Thinkpads Forum

I bought a used X60 tablet (XP Tablet). When I move the screen the wireless (atheros) stops working, though the wireless indicator light is still on (frozen solid--no blinking). If I go into device manager and disable/re-enable the card it starts working again (and the indicator light resumes its blinking).

I am thinking about opening up the laptop to see what's going on, and ordering a replacement part (which seem cheap on eBay). Questions:
1. Any advice on a particular FRU replacement? There seem to be a whole bunch of variations. Intel or Atheros, for example?
2. Any advice on what to look for if I open up the laptop?

Thanks

P.S. On what I think is an unrelated issue, I used to get the dreaded NMI parity memory error when I moved the screen, too, but disabling the hard drive shock protection seems to have eliminated the NMI error.

Sounds like some busted cables to me. I doubt replacing the card would solve anything.

Well, just to update my own post...
I removed the LCD bezel and didn't see anything that appeared messed up with wires and such, but I couldn't see everything.
I removed the keyboard and the keyboard bezel/palmrest and again nothing seemed wrong, but I'm no expert on these things. I reseated the wireless card just for the heck of it.
And the dreaded NMI parity error has appeared again. After some more experimenting I think it is related to the wireless issue, because I haven't been able to induce the error when the wireless is turned off. I reinstalled the latest drivers, with no improvement.
I've ordered an Intel replacement wireless card ($6!) and will see if this fixes anything, but, it might be messed up wires. I may be stuck using a usb wireless key.

As an aside, it is quite easy to work with the X60 compared to the HPs and Toshibas (business class) that I own, so thanks to Lenovo for that.

----------------------------------------------------------------
March 24 Update: Just in case this is useful to someone...

I took off the LCD bezel again and reseated the three connectors on the LCD button board. (This requires unscrewing the button board). I think that the middle connector (the square one)was a bit loose. This seems to have gotten rid of the NMI parity error problem, at least after 12 hours of heavy use, with me purposely moving the LCD screen all over the place to see if the error would pop up.

So here's my theory: the wireless card communicates with the LCD button board to illuminate the wireless light and make it blink. I think that this connection, from the wireless card to the LCD button board--was dodgy, causing the NMI parity error. Now that the connections are secure, the error has gone away.
How did the connections become loose in the first place? Well, there's a whole bunch of wires funneled from the motherboard to the LCD through a tiny hole in the single hinge. These wires move around when the LCD screen is moved, so I'm guessing that years of moving the LCD and the wires cause a connection to become loose. Now that I've secured the connections I hope that they stay secure for a while.