bad luck spell on me ).

The reason for writing this is for inform you guys that the machines built on 07/11 (the machine that i have and the replacement board, go figure...) have the same A2 chips that some of you think that are the chips with the fault corrected. And also to warned you to NOT BUY ANY T6x'S OR ANY LAPTOP WITH NVIDIA G84/G86 CHIPS, NOT MATTER HOW CHEAP THEY ARE. Now i have 1 a half expensive paperweights and i don't want to waste more money on this, i going to do the reflow on the second board, i will inform you guys about the result.

BTW, should i insist on call lenovo service to get my machine repaired considering the info on the MIGR-75087 internal support document?

Thank you for reading this and excuses for any mistakes in this post, english is not my second language.

Greetings from Colombia, is not as bad as they use to show in the news.

Sebastek.

[eecon]

Hello everyone, i'm a new user in this forum, and i have a T61, model 7663, with an NVIDIA G86-740-A2 graphics chip. I bought it second hand and it worked fine ONLY 2 DAYS, only it work enough to run a hard disk test software and that was all, the laptop just turned on and no video on the screen. I immediately know that was a GPU issue because i'm a laptop technician with experience on HP DV series laptops having the same symptoms, so i take apart the laptop and i did a reflow to the GPU chip, (i know that reballing/changing the chip is better, but i have no access to a rework station ), the mainboard did not revive however.

Not learning the lesson on buying second hand laptops with faulty Nvidia chips, i bought a replacement second hand motherboard on american ebay site, board FRU: 41W1489. the same board installed on my laptop. I live in Colombia so i had to resort to an intermediary person to do the purchase and pay the shipping and taxes, a month passed since the purchase and yesterday i receive the motherboard, it came with the chassis, lower cover, modem, and palm rest. i imediately test it and show the first screen with no problem. The board was very dirty and had old thermal paste attached to the GPU chip, the same NVIDIA G86-740-A2 on the previous board. after a REALLY CAREFUL DISASSEMBLY AND CLEANING, and aplying new high quality thermal paste, guess what.... THE CHIP ALSO DIED!!!!! the machine turns on, no beeps, the screen backlight turns on but the screen is blank, testing with an external monitor shows garbage but apparently i can enter to the BIOS setup. (now i really conviced that someone threw a bad luck spell on me ).

The reason for writing this is for inform you guys that the machines built on 07/11 (the machine that i have and the replacement board, go figure...) have the same A2 chips that some of you think that are the chips with the fault corrected. And also to warned you to NOT BUY ANY T6x'S OR ANY LAPTOP WITH NVIDIA G84/G86 CHIPS, NOT MATTER HOW CHEAP THEY ARE. Now i have 1 a half expensive paperweights and i don't want to waste more money on this, i going to do the reflow on the second board, i will inform you guys about the result.

BTW, should i insist on call lenovo service to get my machine repaired considering the info on the MIGR-75087 internal support document?

Thank you for reading this and excuses for any mistakes in this post, english is not my second language.

Greetings from Colombia, is not as bad as they use to show in the news.

Sebastek.

Welcome to the forum .... Read this link and learn:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=95812

You want the G86-741-A2 chip with an August 2008 or later date code.

[bcam]

Hi all,

I'm yet another case: the T61 6481-CTO (build July 2008), which has been constantly overheating to the point of shutdown (despite always running on a fan-driven cooler) finally died last night with exactly the "one long and two short beep and black screen" everybody else described.

The CS rep in Atlanta was unfamiliar with Lenovo's MIGR-75087 internal support document (and it wasn't clear whether he actually found it during the 20 minutes I was on hold) -- but he came back and said he's now sending me the magic box...!

While I'm awaiting the box, I'm planning to draft a cover note to include in the return shipment to the repair center. Some version of a description of my endless, constant overheating and GPU error messages, along with an edited version of the canned script/explanation re. this known issue that everybody's been referencing here.

