T41 black screen sometimes

[rasco14]

Hi Everyone

Just got this laptop from a friend, and.....
When I turn it ON, it sometimes starts with a black screen, but sometimes it works good.
The times the black screen appears, the laptop turns on because I hear the fan spinning, the HD spinning, but the screen remains black. I turn it OFF and ON with the button, and same thing happens. If I continue to try it, then I get the IBM logo, and it will boot up fine for a few tries. I don't have windows installed yet, but I load up Puppy Linux with no problem.
Once the IBM logo appears, even if I turn it OFF and ON a few times, it still works good. If I keep trying then the black screen comes up again.
Kinda like 5 black screens boots, then 5 good boots, then back to 5 black screens, and so on. Give or take on the number of times, but something like that.

I have no idea why it sometimes boots up fine, and why sometimes it boots up to a black screen. Maybe a video problem? But why does it do it sometimes only? The laptop is on my desk during all the testing, so is not being moved.

Please help.

Thanks,
Ed

[yak]

It could be a loose GPU. The cycling could be caused by slight warming and cooling of the chip. Easy test, take off the keyboard, press (and keep pressed) on the GPU and see how it behaves.