Putting the "Art" in "Artifacting"

[Medessec]

http://www.medessec.info/m/Artifacting.JPG

This is what happened today when I tried to start Minecraft on my old D900T laptop with an ailing Quadro FX Go1400.

On the subject of Thinkpads... is this close to what you'd see on a T61p going out?

Also if you guys have any neat shots of artifacting, the graphics going out, or just any cool graphics glitch, it'd be awesome if you could post it here.

[ajkula66]

That's actually closer to what you'd see on an A3x/T4x/R5x when the GPU solder balls lose their "touch"...

T61/p crashes in a variety of ways, but most of them leave little doubt that one is looking at a machine that needs a new planar...I've seen some *really* weird stuff, like a screen splitting into four identical ones, all lightly distorted...

[Medessec]

That is really weird... because the problem is in the actual die isn't it, not the solder? I kinda want to get a trashed T61 just to see what you're on about. But not really...

As for the Quadro, it'd make sense then that it's closer to the weak soldering glitches. I constantly have to reflow the Quadro every time this happens, and that fixes it. Sometimes the computer artifacts on booting(because I guess it got too cold) and then you wait for Windows to BSOD and restart... and by then the card is warm enough and it chugs onward and works properly.

I've gotten in a Radeon X800 for the same laptop-and the card never had any real issues other than one: Some dynamic 2D stuff would "twinkle". It was kinda interesting.

[ajkula66]

That is really weird... because the problem is in the actual die isn't it, not the solder? I kinda want to get a trashed T61 just to see what you're on about. But not really...

This will give you an idea...one of many forms that the nVidia chip failure presents itself:

http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T61-and-pri ... -p/1054941

I wish I would've taken pictures of an A30p that I got from feebay a zillion years ago. Bought it as a non-working unit, so my hopes were on the low end to begin with. However, when I attempted to boot the machine, I was greeted by a bunch of hieroglyphic characters, along with some Cyrillic and conventional Latin ones. Pinched myself about two dozen times, rebooted and saw the same picture. Walked away, had a smoke, came back and rebooted again. Same story. On seventh or so reboot the display finally died.

The script was exceptionally neat looking, and probably made sense, but my Klingon is really not that good so I couldn't decipher what the poor ba$tard was trying to relate to me...

I've bumped into weird stuff over the course of years - including other VRAM failures that manifested themselves in a similar manner - but that A30p was something else...

[Medessec]

when I attempted to boot the machine, I was greeted by a bunch of hieroglyphic characters, along with some Cyrillic and conventional Latin ones. Pinched myself about two dozen times, rebooted and saw the same picture.

That's bizarre. Message from the devil or something... too bad you couldn't interpret what it was. It could've been one of those stories where you buy something online or from a garage sale and it turns out to be possessed/haunted...?

That T61's double screen glitch is also pretty out of whack... it makes me wonder how people react when their T61's working perfectly fine, then they start it up one day and they see something like that. They must've flipped out.