Does anybody have any more specific suggestions to incorporate? Thanks in advance for everybody's strategic advice.

bcam

[eecon]

Hi all,

I'm yet another case: the T61 6481-CTO (build July 2008), which has been constantly overheating to the point of shutdown (despite always running on a fan-driven cooler) finally died last night with exactly the "one long and two short beep and black screen" everybody else described.

The CS rep in Atlanta was unfamiliar with Lenovo's MIGR-75087 internal support document (and it wasn't clear whether he actually found it during the 20 minutes I was on hold) -- but he came back and said he's now sending me the magic box...!

While I'm awaiting the box, I'm planning to draft a cover note to include in the return shipment to the repair center. Some version of a description of my endless, constant overheating and GPU error messages, along with an edited version of the canned script/explanation re. this known issue that everybody's been referencing here.

Does anybody have any more specific suggestions to incorporate? Thanks in advance for everybody's strategic advice.

bcam

How long past warranty expiration are you?

[sebastek]

Hello everyone, i'm a new user in this forum, and i have a T61, model 7663, with an NVIDIA G86-740-A2 graphics chip. I bought it second hand and it worked fine ONLY 2 DAYS, only it work enough to run a hard disk test software and that was all, the laptop just turned on and no video on the screen. I immediately know that was a GPU issue because i'm a laptop technician with experience on HP DV series laptops having the same symptoms, so i take apart the laptop and i did a reflow to the GPU chip, (i know that reballing/changing the chip is better, but i have no access to a rework station ), the mainboard did not revive however.

Not learning the lesson on buying second hand laptops with faulty Nvidia chips, i bought a replacement second hand motherboard on american ebay site, board FRU: 41W1489. the same board installed on my laptop. I live in Colombia so i had to resort to an intermediary person to do the purchase and pay the shipping and taxes, a month passed since the purchase and yesterday i receive the motherboard, it came with the chassis, lower cover, modem, and palm rest. i imediately test it and show the first screen with no problem. The board was very dirty and had old thermal paste attached to the GPU chip, the same NVIDIA G86-740-A2 on the previous board. after a REALLY CAREFUL DISASSEMBLY AND CLEANING, and aplying new high quality thermal paste, guess what.... THE CHIP ALSO DIED!!!!! the machine turns on, no beeps, the screen backlight turns on but the screen is blank, testing with an external monitor shows garbage but apparently i can enter to the BIOS setup. (now i really conviced that someone threw a bad luck spell on me ).

The reason for writing this is for inform you guys that the machines built on 07/11 (the machine that i have and the replacement board, go figure...) have the same A2 chips that some of you think that are the chips with the fault corrected. And also to warned you to NOT BUY ANY T6x'S OR ANY LAPTOP WITH NVIDIA G84/G86 CHIPS, NOT MATTER HOW CHEAP THEY ARE. Now i have 1 a half expensive paperweights and i don't want to waste more money on this, i going to do the reflow on the second board, i will inform you guys about the result.

BTW, should i insist on call lenovo service to get my machine repaired considering the info on the MIGR-75087 internal support document?

Thank you for reading this and excuses for any mistakes in this post, english is not my second language.

Greetings from Colombia, is not as bad as they use to show in the news.

Sebastek.

Hello, i finnally made a careful GPU reflow on the second replacement board and the problem was fixed! , i'm now typing this on my "new" july/2007 T61 7663-CTO, with Nvidia quadro NVS 140M. I like to think that the long travel that the replacement board made from USA to my house in Colombia affected some of the solder balls of the GPU chip to the main board and the chip itself is fine, or maybe i flex the board too hard when i clean it and assembled the system. Well, the system is 4 years old, works excellent, and i use it now for everything!. From surfing the web and work on office documents to run demanding software like SolidWorks 2010, 3D games and watch HD movies. I know that i have to take precautions on mantain the fan assembly free from dust and reduce the on/off cycles to the minimum.

Any other advices to reduce the possible chip failure?

Thanks.

