Someone help me figure out what I'm seeing

[jessenj]

I have a T41 (2373-311) and I've been reading through this board but I can't find anyone with a similar problem and thought I'd post.

I was having a problem with Windows freezing, so I reinstalled XP Pro SP2 thinking it was a bad driver or something. The problem I see is this:

Shortly after power on, but at random intervals, the system just freezes and the screen goes fuzzy whenever I try to move the mouse. If I power cycle (cold boot), the screen doesn't show anything and the drive light never flashes. I will repeat this process about 4 or 5 times, and it will then boot up just fine and work with no problems for about 5-10 minutes and then starts the whole process all over again.

I smelled the fan and it smells a little burned. A few times I booted to get the Fan Error message, but that's only happened a few times. Is it the laptop overheating?

I'm running NHC and am underclocking and undervolting to .965 and 600mhz. All monitors look to be fine so I can't see that there are any heat issues, but I'm guessing at this point it might be the planar issue.

Can someone help me try to determine what's happening here? I also can't find the part number for my fan. The matrix on the IBM/Lenovo sight doesn't show a replacement fan part number for a 2373-311, so I'm losing my options here.

Thanks in advance,

Jesse

[kokni]

I had the same exact problem two years ago. I called the local dealer to ask for some advise and he instantly said "bring the laptop in". Apparently it was a well known problem with T41 2373 motherboards that had faulty gpu chips that caused overheating-fan failure-board failure, or so I have been told.

[jessenj]

Its no longer under warranty so I'm trying to decide whether or not its worth getting repaired. The GPU is integrated, or so I'm told, so that would require a mobo swap out, right? Any idea what this might run me out of pocket?

[mitchellst]

Long Fan FRU# 91P9252

Short Fan FRU# 91P9254

[jessenj]

Thanks Mitchell -

Are both compatible and if so, is one recommended over the other?

[mitchellst]

The way they list the parts for each unit is strange.

For your unit, 2373-311, it shows both on the master list of parts. I'm not 100% positive that both will work, but I believe that they will (otherwise, they shouldn't list it in the parts index).

I recommend getting whatever is in your unit now. I suspect it's the long fan (seems like it usually is for some reason). You can check by removing the keyboard. The short fan will only provide heat dissipation for the CPU. I believe the long fan extends out over some other components as well. Like I said... I believe both will work, but you may as well replace it with the same part...

On second thought, if you're having overheating problems, you may want to try the long fan either way.

You should be able to replace the fan without removing anything but the keyboard (and the fan... obviously). You "may" have to remove the palmrest too, but I don't believe so. The part number should be on it somewhere.

If it was under warranty, I'd vote that you send it in so that you can get your motherboard replaced too, but since it's not, trying the fan first is definitely the cheaper option. I've seen T40/41/42 motherboards on ebay for around $250, but if you go to a store, they will charge more like $450 plus labor.

[jessenj]

Thanks for the tip. As long as the fan bay is long enough to accommodate the long fan, I would guess that it would be the better choice for my system. The only thing I wonder is, is there any way to definitively determine that its the GPU and not broken planar solder points as others have mentioned have been notorious problems for the T41's? Are there some tests that I can run to put the thing through its paces?