Bad Screen, Cable, Video Board or Hard Drive?

[vinuneuro]

My T41 has been acting very oddly lately. Sometimes the screen just randomly goes blank but is still lit. This also sometimes happens if I turn the laptop laterally a little. Sometimes, after pushing a bunch of buttons randomly, the desktop/workspace reappear but with random colored dots everywhere or a bunch of lines. Also, everything is sometimes frozen and things act wierd..windows don't open/ new links only open in new tabs, etc.

When the random pushing of buttons doesn't work, I'm forced to 'hard' shutdown. When I turn it off after an 'episode' like this, I don't hear the hardrive click off, just the fan turning off, which is why I suspect the hard drive might be a problem. After I turn it off, if i turn it on immediately it won't boot or nothing shows up on the screen. I have to wait a min or so. The harddrive is only a few months old after the original one failed. It's an oem drive (Hitachi?).

This is happening more frequently these days. I've had this thing for more than three years now and it's def not been just sitting on a desk.

Any ideas guys?

[rkawakami]

Welcome to thinkpads.com!

On the surface, it sounds like you may be having a problem which is detailed (at length) in this "sticky" thread:

t42 shuts down when i move it

Short version: It's possible that there is a part (or parts) that have come loose from the motherboard.

Slightly longer version: Or it's possible that your problem has nothing to do with the motherboard. Sorry I can't be more definitive ! You may be seeing a keyboard or video problem. I say "keyboard" because of your comment about links opening in new tabs, which I assume is NOT the norm. If you are using Firefox, opening a link in a tab is done by holding the CTRL key down (and clicking the link). You may have a stuck CTRL key. Random colored dots/lines is usually indicative of a video memory problem. It can also be the LCD panel or the ribbon cable.

Troubleshooting advice: Try removing all of the "extra" hardware from the laptop. This means the hard drive, the Ultrabay drive, the network card, wireless if you got it, modem, anything plugged into the PCMCIA cage and USB. Since this doesn't sound like a memory issue, you can probably leave all of the memory installed. Boot the system. It will complain about no operating system found but you should at least be able to look at the IBM splash screen and access BIOS and see if the problem is still there. If so, then you probably have a motherboard issue. If not (everything looks okay no matter how you move the system), then turn it off and plug ONE item in at a time and repeat the power-on. Continue until you find that piece of hardware which causes the problems.

From another computer, download a copy of PC Doctor from here:

T4x Software and Drivers

Scroll down until you get to the Diagnostics section and select the DOS Bootable CD or DOS (diskette) versions. Create the bootable media (CD or floppies) and try booting the system from it. Assuming you can get this far, start running some of the diagnostic tests.

[vinuneuro]

Thanks for the reply! The problem with troubleshooting is that the problem is intermittent/sporadic. There doesn't seem to be any particular one action that causes the problem.

Based on the fact that in the cases that I need to turn off the laptop, I need to wait a little while before it'll boot again (there's no hd activity in those cases), is that indicative of anything?

Just now, I picked up the laptop with two hands but gripping it towards the front. Screen went blank for a moment and then lines everywhere immediately. There was hd activity and the comp restrted immediately without a problem.

[rkawakami]

Physical movement of the laptop which then affects the performance usually means a broken connection somewhere on the motherboard. If it appears that some passage of time is needed before the system can boot again, that's usually a temperature related issue. Could also be an electrical problem; a residual charge (voltage) that needs to "bleed off" before the system can function again.

Some may read into that last statement that I'm referring to what has been called "overcharged capacitors". I'm not suggesting that as the prime cause of the problems you are seeing. To me it sounds like you have a simple problem of some component(s) that have come loose from the system board.

[coreman]

I just had this problem and fixed it with a new motherboard (under warranty). Since yours is probably not under warranty, I would strongly urge you look at that Sticky thread referenced in second post...there are detailed instructions on how you may be able to fix the problem yourself...it really sounds like you may have some cracked solder joints on the GPU...