https://www.thinkwiki.org/w/api.php?action=feedcontributions&feedformat=atom&user=Brg 2026-05-23T15:52:55Z User contributions MediaWiki 1.31.12 https://www.thinkwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Problem_with_video_related_system_lockup_II&diff=28067 2007-02-02T12:13:45Z

<p>Brg: </p> <hr /> <div>My T42 (type 2378-EXU) exhibited pretty much the problem described in the technostate link discussion - sudden blank screen, hard reboot required to clear up. One long - two short beep POST code sometimes on reboot. Happened more often after warm-up. Screen blanking happened after random flexing of the laptop - lid open/close, twist frame, press or squeeze on palm rest area. After reading the technostate discussion on the graphics chip (an ATI 9600 in a ball grid array (BGA) package), finding a similar discussion about problems with the graphics chip on mac ibooks, and concluding that it was hardware by proving that the problem still occurred at first BIOS boot screen with laptop disassembled as far as possible, I began to look for a solution. Out of warranty, so the $$$ for a new system board was hard to swallow. Heat gun rambo seemed like a low probability of success route. I dug around and found a repair house (http://www.protronics-inc.com) in our area that could handle BGA reflow work. I scheduled a visit, broke the T42 down to the system board, and took it in. They worked on it about an hour (2 x reflow, video scope, xray = $75). On inspection, the BGA solder did look odd on one side, with the balls looking more like two half silver balls squashed together, rather than the more appropriate single half-ball. I took the board back home and reassembled the T42. It booted up with no errors and passed all the pc-doctor diagnostics. I Flexed the laptop a bit with no problems. Woohoo! So far, no glitches since 12/5/2006 in daily normal use (boot, suspend, open/close, travel to work &amp; back).<br /> <br /> Had the reflow failed, the wisdom at the board house was to get a new system board, as the problem could be a bad connection pretty much anywhere.</div>

Brg https://www.thinkwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Problem_with_video_related_system_lockup_II&diff=27511 2007-01-05T16:46:09Z

<p>Brg: </p> <hr /> <div>My T42 (type 2378-EXU) exhibited pretty much the problem described in the technostate link discussion - sudden blank screen, hard reboot required to clear up. One long - two short beep POST code sometimes on reboot. Happened more often after warm-up. Screen blanking happened after random flexing of the laptop - lid open/close, twist frame, press or squeeze on palm rest area. After reading the technostate discussion on the graphics chip (an ATI 9600 in a ball grid array (BGA) package), finding a similar discussion about problems with the graphics chip on mac ibooks, and concluding that it was hardware by proving that the problem still occurred at first BIOS boot screen with laptop disassembled as far as possible, I began to look for a solution. Out of warranty, so the $$$ for a new system board was hard to swallow. Heat gun rambo seemed like a low probability of success route. I dug around and found a repair house (http://www.protronics-inc.com) in our area that could handle BGA reflow work. I scheduled a visit, broke the T42 down to the system board, and took it in. They worked on it about an hour (2 x reflow, video scope, xray = $75). On inspection, the BGA solder did look odd on one side, with the balls looking more like two half silver balls squashed together, rather than the more appropriate single half-ball. I took the board back home and reassembled the T42. It booted up with no errors and passed all the pc-doctor diagnostics. I Flexed the laptop a bit with no problems. Woohoo! So far, no glitches in a month of normal use (boot, suspend, open/close, travel to work &amp; back).<br /> <br /> Had the reflow failed, the wisdom at the board house was to get a new system board, as the problem could be a bad connection pretty much anywhere.</div>

Brg https://www.thinkwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Problem_with_video_related_system_lockup_II&diff=27347 2006-12-28T23:36:16Z

<p>Brg: </p> <hr /> <div>Also Thinkpads with the ATI 9600 video chip used in T42 and T42p can cause lock-ups.<br /> <br /> This happens after about two years of use.<br /> <br /> ==Symptoms==<br /> Screen goes blank, requires hard reboot (power off-on) to get screen display. On boot may give one long, two short beeps POST code. Screen goes blank when laptop flexed, eg adjusting lid angle, squeezing around ultranav trackpad area, twisting, pressing on palmrest. POST code or screen blanking more prevalent after warm-up. Problem gets worse over time. Problem repeatable from first boot (bios) screen with tpad partially disassembled - hdd, ultrabay, extra ram, wifi removed, kb, palm rest removed, but connected. See http://www.technotaste.com/blog/thinkpad-t42-ati-radeon-9600-driver-and-the-blue-screen-of-death-bsod<br /> and<br /> http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=33952<br /> for discussions of many similar symptoms.<br /> <br /> == Diagnosis ==<br /> Bad or broken solder joint on graphics chip. The chip is a ball grid array (BGA) package mounted to the system board. The problem is likely caused by an intermittent connection to the system board due to one or more bad or broken solder joints connecting the BGA to the system board. Thermal and/or mechanical movement breaks the connection, crashing the chip, yielding a blank screen or the BSOD.<br /> <br /> ==Solutions==<br /> * Replace system board. <br /> * Reflow the solder on the graphics chip: Remove the system board, take it to a board house that can reflow the BGA package, reassemble, cross fingers, test. <br /> <br /> == See Also==<br /> [[Problem with garbled screen]]</div>

