ATi Radeon 7500

[ThinkPad560X]

Was the ATi Radeon 7500 Graphics card a big problem?
I own a T40 and it had the ATi Radeon 7500 chip and went bad, I later bought a brand new T41 board and happend to have the same problem after about 4 months, had same graphics card. Was this ATi's fault or IBMs that the chip always kept failing? I seen in a T43 and R52 that the heat cooling fan also ran from the CPU to the graphics card too.

[Neil]

Nothing really wrong with the 7500 chip. The problem with the T4x series ThinkPads was with the way the chip was soldered to the motherboard. The chips generally don't fail, the solder joints do. There was some improvement in the methods somewhere into the T43 line.

[ThinkPad560X]

Was there any problems with the R50-R51 that used the ATi Radeon 7500?

[Neil]

The R series were assembled using the same method. Some think that because of the smaller case the T4x machines experience greater heat build up that accelerated the breakdown of the solder joints. But the motherboards can go bad in the R series as well. The "better" board (at least for the GPU failure issue) from the R series has integrated graphics, the T4x didn't offer integrated graphics.

[RealBlackStuff]

You have to blame the environmentalists for the ATI GPU and Southbridge problems.
Their RoHs obsession forced mobo manufacturers to use lead-free solder, which just does not have the same soldering capabilities as lead-containing solder.

[killer]

Slightly off topic, but the same restrictions have outlawed lead-based paints. Nobody yet has come up with a better alternative for external wood paints so now people have wooden windows rotting because the paint lasts no time at all on south-facing windows. (Northern hemisphere.)
When it had lead content it flexed in the sun and flexed in the shade ... and lasted for ages.

I can understand banning indoor paints from having lead content. That might make sense. Does it really matter outdoors?

Maybe it does within a Thinkpad because of vapours? There is a clue in their names; Mercury is mercurial (OK, ban that!), Lead is leaden (any smell yet?). Does lead have a vapour? IIRC, gold is close to lead in the periodical table and is considered safe.

Over to the stinks (chemistry) brigade to comment on this.

As an aside, if anyone thinks this is flaming then let me know and I'll take a long holiday.

[ajkula66]

Uff...let's take a walk down the memory lane for a bit...

ATi 7000 which is a predecessor of 7500 had terrible results in A30/p generation, with quite a few machines failing due to VRAM corruption and not solder joint failure.

ATi 7500 was introduced in two guises on A31 units, 16MB for XGA units and 32MB on SXGA+ models. The same 16MB chip went into T30 as well. Failures, failures and more failures. For some reason, T30 fared better in this respect than its A3x siblings, but ended up being far from failure-free in this area.

Upgraded 64MB version was renamed Fire GL 7800 and installed in A31p. Horror show through and through, in large part due to insufficient cooling of these chips, and their weird (being very kind here, that's my favourite ThinkPad after all) placement on the planar.

Mind you, these are still the days of leaded solder on all but the few very latest units...

Now, off to T4x/R4x/R5x generation...if we must...

The cooling was improved - for the most part - on these, but lead-free soldering has taken its toll in the form of making the joints more sensitive to heating/cooling cycles, thus wreaking havoc amongst the owners of these machines...

Lenovo finally got it right with T60/p, where GPU failures are best described as a marginal problem.

And then they went with nVidia on T61/p...which will haunt them for the next few years...

All of that said, although the design of ATi 7500 and its close relatives may not have been defective to begin with, IBM has done its very best to situate them in environments where they were doomed by design to begin with...

My observations only...

[RealBlackStuff]

Similar looking chip, located in the same place, on (basically) the same board, little to no cooling ......
Makes me wonder then how the Intel GPUs are 'mounted' on the mobo/planar

[DrThinkpad]

The chip itself is pretty good. Mind you it's conception is over a decade old, and it still offers decent performance. Youtube runs pretty well, DVD playback is good too, even some old games or flash games... not that bad !

[sir_synthsalot]

The chip itself is pretty good. Mind you it's conception is over a decade old, and it still offers decent performance. Youtube runs pretty well, DVD playback is good too, even some old games or flash games... not that bad !

But will it run Crysis?

[Norway Pad]

Uff...let's take a walk down the memory lane for a bit...

Thanks for the information here, a good-to-know background on the issue.

Looking back, and seeing how much problems the discrete graphics have given over the years (Except from the T60, which seems to be amazingly free of any issue), makes me curious as to how the newer Tx00 and even the Tx10 machines are doing when it comes to the GPU. I guess the Tx10 are too new to show any signs yet, but the Tx00 have been out for a while now.

I also wonder if the discrete graphics are really worth it anymore. I know nothing about the specifications, but I would think that the integrated graphics of a 2010 generation Thinkpad does a similar, or even better job then the ATI graphics of a T4x, or even a T60? I don't know, but as long as it can play a full screen DVD/Netflix/Youtube video that's enough for me. Anything more powerful belongs in my desktop, where I can install any card I want. Makes me wonder if it's really worth it to go with the discrete graphics anymore, unless you are a gamer.

[ajkula66]

Norway Pad wrote:

I also wonder if the discrete graphics are really worth it anymore. I know nothing about the specifications, but I would think that the integrated graphics of a 2010 generation Thinkpad does a similar, or even better job then the ATI graphics of a T4x, or even a T60? I

You might be surprised...take a look here:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=90221

As you see, even V3200 from T43p - let alone V5200/5250 on T60p - beats the living daylight out of T61 with Intel Integrated graphics...

I guess the Tx10 are too new to show any signs yet, but the Tx00 have been out for a while now.

I was very impressed with switchable graphics on ~00 series...no issues that I'm aware of this far...

[Norway Pad]

Wow, I didn't realize they were that far behind. I better do some more research here before I make any decisions.

[ThinkPad560X]

How about the ThinkPad A30. I think my A30 has the graphics card problem too. And for anyone that owned or used a A30/A31 knows how thic it is. I thought the problem was because of how thin the T40 was and that there wasn't any space to let the GPU cool down with everything cramed inside. Atleast for the A30 there was alittle room

[ThinkPad560X]

I just powerd on my ThinkPad A30 and it don't have any ram in it right now but gives off the beep code. my T40 seems to be nonresponsive. no beep code or loading of the HDD.

[ajkula66]

@ThinkPad560X:

Room, yes, adequate cooling - no.

What exactly is the problem with that A30 of yours?

[ThinkPad560X]

the screen is coming on but no lightup and sometimes have to press down on the top palmrest below the screen and if bumbed around it would freeze.

[ajkula66]

You might have more than one problem there...

How's the external LCD?

Have you ever seen multi-coloured strips or hieroglyphic-looking symbols on bootup?

[ThinkPad560X]

yeah it has some kinda stips. is it just the LCD ribbon then?

[ThinkPad560X]

how do you fix the Graphics card on the T40 on your own?

[RealBlackStuff]

By reading the hundreds of posts about this in the T4x Forum.

[j-dawg]

It doesn't even matter that lead is known in the state of California to cause cancer. Just don't use lead solder in California! PROBLEM SOLVED~~NEXT CASE