Thinkpad T43 Shuts Down Randomly and then.....

[slinkeey]

Hello,

My Thinkpad T43 Shuts Down Randomly (Maybe it is not random, but i can not find any pattern) and then it can be a real pain to get going again..

I usually have to take the battery or power out and keep reapplying and removing power until I see the amber battery led blink. When I get the machine running again, It may run for .5 seconds or 5 days.. It all depends on how it feels

So for some reason if I remove the power completely over and over it comes back to life. (Removing and Reinserting the battery over and over with the power unplugged... Or I will out the battery and plug and unplug the power cord over and over)..

I have tried running it on just battery.. I have also tried just running it on AC.. Same thing..

Heat Sinks are Clean.
Fan appears to spin just fine..

Thanks,
Jeff

[slinkeey]

I forgot to add that this has an Intel GPU so I do not beleive that it is the GPU solder problem.

[seaweedsl]

I'd install Notebook hardware control and watch the CPU temp while loading the CPU to 100% - seems like an overheating CPU could cause your symptoms.

Steve

[Marin85]

Welcome to our forum!

Does it shut down like windows shut down or it just abruptly powers off? If the latter, then, from what you are describing in your post, it could be something related adapters/cables/lose contact/power jack etc.

[slinkeey]

I just abruptly shuts down as in dead.. No warning, just POOF! Pulled the plug..

I couldn't find anything loose inside.

I am running the Ubuntu flavor of Linux so I will have to find a Linux variant of notebook hardware control.

The weird thing is how I need to unplug and replug over and over until I see the amber battery led blink.

Thanks for the tips and thanks for the welcome!

[seaweedsl]

I just abruptly shuts down as in dead.. No warning, just POOF! Pulled the plug..

The weird thing is how I need to unplug and replug over and over until I see the amber battery led blink.

I can't remember if it was a Thinkpad or another brand, but I had one that was overheating and when it triggered the shutdown, it was instant and physical, not a windows shutdown.

Also, once thermal shutdown was triggered, it required a reset; that is, pull the battery and unplug it to get it to boot again.

I also had an R51 that went out in a similar manner as to what you describe. Instant shutoff, then some variations on restart vodoo would get it to boot again, but not right away. I suspect that heating up was causing a short to manifest. In that case, a new motherboard was the remedy.

Finally, I have now seen a couple thinkpad CPUs get hot over time even though the fan and vents were clean. Replacing the thermal paste brought the CPU temp down 15- 20 C, which is quite significant.

Anyway, you don't need NHC to check temps, just find something that can monitor CPU temp and something to stress your CPU. I wonder if PCDoctor would show temp under stress - it can be run in DOS on a boot CD.

Steve

[poshgeordie]

I'll add some headings because I'm hitting a lot of different subjects.

The CPU and using heatsink compound

I use loads of heatsink compound and there's a significant performance difference between Arctic Silver and the 'others'; what's also encouraging is that there's not a great price difference between AS and that white goo stuff so I'd encourage anyone to go for the former - kinda no brainer!

I know it's been said all over the place in the forums (so apologies for grandmothers and sucking eggs etc!) but I'm constantly surprised at how much heatsink compound people apply, I guess working on the basis of the 'more is more'

HS compound is there to fill the minute cavities and imperfections between the machined CPU and heatsink surfaces.

Preparation - remove all the old compound using paper towel. You are looking for a squeaky clean mirror finish on the CPU and copper clean on the heatsink. Any hardened compound must not be scraped off with a screwdriver since this puts canyon-like scratches on the surface in question. Instead use methelated spirits on a paper towel to soak it off.

Application - This needs the smallest amount you can spread over the CPU surface. To prove to yourself that the minute amount used is more than enough, when the heatsink assembly is removed there should be an even thinnest of thin 'residue' of compound over just the CPU and a matching amount on the heatsink. There should be next to no overflow over the edge of the CPU.
Also check that the heatsink has the CPU 'pattern' on it - no partial mating of the surfaces etc.

I'm mentioning this because I've come across mis-seated fan assemblies which will cause CPU overheating. Also correct use of HS compound is good practice which will give the best heat transfer to the fan assembly.

When you've tried all this and still have the same problem, do you have another TP which you could exchange the CPU out of?

Memory Problems

Also I'm wondering about an intermittent memory problem. A failure of a memory module could well cause a sudden shutdown - PC Doctor memtest? Try another memory module if you have one or maybe if you have sticks in both slots to remove one stick from one slot, run the TP and if it fails again try the other stick in the other slot only.

AC Adapter Problem

This may sound daft but the AC adapter's not shutting down? They use switch mode technology which tends to work on the edge and I've had a couple chuck their hand in, so maybe try to borrow another adapter.

[slinkeey]

I am going to try these suggestions..

I did repaste the CPU with Arctic Silver when I had it apart to figure out the problem.

The AC Adapter is not daft.. I will check that since the cords are starting to twizzle. Maybe it is an intermittent connection. IT does this with the battery in too though, but I am open for anything.

I am going to pull out 1gig of memory at a time and see how it goes.

One thing. This Notebook gets really hot underneath the touchpad and a little to the right. (Hard Drive Side) Almost unbearable to touch.