Brg https://www.thinkwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Problem_with_video_related_system_lockup_II&diff=27346 2006-12-28T23:26:38Z

<p>Brg: </p> <hr /> <div>My T42 (type 2378-EXU) exhibited pretty much the problem described in the technostate link discussion - sudden blank screen, hard reboot required to clear up. One long - two short beep POST code sometimes on reboot. Happened more often after warm-up. Screen blanking happened after random flexing of the laptop - lid open/close, twist frame, press or squeeze on palm rest area. After reading the technostate discussion on the graphics chip (an ATI 9600 in a ball grid array (BGA) package), finding a similar discussion about problems with the graphics chip on mac ibooks, and concluding that it was hardware by proving that the problem still occurred at first BIOS boot screen with laptop disassembled as far as possible, I began to look for a solution. Out of warranty, so the $$$ for a new system board was hard to swallow. Heat gun rambo seemed like a low probability of success route. I dug around and found a repair house (http://www.protronics-inc.com) in our area that could handle BGA reflow work. I scheduled a visit, broke the T42 down to the system board, and took it in. They worked on it about an hour (2 x reflow, video scope, xray = $75). On inspection, the BGA solder did look odd on one side, with the balls looking more like two half silver balls squashed together, rather than the more appropriate single half-ball. I took the board back home and reassembled the T42. It booted up with no errors and passed all the pc-doctor diagnostics. I Flexed the laptop a bit with no problems. Woohoo! So far, no glitches in 23 days of normal use (boot, suspend, open/close, travel to work &amp; back).<br /> <br /> Had the reflow failed, the wisdom at the board house was to get a new system board, as the problem could be a bad connection pretty much anywhere.</div>

Brg https://www.thinkwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Problem_with_video_related_system_lockup_II&diff=27177 2006-12-21T02:13:30Z

<p>Brg: </p> <hr /> <div>My T42 (type 2378-EXU) exhibited pretty much the problem described in the technostate link discussion - sudden blank screen, hard reboot required to clear up. One long - two short beep POST code sometimes on reboot. Happened more often after warm-up. Screen blanking happened after random flexing of the laptop - lid open/close, twist frame, press or squeeze on palm rest area. After reading the technostate discussion on the graphics chip (an ATI 9600 in a ball grid array (BGA) package), finding a similar discussion about problems with the graphics chip on mac ibooks, and concluding that it was hardware by proving that the problem still occurred at first BIOS boot screen with laptop disassembled as far as possible, I began to look for a solution. Out of warranty, so the $$$ for a new system board was hard to swallow. Heat gun rambo seemed like a low probability of success route. I dug around and found a repair house (http://www.protronics-inc.com) in our area that could handle BGA reflow work. I scheduled a visit, broke the T42 down to the system board, and took it in. They worked on it about an hour (2 x reflow, video scope, xray = $75). On inspection, the BGA solder did look odd on one side, with the balls looking more like two half silver balls squashed together, rather than the more appropriate single half-ball. I took the board home and reassembled the T42. It booted up with no errors and passed all the pc-doctor diagnostics. I Flexed the laptop a bit with no problems. Woohoo! So far, no glitches in 15 days of normal use (boot, suspend, open/close, travel to work &amp; back). So far so good! Had the reflow failed, the wisdom at the board house was to get a new system board, as the problem could be a bad connection pretty much anywhere.</div>

Brg https://www.thinkwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Problem_with_video_related_system_lockup_II&diff=26929 2006-12-09T13:47:44Z

<p>Brg: </p> <hr /> <div>Also Thinkpads with the ATI 9600 video chip used in T42 and T42p can cause lock-ups.<br /> <br /> This happens after about two years of use.<br /> <br /> ==Symptoms==<br /> Screen goes blank, requires hard reboot (power off-on) to get screen display. On boot may give one long, two short beeps POST code. Screen goes blank when laptop flexed, eg adjusting lid angle, squeezing around ultranav trackpad area, twisting, pressing on palmrest. POST code or screen blanking more prevalent after warm-up. Problem gets worse over time. Problem repeatable from first boot (bios) screen with tpad partially disassembled - hdd, ultrabay, extra ram, wifi removed, kb, palm rest removed, but connected. See http://www.technotaste.com/blog/thinkpad-t42-ati-radeon-9600-driver-and-the-blue-screen-of-death-bsod<br /> and<br /> http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=33952<br /> for discussions of many similar symptoms.<br /> <br /> == Diagnosis ==<br /> Bad solder joint on graphics chip, which is in a ball grid array (BGA) package mounted to the system board. The problem is likely caused by an intermittent connection to the system board due to one or more bad or broken solder joints connecting the BGA to the system board. Thermal and/or mechanical movement breaks the connection, crashing the chip, yielding a blank screen or the BSOD.<br /> <br /> ==Solutions==<br /> * Replace system board. <br /> * Reflow the solder on the graphics chip. (remove the system board, take it to a repair house that can reflow a BGA package, cross fingers, reassemble, test)<br /> <br /> == See Also==<br /> [[Problem with garbled screen]]</div>

