W530 locking up sometimes

[atagunov]

Hi, using W530 as daily driver. Sadly never bothered to open and repaste. Recently dropped my backpack with it inside bad enough to crack plastic bottom shell in rear left part, hot air exhaust is now partially missing etc. Not opened for repairs yet. May need a new bottom part btw, in London.

So the issue: W530 is sitting docked at my desk with external monitor attached, there's an external USB dac (sound card) connected to a USB hub connected to the docking station. Sometimes after watching Youtube for a long time

- the picture freezes
- the mouse stops moving
- pressing anything on keyboard has no effect
- the sound continues for a while and then cuts out - via that external DAC

In several tens of seconds the machine comes back alive. I'm using software to remote into my work, and W530 is on WiFi. This software tells me it needs to re-establish connection, so it looks like it wasn't able to function either in this space of time.

Any ideas? I still sometimes carry this striken bird in my backpack around and take it out on the train etc. Could be purely a software issue, don't know. I'm on Windows 10. But I don't think I'd seen this before dropping the machine.

[JBUK]

What does the event manager say when it freezes.

[atagunov]

What does the event manager say when it freezes.

Thx for suggestion! Will check the next time it happens. Just by looking it there's an alarmingly high number of

The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk1\DR1.

events but right now I don't know if they're linked to freezes

[JBUK]

Could be a disk nearing end of life. Does the disk SMART data show any problems. If theres any doubt you could try another known good disk.

[RealBlackStuff]

First thing to do would be to open the darn thing and check that the HDD/SSD is maybe dislocated.
If it still is a HDD, replace it with an SSD.
Then clean the fan and replace the thermal paste with PMT7950 thermal pads.

Check eBay for: lenovo w530 base, easier (and cheaper) to find than FRU 04W6914.

[atagunov]

Thx for suggestions. No, nothing in event viewer around the time of another short lockup up (10 seconds?). It's an SSD but slightly old and dodgy, Kingston or smth like that, 0.5Tb probably. Will check on it being dislodged. Repasting is a bigger demand on time Interesting idea about thermal pads.

[atagunov]

After this lockup the main thing I could find in event veiwer was

The network interface "Intel(R) 82579LM Gigabit Network Connection" has begun resetting. There will be a momentary disruption in network connectivity while the hardware resets. Reason: The network driver detected that its hardware has stopped responding to commands. This network interface has reset 4 time(s) since it was last initialized.

I'm on WiFi, not sure if that interface comes into the picture, some I am somewhat confused with

Intel(R) 82579LM Gigabit Network Connection Network link is disconnected.
Name resolution for the name pub-ent-dewc-14-t.trouter.teams.microsoft.com timed out after none of the configured DNS servers responded.
Intel(R) 82579LM Gigabit Network Connection Network link has been established at 100Mbps full duplex.

Time between "has begun resetting" and "link has been established" is roughly when the machine was frozen.
So I guess I now also have the theory about a dislodged WiFi card..