Thinkpads Forum

So I don't have a heat gun nor any other necessary tools to reflow my T40's Radeon 7500, so I came up with what seems like a fully functional solution. That said, if you mess it up, it's not my fault.

I just got this Thinkpad T40 for free because it was not working. I would power it on, and I would get nothing. Fans spin, CD and HDD spin up, lights light up, charging beep works, but nothing on screen or through VGA out. On occasion, it would show the IBM logo, and get through the boot process to then crash shortly after.

I immediately realised this must be a case of poor BGA soldering (that's Ball Grid Array, a process in which small balls of solder are preattatched to chips, and then heated so they bond to the motherboard.) This is a common problem with this laptop, as well as other laptops. In fact, a lot of ATI Radeon 7500 and 9000 based laptops suffer from this, like the HP dv2000 I think (not sure if this is the right number)

Anyway, onto business. I realised that flexing the case produced good results sometimes, and since I don't have a heat gun nor a cup of alcohol to reflow the solder with, I thought of some alternate solutions. This one seems to be working great and I have not had a single crash during it's new use (I bring this same laptop to and from school every day, and it's had no trouble). I thought that I should insert something on top of the video chip to apply pressure.

First step! Take off the keyboard. Do so by removing the screws outlined here:
http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn18 ... /Step1.jpg

Once it's off, look towards the lower area above the track pad for the ATI chip. There is an orange ribbon cable overlapping it. Do not remove this cable, it is fine where it is.
http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn18 ... /Step2.jpg

Now, we need to build a spacer. I found out that this configuration seems to be the perfect height and size.
I stacked an old CF card, followed by an SD card, followed by a Memory Stick Duo card, all taped together. Put them with the physically biggest card on the bottom and the smallest on the top. Do be sure to do this part right because if it isn't the right thickness it won't help at all.
http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn18 ... /Step3.jpg

Put it on top of the orange ribbon cable, on top of the ATI chip like so:
http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn18 ... /Step4.jpg
Put some tape on the white ribbon cable connector and the spacer to keep it from sliding around.

Tightly screw the keyboard back in, and you are good to go!
http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn18 ... /Step5.jpg

Hope this helps some other people who can't be bothered to reflow their video processors

Note from Admin: Nice try, but no pic warning and images >50k = no images. Read the forum rules.

just curious.. How much memory have you ugraded your T40 with now

Seeing that this thread is in the FAQ section, I hope I wont be accused of thread necro although the post is from 2009.

I am starting to have the GPU problem on my T40 and it's getting worse. Since I really hesitate to part with my long old friend (but on the other hand also hesitate to spend reflowing bucks) I have one simple question:

How long term is this solution? Works for years? Stably so?

Not to discourage you, but that is only a temporary solution, which may work for an hour, a day, a week, a month or longer...
You won't know till you try, this costs you nothing and you have nothing (more) to lose.

Should you want a replacement mobo, see the website in my signature or PM me.

Realize I'm digging up an old post from 2009 so don't expect OP to see this. I'm wondering if anyone knows the height of the "spacer" that the OP created with the 3 flash cards described in the post as:
1. Compact Flash 2. Secure Digital 3. Memory Stick Duo.

I'm asking because if I look at form factors (specifically the heights of these cards), I see height differences depending on the model of the card e.g.
1. Compact Flash -> CF-I (3.3 mm) or CF-II (5.5 mm)
2. Secure Digital -> SD (straight forward because I just see 1 type; 2.1 mm)
3. Memory Stick Duo -> MSD (2.8 mm) or MSPD (PRO Duo 1.6 mm) or MSPDX (PRO-HG Duo, also 1.6 mm)

If I assume CF-I + SD + MSD ... I get a height of 8.2 mm
If I assume CF-II + SD + MSPD ... I get a height of 10.4 mm
etc. (different possible combinations).

I'm not expecting a response to this long dead post, but if someone happens to notice this and has a comment I'd appreciate it. Of course I realize it's a Rube Goldberg kind of "fix", but I'm just trying to resurrect a T41 that's been out of commision with the GPU problem for over 2 years and I'm only prepared to try a "cheap & easy fix".

(If this one doesn't work, plan B might be another one I found that simply uses a fancy epoxy glue (billed as high tempearture and non conducting) to keep the GPU "glued" to the MOBO and try to prevent flexing and breaking the connection).

Thanks.

Hi Johnny and welcome.

