A30 Issues....system freezes randomly or when jostled

[masdog]

I have an A30, PIII 1 ghz with 384 meg of RAM. Over the last week, the machine has locked up whenever I have taken it off of battery power while transporting it, which is fairly often because I use the machine for school.

Tonight, when I brought it to work, the machine seemed to lock up every time it was jostled. I've removed all the attached items, including the ultrabay 2000 drives attached to the machine as well as reseating the memory, but the problem hasn't been corrected. What could be causing this? Will it require warranty work?

In the past, the motherboard, processor, hard drive, and screen have all been replaced due to various issues that have cropped up.

[khamsin]

My guess is that it will require warranty work. Clearly something is either loose or downright broken inside. I have an A30p which has just had its mainboard replaced (video related issue) and came back with a non-functional firewire port. Actually it does function. Opening the A30p removing the carbus adapter and reseating it works for a time (as long as I do not transport the machine.) IMO this defeats the purpose of a desktop replacement portable it is meant to be movable (luggable). I have called IBM and they feel the mainboard needs to be replaced again. I told them OK when the part is in stock call me and I will bring it in (last time the it was gone 7 weeks, which is unacceptable.) This will be the third new mainboard the A30 gets. BTW the A30 mainboards appear to be scarce It takes weeks for parts to be supplied.

HTH

Khamsin

[karn]

Hahahaha, I (sadly) have an A30 too, and I found that the main GLITCH on that TP is the button that activates the "Suspend" when you close the lid.

(I think thats how my A30 died), Check the button at the top right hand side of the TP just above the keyboard and see If the button is loose, (what has happened is that this connector breaks off and because it has some metal parts in it when it touches your mobo it is causeing a short.
(lucky for you it's only a short)

In mine this crappy little thing came off killing my mobo, (needed a replacement mobo)

So If you can get into the machine CHECK very carefully that there are NO loose METAL parts in your TP or you'll be so sorry when you have to send it back for repair AGAIN...

I eventually found the crappy "Suspend" latch and glued it plus taped it back in position (so more more problem) it's originally only held on to the rest of the maching by some crappy melted plastic welded into position and eventually it breaks off...

So please look there first, this is just a suggestion, but it was my problem and it's fixed now.

I hope this helps you

[masdog]

I finally managed to keep it running for a couple of hours...long enough to do some diagnostics. It appears that the problem is in the level 2 cache.