Thinkpads Forum

hi all,

a friend gave me her x60 hoping i can fix it. the machine runs fine for indefinite time but then suddenly freezes and eventually reboots. the screen looks like this:

http://danja.hotglue.me/x60-glitch
and sometimes i just get kernel panic.

anyone ever experienced anything similar?
can it be faulty RAM and since it is shared with GMA i get video glitches?


chrz,

It looks like maybe someone has been sitting on the laptop.
If this is only temporarily, it could be as simple as a worn LCD cable making false contact.
Your suggestion of bad RAM is also worth following up.
Run this Memtest at least 2 full cycles: http://www.memtest.org/
First with one module in one slot, then the same module in the other slot.
Repeat with the other module.
Then with both, and finally swap them and test again.
If no RAM problem, and the LCD cable is OK as well, then you may have a graphics chip problem.
Using a USB CD, check if a Linux Live CD runs OK or not.
If not, replace the motherboard.

i believe that if the problem would be in LCD cable the machine would not freeze and kernel would not panic, right?

i'm going to try to run memtest indeed (thanx) and will try other memory module - i must have a spare one somewhere.
by the way - machine has only one, 512mb (!) DIMM installed.

d

RealBlackStuff wrote:It looks like maybe someone has been sitting on the laptop.
If this is only temporarily, it could be as simple as a worn LCD cable making false contact.
Your suggestion of bad RAM is also worth following up.
Run this Memtest at least 2 full cycles: http://www.memtest.org/
First with one module in one slot, then the same module in the other slot.
Repeat with the other module.
Then with both, and finally swap them and test again.
If no RAM problem, and the LCD cable is OK as well, then you may have a graphics chip problem.
Using a USB CD, check if a Linux Live CD runs OK or not.
If not, replace the motherboard.

If you connect to an external LCD, does the problem show up there as well?

i got to try this, but what would it change regarding the kernel panics which i sometimes get instead of screen glitches?

Harryc wrote:If you connect to an external LCD, does the problem show up there as well?