Brg https://www.thinkwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Problem_with_video_related_system_lockup_II&diff=26928 2006-12-09T13:33:12Z

<p>Brg: </p> <hr /> <div>My T42 (type 2378-EXU) exhibited pretty much the problem described in the technostate link discussion - sudden blank screen, hard reboot required to clear up. One long - two short beep POST code sometimes on reboot. Happened more often after warm-up. Screen blanking happened after random flexing of the laptop - lid open/close, twist frame, press or squeeze on palm rest area. After reading the technostate discussion on the graphics chip (an ATI 9600 in a ball grid array (BGA) package), finding a similar discussion about problems with the graphics chip on mac ibooks, and concluding that it was hardware by proving that the problem still occurred at first BIOS boot screen with laptop disassembled as far as possible, I began to look for a solution. Out of warranty, so the $$$ for a new system board was hard to swallow. Heat gun rambo seemed like a low probability of success route. I dug around and found a repair house (http://www.protronics-inc.com) in our area that could handle BGA reflow work. I scheduled a visit, broke the T42 down to the system board, and took it in. They worked on it about an hour (2 x reflow, video scope, xray = $75). On inspection, the BGA solder did look odd on one side, with the balls looking more like two half silver balls squashed together, rather than the more appropriate single half-ball. I took the board home and reassembled the T42. It booted up with no errors and passed all the pc-doctor diagnostics. I Flexed the laptop a bit with no problems. Woohoo! So far, no glitches in 5 days of normal use (boot, suspend, open/close, travel to work &amp; back). So far so good! Had the reflow failed, the wisdom at the board house was to get a new system board, as the problem could be a bad connection pretty much anywhere.</div>

Brg https://www.thinkwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Problem_with_video_related_system_lockup_II&diff=26927 2006-12-09T13:21:22Z

<p>Brg: /* Solutions */</p> <hr /> <div>Also Thinkpads with the ATI 9600 video chip used in T42 and T42p can cause lock-ups.<br /> <br /> This happens after about two years of use.<br /> <br /> ==Symptoms==<br /> Screen goes blank, requires hard reboot (power off-on) to get screen display. On boot may give one long, two short beeps POST code. Screen goes blank when laptop flexed, eg adjusting lid angle, squeezing around ultranav trackpad area, twisting, pressing on palmrest. POST code or screen blanking more prevalent after warm-up. Problem gets worse over time. Problem repeatable from first boot (bios) screen with tpad partially disassembled - hdd, ultrabay, extra ram, wifi removed, kb, palm reset removed, but connected. <br /> <br /> == Diagnosis ==<br /> Bad solder joint on graphics chip. According to http://www.technotaste.com/blog/thinkpad-t42-ati-radeon-9600-driver-and-the-blue-screen-of-death-bsod<br /> this problem is thermal and is caused by the GPU coming off the MB. More accurately, the problem is likely caused by an intermittent connection due to one or more bad or broken solder joints connecting the GPU to the mainboard. Thermal and/or mechanical movement breaks the connection, crashing the chip and yielding a blank screen.<br /> <br /> ==Solutions==<br /> * Replace system board. <br /> <br /> * Reflow the solder on the graphics chip. (remove system board, take it to a repair house that can reflow a ball grid array (BGA) package, cross fingers, reassemble, test)<br /> <br /> == See Also==<br /> [[Problem with garbled screen]]</div>

Brg https://www.thinkwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Problem_with_video_related_system_lockup_II&diff=26926 2006-12-09T13:20:16Z