[eecon]

Hello, i finnally made a careful GPU reflow on the second replacement board and the problem was fixed! , i'm now typing this on my "new" july/2007 T61 7663-CTO, with Nvidia quadro NVS 140M. I like to think that the long travel that the replacement board made from USA to my house in Colombia affected some of the solder balls of the GPU chip to the main board and the chip itself is fine, or maybe i flex the board too hard when i clean it and assembled the system. Well, the system is 4 years old, works excellent, and i use it now for everything!. From surfing the web and work on office documents to run demanding software like SolidWorks 2010, 3D games and watch HD movies. I know that i have to take precautions on mantain the fan assembly free from dust and reduce the on/off cycles to the minimum.

Any other advices to reduce the possible chip failure?

Thanks.

What is the "date" code on your current Nvidia chip?

See this thread for find the date code;

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=95812

[sebastek]

[/quote]What is the "date" code on your current Nvidia chip?

See this thread for find the date code;

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=95812[/quote]

here is the markings of the chip on the working replacement board FRU 41W1489:

NVIDIA
U708C825 0735A2 (35rd week of 2007)
S TAIWAN
NC5484.00W
G86-740-A2

and this are for the old and dead board FRU 41W1489:

NVIDIA
34N3P2 0734A2 (34rd week of 2007)
A TAIWAN
NC5394.00W
G86-740-A2

BREAKING NEWS: OSAMA WAS KILLED!!!

[eecon]

@sebastek ..... Okay, good luck and don't be surprised if it fails again in the near future as you really need a mid-to-late 2008 Nvidia GPU which is approximately when Nvidia implemented the fix and Lenovo started to use those "fixed" Nvidia GPUs.

I personally have not seen anyone claiming that Lenovo 2007 or early 2008 models were built "fixed" Nvidia GPUs.

[bcam]

UPDATE: just back from depot, repaired free of charge. Running cool and quiet so far, knock on wood.

Lesson: follow the script, be polite and patient until you get a sympathetic CS rep. Thanks, Lenovo!

[benjs]

As far as I understand this, this is mainly for those who are out of warranty.

I'm still in warranty with ThinkPlus+OSR etc (bought the 4 year package back then) with a T61p built at or before 03/2008.

Since I'm not experiencing any issues I was wondering whether or not I should still ask them to change my mainboard/GPU?
Or is this only an "most shipments from that time (before 08/2008) are affected but not all of them" issue?

Thanks!

[eecon]

To benjs (and everyone in a similar situation):

Please open up your Nvidia Control Panel. Go the Help tab and choose System Info and report back here with your Nvidia card's BIOS version.

Would appreciate this data from anyone out there with 2007 through early-2008 built T61 and T61p units which still have the original factory installed motherboard and graphics card (for a database I'm building).

Please report as:

T61 or T61p
Build Date (found under your laptop just right of the S/N ..... listed as YR/MO)
Model (like 6457-XXX)
Graphics card (either NVS140M or FX570M)
Nvidia Card BIOS

Thanks

[benjs]

Glad to be of assistance!

T61p
build date = 08/03
model = 6457-CTO
NVidia FX570 M (revision A2)
BIOS version 60.84.51.00.00 (date 05/14/07 according to pc wizard 2010)

[eecon]

Glad to be of assistance!

T61p
build date = 08/03
model = 6457-CTO
NVidia FX570 M (revision A2)
BIOS version 60.84.51.00.00 (date 05/14/07 according to pc wizard 2010)

Thank you.

This may not be of any importance or comfort to you, however your Nvidia BIOS version exactly matches my two late build T61p units ...... with July 26, 2008 and August 23, 2008 build dates (08/07 and 08/08, as printed on the bottom). I confired the specific day of the month from reading the dates the factory burns onto their EEPROM chips as they leave the factory for shipment. On custom orders shipped direct to the purchasing end-user (as in my case), this usually is same day of the month that the unit's warranty expires.

