Strange video freeze with T40p - (Pic warning)

[atanasoff]

I have a T40p which has been working flawlessly until recently. (w an EZ Serv replaced main board)
It now has a strange issue.

After several hours of use, typically at least 5 but less than 12:
Text will blank in the open window, the battery icon and progressively in more places. If shut down immediately it has been possible to shut down via Windows, but within minutes, possibly within one minute, the display is corrupted enough that one cannot shut down without a power cycle.
The symptoms are largely repeatable - there seems to be no particular cause, but the effects are roughly similar each time.
There was one incident with a flickering, clouded display on battery power which recovered to completely normal after a reboot. That happened with NHC running at a slight undervolt; I've stopped using it for now.
I left Memtest running for several hours -- nothing
I tried IBM PC diags, quick runs and one for about an hour -- nothing.

I suspected software corruption at first, but several chkdsk runs at boot and an sfc/ scannow (system file checker) turn up nothing.

How can I determine what is wrong?
I do not want to do a format + reinstall of everything, that's too many wasted hours.

[Norway Pad]

The first thing that comes to mind when there are graphics problems on an older T4x, is a loose GPU. I would remove the keyboard and apply slight pressure with your thumb, etc, to the GPU chip when this starts happening. If that changes anything, you are looking at a loose GPU that needs some attention. I am surprised it takes several hours of use for it to occur, but it can be a beginning fail.

[atanasoff]

The first thing that comes to mind when there are graphics problems on an older T4x, is a loose GPU. I would remove the keyboard and apply slight pressure with your thumb, etc, to the GPU chip when this starts happening. If that changes anything, you are looking at a loose GPU that needs some attention. I am surprised it takes several hours of use for it to occur, but it can be a beginning fail.

This is an ignorant question, but .. how do I identify the GPU/where is it, and must the KB be removed or can this be quick-tested on the spot by firmly pressing a some key?

How much is the whole machine worth? It has a great screen, kb is fine, usb ports work... but it's waaay old. Might it be possible to buy a whole machine for whatever the repair cost is, and just swap in my hard drive?

[Harryc]

The GPU is under the black arrow. It has ATI printed on it. If you have a long heatsink it may be under the extension of it.

[atanasoff]

That helps, at some point I can run it with the kb loose and wait for a crash, can confirm/rule out the GPU at that time (no external kb handy).

[GACrabill]

... Text will blank in the open window, the battery icon and progressively in more places. If shut down immediately it has been possible to shut down via Windows, but within minutes, possibly within one minute, the display is corrupted enough that one cannot shut down without a power cycle.
The symptoms are largely repeatable - there seems to be no particular cause, but the effects are roughly similar each time. ...

I know this sounds weird, but I just fixed a Dell desktop last night that had these same symptoms.

I used Add/Remove to get rid of the "PageRank Toolbar" and something associated with it named "Conduit" .... problem solved.

[atanasoff]

I know this sounds weird, but I just fixed a Dell desktop last night that had these same symptoms.

I used Add/Remove to get rid of the "PageRank Toolbar" and something associated with it named "Conduit" .... problem solved.

Software can do some truly weird things. I had a "video problem" a while back where the right hand side of the screen would flicker. Obviously dying hardware, no doubt.
It turned out to be Opera launching. The machine ran fine for another year, with no video problems unless launching Opera.
I had done a few minor installs plus the latest Acronis backup. Unfortunately there was no Sys Restore point earlier than the problems. While I don't seem to have PageRank Toolbar and I did run the Acronis cleanup tool, said "cleanup" may not have cleaned up.
Ugh. Digging out obscure software issues is not what I have a machine for. I did that at work, I don't want to do that at home!
I really, truly don't want to format and reinstall!!

[Norway Pad]

Sorry for not giving better explanations, but hard to know your level of knowledge.

You need the keyboard connected to have the power button, but just leave it lying loose and lift it when you need access to the GPU. (An external keyboard IS handy here if you're going to type much) Be careful so that it's metal parts don't touch anything on the mobo, use a piece of paper as insulation if needed. Let us know how your experiment turns out.

[GACrabill]

I know this sounds weird, but I just fixed a Dell desktop last night that had these same symptoms. I used Add/Remove to get rid of the "PageRage Toolbar" and something associated with it named "Conduit" .... problem solved.

I want to update this thread to say that the problem that I had ... and probably the OP problem ... was caused by a memory leak problem with Avira anti-virus V10 SP1 which installed with auto updates in early November.

This Avira problem only seemed to affect XP systems and the fix was distributed yesterday ... though you may need to re-boot to get rid of any memory pollution which has already occurred.

[atanasoff]

I know this sounds weird, but I just fixed a Dell desktop last night that had these same symptoms. I used Add/Remove to get rid of the "PageRage Toolbar" and something associated with it named "Conduit" .... problem solved.

I want to update this thread to say that the problem that I had ... and probably the OP problem ... was caused by a memory leak problem with Avira anti-virus V10 SP1 which installed with auto updates in early November.

This Avira problem only seemed to affect XP systems and the fix was distributed yesterday ... though you may need to re-boot to get rid of any memory pollution which has already occurred.

I do use Avira an XP. An anti-virus is capable of causing such a problem? I didn't see a strange spike in memory usage, although - strangely -- attempting to run a bat file to restart would produce an out of mem error.
I'll be very relieved if I can get another year out of this machine.

[atanasoff]

Over three days since a video crash, surprising and very welcome.