The height of whatever shim you want to try needs to be found out experimentally.
The CF card used in the picture is a CF-I, but height might vary between brands.
A stacked height of 10.4mm is definitely too much, so 8.2mm might be the better choice.
Of course you can use any piece of wood, carton, plastic, hard board, MDF, whatever in the proper size.
Apart from what you use, it will always be a temporary fix, IF it works at all.
Putting glue around the GPU is not going to help at all.
It won't put any pressure on the GPU, and if any flexing happens, the glue will not prevent the GPU's movement.
We are talking less than a hair's width of movement here!
Hence my suggestion: work out a shim of the correct size, but don't expect a miracle.
If you could live without sound, I have a suitable professionally reballed motherboard, which also received new Southbridge and audio chips, but audio seems not to work.
Everything else is OK though.
I have it up for sale for $50.- shipped within USA, but if you make me an offer I can not refuse... (via PM)
See also www.theboardroom.info/stock.htm

Thanks for your input RealBlackStuff. I was leaning toward your suggestion of material anyway (e.g. any piece of wood, carton, plastic, hard board, MDF etc.) and I'll give it a shot using a height of 8.2 mm for starters. Thanks. John

Well I'm a very happy camper. I appear to have resurrected my IBM T41 (2373-7FU) with an ATI Radeon Mobility 7500 GPU from the unusable shelf that I've had it on for the last couple of years. I put it on the unusable shelf because of an apparently pretty common issue related to this ATI GPU chip in the T4x models.

My particular symptom: a few minutes (at most maybe an hour) after a boot, I had started to notice that the display image would start to "tear" and as soon as it did, the machine locked up and needed to be powered off/on to recover. But even after a reboot, it would soon run into the same problem. (Additionally in my case, sometimes after I tried to reboot, it wouldn't boot, but I noticed that if I flexed the base of the machine a bit and powered on again, it would boot).

Anyway, my "fix" for my GPU issue, was even cheaper and easier than I was hoping it might be (your mileage may vary).

I was prepared to make a "spacer" as per the instructions provided by OP, but decided to just use a little square of wood I cut from a lumberyard shim shingle (~35mm x ~35mm x ~8.2mm). However when I flipped open the keyboard, on my T41 I saw what I guess was the CMOS battery sitting on top of the GPU and ribbon cable that OP's pictures didn’t show. So when I tried to use my 8.2mm high block of wood, I realized that there was no way I'd be able to get the front of the keyboard back to it's normal position to screw it back into place (i.e. the thickness added by the CMOS battery made an 8.2mm thick spacer, far too thick).

So my fallback was to simply take a bunch of the tiny PostIt note slips of paper, fold them into quarters and pile enough of them together (with a bit of tape to hold the stack together) so that when I put the stack on top of {the CMOS battery + ribbon cable + ATI GPU chip}, I could see that when I tried to close the front of the keyboard, it was bulging up just enough to make me believe that the screws would compress the stack further, pull the front of the keyboard down into its normal position and most importantly result in some pressure being applied to the contacts between the GPU and the motherboard.

As soon as I did this, I no longer had my symptom. I ran the Orthos CPU Loader tool overnight and it ran like a champ. Then I loaded over 2000 images into Picasa with it’s face recognition software turned on and again no sign of a symptom.

I had been quite prepared to do the “gpu reflow” technique (i.e. completely dismantle the TP and use a heat gun & infrared thermometer on the ATI chip) so I’m obviously very happy that I’ve avoid that drill (and possibly cause a bigger problem) with just a bit of time and a few PostIt notes.

PS: I’ll try to remember to come back and update this at some point, if my “fix” starts to act up again.

A little over a month ago I started having GPU problems with my beloved T40. Not willing to discard it, I tried this fix. So far it's been working 100% with no issues whatsoever. Thus I too can recommend this method to other people who "can't let go" of their favorite Thinkpad.

I'm a little startled that this "fix" has been discovered six years later! I posted this as a youngin in High School. RBS is correct that this is really a kludge solution and not a good fix, but if it is any confidence to anybody here, that T40 still works today. I suppose if you can't access a heat gun or reflow station this is better than nothing.

This is an old thread, but I would like to confirm that this type of solution definitely works.

I was working on a T4x a few weeks ago; the video would go black while the machine would continue to run. I assumed the graphics chip was failing, but decided to give this method a chance.

I placed enough spacers/shims to create slight pressure between the keyboard and south bridge, and the issue has gone away. Again, weeks have gone by and the issue has not recurred.