T22 freezes - suggestions what ot look at?

[jkn]

Hi all
my trusty T22, which I use as a backup laptop when travelling, is playing up, and I'm looking for suggestions.

I think it's an internal connector problem or similar. In the middle of an operation it will simply freeze. The screen remains, but the cursor freezes. The keyboard has no effect, including the caps lock LEDs etc. Occasionally it will reboot; sometimes it will then fail to get to the BIOS boot screen from reboot.

Power seems good and I have run Memcheck with the hard disk removed and got no errors. I've removed and replaced the memory chips. At one point I thought it was the hard disk; however I have been booting it from a linux live CD (knoppix) without a hard disk and it froze once then. I run this as a dual-boot machine (XP and Gentoo Linux) and it has frozen under both OSes.

I think it is some sort of connector problem as I can manually 'flex' the laptop slightly and it runs for a longer period of time - maybe 30 mins instead of 5 to 10.

I realise that the answer to 'what could be wrong' is 'almost anything' ;-(, but I wonder if there are some known issues which I should check first. I have few tools with me at the moment but I do have a service manual . With a bit more of a clue I hope I can check things out more when I return to the UK.

Thanks for your suggestions

Regards
Jon N

[andyP]

The modem/lan card can cause freezing, try removing it and see if that helps.

[Robbyrobot]

Hard to say what could be wrong, but you might check the HDD to start out. An addressing error can cause the system to freeze, regardless of the OS. A checkup with PC-Doctor wouldn't hurt.

And of course the usual... did you change/"improve" anything, software or hardware, before this phenomenon began? If so, it'd be worthwhile reversing the operation and seeing if that helps.

Without more data I wouldn't know how to proceed further.

[Eric Giles]

As was suggested, remove the modem/lan card from the bottom of the unit and see if that helps. I have had this happen to a few T2x units over the years, and have spent a lot of time trying to diagnose the problem. One thing that did always fix the problem was a replacement system board. So, you may want to start looking for a replacement if your troubleshooting turns up nothing.

[jkn]

Hi all
I'm back home where I have more tools to investigate this problem. Thanks for your suggestions so far.

Since my original posting I've actually had the T22 work for around 30mins at a time ... this seems to involve diagonal flexing of the bottam half of the housing. I'm about to open the thing up again and have a poke.

One thing I noticed whilst reading the service manual. There is talk of a "keyboard CRU insulator" between the keyboard and the rest of the machine. My T22 doesn't have this. Should this be present on all models

Thanks
Jon N

[Robbyrobot]

There is talk of a "keyboard CRU insulator" between the keyboard and the rest of the machine. My T22 doesn't have this. Should this be present on all models

The HMM would indicate it's present in all the T2x models, but this is nothing special, just a shaped piece of plastic foil to insulate the bare center part of the mainboard from the aluminum back of the keyboard. A piece of plastic foil would do the same job.