IBM Thinkpad T42 - Screen image failure?

[filiphr]

Hello there,


I own IBM Thinkpad T42 (type 2373-4TG), video card is ATI Radeon 7500.
Today I was working on laptop as every day, reading some PDFs in Windows and then I decided to restart laptop and go to Linux.
Computer was successfully restarted and IBMs logo was shown on screen perfectly.
Then screen screwed up. Lots of pixels in different colors were shown. After that bootloader was shown with a pretty messed letters. I know that Windows is last in menu, so I choose Win.
While Windows starting, log was kinda fliped. When Windows was fully started, screen image was perfectly fine as usual? I'm confused?! When starting laptop, screen goes wierd, when Windows is "on" everythings fine?

Here are photos of screen in each phase of starting

slika 1
Starting laptop - IBM logo - screen image fine

slika 2
Screen after 2 seconds, screwed up

slika 3
Screen after choosing Windows from bootloader

slika 4
Screen when Windows is fully loaded

slika 4b
Screen when Windows is fully loaded, but laptop is attacted to AC adapter from the start.


Why is this happening?

Laptop was never crashed or anything else, I'm typing this from my T42.



Filip

[Neil]

Looks like your GPU is starting to have BGA failure. Contact Nick.

[filiphr]

Hmm BGA? Is this reason of over-heat?
Screen image is wierd while starting computer, but when Windows is started everything is fine with image. I'm typing from T42 at the moment.

[ajkula66]

Dobrodošao na forum!

I'm going to agree with Neil, this is a GPU going haywire. The second picture makes me wonder whether it's just getting loose (which would be an easier fix) or the VRAM is getting corrupted, which would require a motherboard swap.

There's been a lot of posts regarding these issues, so get yourself in a nice comfy armchair and start here:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=33952

I'd also suggest booting from a PC Doctor for DOS from CD, and testing VRAM and other motherboard functions from there. You can download and burn the disk from here:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-56222

Lastly, if you're really brave, run this one for a while and see where you get:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=90221

Good luck or should I just say srećno...

[poshgeordie]

Hi Filip and welcome as well, and thanks too for the PM.

That is classic unsoldered Graphics chip (GPU). The reason it happens is as follows:

The GPU is soldered to the motherboard with 692 tiny solder balls (I counted every one!), and over the years a few of these solder balls become detached from the board.
This is happens for a couple of reasons - the chip temperature changes from cold when the Thinkpad is switched off to becoming hot when it's being used.
Also people pick up their Thinkpads up by the front edge or corner etc and flexes the case and motherboard which then breaks some of the tiny solder ball joints.
This is also very common with the Southbridge chip which is located at the front of the motherboard and typical symptoms will be USB runs at 1.1 rather than 2.0, Hard Drive / keyboard appears not to work, no audio or problems with the audio etc.

I'll send you details of our prices in a PM.

Some people try using a heatgun to repair the heat up the chip to re-melt the solder balls, however we receive many such laptops where the repair has not only failed but the motherboard and chip is too badly damaged for us to repair and we can only offer a complete replacement board - if we have one in stock.
So it may seem a cheap way of trying to repair the problem, but in the long term it usually ends up costing far more.