[poshgeordie]

Remove the front bezel to get access to the HDD cage, and then run TP. That way you should have some idea on what exactly's getting so hot. The HDD does get warm, but I wouldn't describe it as 'unbearable' exactly.

To illiminate that 'hot spot' from the equation, remove the HDD, and run a few cycles of PC Doctor (insert CD; start TP; press F12; select boot from CD; navigate the PC Doc menus to find one with the cycling tests and run a few cycles).
Repeat with the HDD fitted and see if the heat from it closes the TP down (you may need to fit the front bezel to keep the heat in.

What I'm saying is identify hotspots with a finger (preferably!!!), remove that component if it's a plug-in board, run some cycles and repeat with the board fitted.

You could also remove every plug-in board and leave 1 memory stick (having made sure you don't have a mem stick problem), and run with the bare minimum. If it works add one component at a time until you find the culprit.

Just occurred to me that it's not something to do with the battery which is causing this? How about also removing the battery and see what happens.

And another thing (sorry M8!!) it may be worth while resetting the bios to defaults to make sure you haven't got a 'strange' setting there - start TP; press F1 (going into bios); at bios screen press F9 and 'yes' to reset to default settings; F10 and 'yes' to save settings and reboot.

Finally (phew!) - shot in the dark - what happens when you remove the display cable and run it via an external display?

My thinking is that tests here are current reducing measures to check if there is a component which is drawing too much and shutting the TP down.

[slinkeey]

Well this goes on even without the battery.. The battery is pretty much done so I leave it out..

I took the DVD drive out because it opens on its own all the time. I can put it on to run PC Doctor though.. I will see if I can get my hands on PC Doctor.

I just removed the network card because that was getting really hot. I think it was getting hot from the chip below it though..

I like the idea of pulling things to see if some device is causing the shutdown... I also swapped my memory today.

I am using BurnP6 in UBUNTU right now.. It is heating up the heatsink by the fan nicely.. The notbook is not shutting down, Yet... I guess we will see.. BurnP6 is utilizing 99-100% of the CPU.. This got the CPU up to 77 Degrees C (170F). After Stopping it it has been dropping down to 41C (105F)

Fire Up the web browser and typing this message brought it up to 43C (111F) if anyone is curious for kicks

Jeff

[slinkeey]

Thank you everyone!

I let this thing just sit and run.

Memory Tested OK...
Ran it with one Stick too.
Removed the MinPCI Card (Wireless)
Removed CD Rom (Already Removed)
Swapped hard drives with another thinkpad.

Ran it and it lasted about 2 hours and then died. I wasn't stressing it either..

I think I have exhausted everything... It was worth a try.. I think what I will do it look on ebay for a T43 that has a bad screen or something.

Thanks,
Jeff

[Cakk]

Mine does this too. It just shuts off without any warning or message.

[seaweedsl]

I also had an R51 that went out in a similar manner as to what you describe. Instant shutoff, then some variations on restart vodoo would get it to boot again, but not right away. I suspect that heating up was causing a short to manifest. In that case, a new motherboard was the remedy.

More and more it sounds like my R51. GPU problems aren't the only reason these motherboards go out. And I'm seeing that T43s are not immune to this form of MB failure.

Probably best to just get another MB on Ebay. Not that big of a deal, actually.

Steve

[mikoha]

Hi Jeff,
I am experiencing same problem with my T43 laptop and there are other five people having the same problem. If you are able to resolve this, please let me know.
Should we inform IBM?

Thanks
Michael

[seaweedsl]

Hi Jeff,
I am experiencing same problem....
Should we inform IBM?

If it's under warranty, then I'd contract Lenovo/IBM right away. If not, then I wouldn't bother. Motherboards go out all the time, especially on these machines. I've had to replace two R51 Intel graphics motherboards and those are said to be the most reliable of the bunch.

Just buy another and swap it out - if you are up for it. No big deal at this point in the game. 4 years ago it would have been expensive, but they are quite reasonable now.

Steve

[mikoha]

Steve,
Thanks

[dwallace]

Thanks for the learnings.

I have a varation-on-this-theme, a T43 with signs of Alzheimer's. Sometimes boots and hangs as if it forgot to get all the way to the start screen; frequent errors or dumps when opening programs/browsers (especially Outlook and Firefox).

Doesn't seem to matter whether it's battery or AC-powered. And since I don't have the skillz to replace a mo-board or test memory, I may be looking at a diagnostic/repair by some MIT students here in Boston.

Suggestions?
Thanks
Dave

[seaweedsl]

I have a varation-on-this-theme, a T43 with signs of Alzheimer's. Sometimes boots and hangs ...Suggestions?
Thanks
Dave

I'd take some time verifying it's a motherboard problem with those symptoms. Download pc-doctor dos (from Lenovo) and burn a bootable test disk. Open it and run through the tests. Also you could download and get one of those free linux builds that will boot right from a CD without installing or affecting your windows /harddisk. Run that for a while. If the PC Doc test is good and Linux runs fine, then it's your Windows+ software install, I guess.

Motherboards are not terribly hard to change. There's a maintenance manual that takes you through the steps with diagrams.

After all these reports on this thread, I'm starting to wonder if the T43s are really more reliable than T42, though. Not graphics, but still numerous failures....


Saludos
Steve