I believe that July 2008 was latest month where the factory may have used the older Nvidia GPU due to parts pipeline supply logisitics, however it is very possible that units as early as January 2008 also had the newer "fixed" chip since Nvidia finally acknowledged the problem in late 2007 and implemented a part update on their G84/G86 GPU shipments to all manufacturers.

[rumbero]

Would appreciate this data from anyone out there with 2007 through early-2008 built T61 and T61p units which still have the original factory installed motherboard and graphics card (for a database I'm building).

Machine still running with the original mainboard it was delivered with:

T61
07/10
6460-7EU
NVS140M
60.86.3E.00.00

For completeness' sake and comparison, from a machine which had its mainboard replaced due to nVIDIA issue:

T61p
07/09
6460-6XG
FX570M
60.84.51.00.00

As additional info for the T61p 6460-6XG, data printed/engraved on the nVIDIA chip:

nVIDIA
UA10B165 1041A2
S TAIWAN
P3U612.M2W
G84-950-A2

[BillP]

T61P
6457-B51
07/12
nVidia Quadro FX 570M
60.84.51.00.00
G84 Rev A2

[eecon]

Thanks to everyone so far, keep those cards and letters coming in ..... Just a note that the T61 and T61p BIOS versions will be different, so I will be comparing T61s only against other T61 units and the same for T61p units.

[Killian]

T61
7665-CTO
07/08
NVS140M
60.86.3E.00.00

Working for 3 years everyday. The CPU fan broke about 4 months ago, was replaced in warranty.

[gkhowell]

T61p
6459-CTO
07/12
Quadro FX 570M
60.84.51.00.00

[SaberX]

BTW, What are you folks typically seeing for temps on your T61p Nvidia GPU (FX 570M w/256mb) after idling for 10 or 15 minutes (or longer) with Power Manager set for Max Power settings and running off shore power.

My 15.4" 1680x1050 T61p with a T9300 2.5GHz CPU (August 2008 Build with the "fixed" Nvidia GPU) never idles much below 60°C (130°F) in a 22°C (72°F) room using HWMonitor v1.17 as the temp monitoring program.

When working very hard on 3D Engineering apps for an hour straight (or when running 3DMark06 v1.20 five or six times in a row back to back) I've seen the Nvidia GPU temp climb to 80°C.

BTW, I'm getting a 4800 overall score using WinXP Pro on my T9300 2.5GHz T61p with the 3dMark06 Benchmark program. FWIW, my T61 T7500 2.2GHz only scores about 1700 with the NVS 140M Nvidia GPU .... with all other things being equal including the 15.4" display. I guess the FX 570M really makes a big difference on 3D scores over the NVS 140M.

Just curious since I've got the one of those "fixed" T61p units (factory built August 2008).

Thanks!

Since i got my hands on a T61 - Nvidia 128 meg NVS 140M , 2gigs ram,T7500,15.4" WSXGA+,ect.Last owner said the system was sent in for overheating last year and new board installed. Still looking for a way to confirm this new board myself.
But so far the system is great.My temps are GPU running for hr's and mostly at 50 to 54 C. With a high at about 59-60c.
CPU temps at about 50 to max of 56 c under load and running for hr's.
Fan noise is low.
So far this system run's cooler than my buddys T60P with ATI GPU.
I think i have a good system here but you never know.

[eecon]

SaberX ..... I'd say you're good with that unit (especially those temps).

At this point the only way to confirm the mobo was replaced is either to open her up to find the mobo part number, or if you had a Lenovo Hardware Maintenance 3.5" floppy diskette and an external USB 3.5" floppy disk (the diskette is only available to Lenovo techs), you could boot into the Lenovo Maintenance program and see the mainboard Part Number and S/N displayed on the same line 40 and compare the part number to see if it matches the part number displayed at Lenovo Warranty Check online "Parts Lookup" which tells you what part numbers and FRU numbers the unit originally shipped with from the factory ..... odds are if the current mainboard part number is different, then you know it's been replaced (and if replaced in late 2008 or later it's most likely got an updated Nvidia GPU).