X31 Random BSoDs and restarts

[caerbannog]

Afternoon all

I have a well-loved X31 which until recently has done me sterling service, running both XP and recently W7.

It started crashing recently with a selection of random Blue Screens of Death, almost always with a different reason from the last (and usually too quick to record the details). I first suspected RAM, but replacing the memory with brand new didn't help.

Having had some experience with the dreaded HP overheating nVidia chip and the subsequent necessity to solder reflow (although I've not tried this myself as yet), I wonder whether my IBM is suffering from a similar problem.

Is this a known issue with the X31, and has anyone tried a reflow on this board?

I'd like to get it running again, as I'm having to make do with an elderly Dell which simply doesn't feel the same as my trusty little X!


TIA

Dan

[godling]

Random BSODs could be a heat issue, perhaps your fan is failing. First thing I'd do is check your system logs and see if there are any errors being identified that can be addressed. Then I'd run a check on the hard disk -- you might have developed bad sectors where some non-essential but randomly-used system files are written. A good defrag tool will re-allocate the data to good sectors -- jkdefrag does this, I believe (GREAT defrag tool, btw).

[caerbannog]

Random BSODs could be a heat issue, perhaps your fan is failing. First thing I'd do is check your system logs and see if there are any errors being identified that can be addressed. Then I'd run a check on the hard disk -- you might have developed bad sectors where some non-essential but randomly-used system files are written. A good defrag tool will re-allocate the data to good sectors -- jkdefrag does this, I believe (GREAT defrag tool, btw).

It's definitely not HDD (tried a brand new one) or RAM (brand new replacement). My suspicion still stands - anyone who's had experience of the famous HP/NVidia cooling issues I think would recognise some of these failures, so as I have acquired another failed machine from the pits of eBay, I'm going to give it the hot air treatment on the graphics chip. Will report my findings later...

[mazzinia]

Actually it should be possible to find in some thread here some similar issues related to the x31.
Apparently it could develop a soldering issue related , I think to remember, with the chipset more than the gpu chip (both are big enough and sort of side by side) if keeping docking - undocking an enough high number of times.