<p>Brg: /* Diagnosis */</p> <hr /> <div>Also Thinkpads with the ATI 9600 video chip used in T42 and T42p can cause lock-ups.<br /> <br /> This happens after about two years of use.<br /> <br /> ==Symptoms==<br /> Screen goes blank, requires hard reboot (power off-on) to get screen display. On boot may give one long, two short beeps POST code. Screen goes blank when laptop flexed, eg adjusting lid angle, squeezing around ultranav trackpad area, twisting, pressing on palmrest. POST code or screen blanking more prevalent after warm-up. Problem gets worse over time. Problem repeatable from first boot (bios) screen with tpad partially disassembled - hdd, ultrabay, extra ram, wifi removed, kb, palm reset removed, but connected. <br /> <br /> == Diagnosis ==<br /> Bad solder joint on graphics chip. According to http://www.technotaste.com/blog/thinkpad-t42-ati-radeon-9600-driver-and-the-blue-screen-of-death-bsod<br /> this problem is thermal and is caused by the GPU coming off the MB. More accurately, the problem is likely caused by an intermittent connection due to one or more bad or broken solder joints connecting the GPU to the mainboard. Thermal and/or mechanical movement breaks the connection, crashing the chip and yielding a blank screen.<br /> <br /> ==Solutions==<br /> * Replace motherboard. <br /> <br /> * Reflow the solder on the graphics chip. (remove motherboard, take it to a repair house that can reflow a ball grid array (BGA) package, cross fingers, reassemble, test)<br /> <br /> == See Also==<br /> [[Problem with garbled screen]]</div>

Brg https://www.thinkwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Problem_with_video_related_system_lockup_II&diff=26882 2006-12-07T12:55:29Z

<p>Brg: </p> <hr /> <div>Also Thinkpads with the ATI 9600 video chip used in T42 and T42p can cause lock-ups.<br /> <br /> This happens after about two years of use.<br /> <br /> ==Symptoms==<br /> Screen goes blank, requires hard reboot (power off-on) to get screen display. On boot may give one long, two short beeps POST code. Screen goes blank when laptop flexed, eg adjusting lid angle, squeezing around ultranav trackpad area, twisting, pressing on palmrest. POST code or screen blanking more prevalent after warm-up. Problem gets worse over time. Problem repeatable from first boot (bios) screen with tpad partially disassembled - hdd, ultrabay, extra ram, wifi removed, kb, palm reset removed, but connected. <br /> <br /> == Diagnosis ==<br /> Bad solder joint on graphis chip. According to http://www.technotaste.com/blog/thinkpad-t42-ati-radeon-9600-driver-and-the-blue-screen-of-death-bsod<br /> this problem is thermal and is caused by the GPU coming off the MB. More accurately, the problem is likely an intermittent connection caused by one or more bad or broken solder joints connecting the GPU to the mainboard. Thermal and/or mechanical movement breaks the connection, crashing the chip and yielding a blank screen.<br /> <br /> ==Solutions==<br /> * Replace motherboard. <br /> <br /> * Reflow the solder on the graphics chip. (remove motherboard, take it to a repair house that can reflow a ball grid array (BGA) package, cross fingers, reassemble, test)<br /> <br /> == See Also==<br /> [[Problem with garbled screen]]</div>

Brg https://www.thinkwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Problem_with_video_related_system_lockup_II&diff=26881 2006-12-07T12:44:33Z

<p>Brg: </p> <hr /> <div>Also Thinkpads with the ATI 9600 video chip used in T42 and T42p can cause lock-ups.<br /> <br /> This happens after about two years of use.<br /> <br /> ==Symptoms==<br /> Screen goes blank, requires hard reboot (power off-on) to get screen display. On boot may give one long, two short beeps POST code. Screen goes blank when laptop flexed, eg adjusting lid angle, squeezing around ultranav trackpad area, twisting, pressing on palmrest. POST code or screen blanking more prevalent after warm-up. Problem gets worse over time. Problem repeatable from first boot (bios) screen with tpad partially disassembled - hdd, ultrabay, extra ram, wifi removed, kb, palm reset removed, but connected. <br /> <br /> According to http://www.technotaste.com/blog/thinkpad-t42-ati-radeon-9600-driver-and-the-blue-screen-of-death-bsod/<br /> this problem is thermal and is caused by the GPU coming off the MB.<br /> <br /> ==Solutions==<br /> * Replace motherboard.<br /> <br /> * Reflow the solder on the graphics chip. (remove motherboard, take it to a repair house that can reflow a ball grid array package, reassemble)<br /> <br /> == See Also==<br /> [[Problem with garbled screen]]</div>

Brg https://www.thinkwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Problem_with_video_related_system_lockup_II&diff=26878 2006-12-07T05:06:50Z

<p>Brg: </p> <hr /> <div>Also Thinkpads with the ATI 9600 video chip used in T42 and T42p can cause lock-ups.<br /> <br /> This happens after about two years of use.<br /> <br /> ==Symptoms==<br /> Screen goes blank, requires hard reboot (power off-on) to get screen display. On boot may give one long, two short beeps POST code. Screen goes blank when laptop flexed, eg adjusting lid angle, squeezing around ultranav trackpad area, twisting, pressing on palmrest. POST code or screen blanking more prevalent after warm-up. Problem gets worse over time. Problem repeatable from first boot (bios) screen with tpad partially disassembled - hdd, ultrabay, extra ram, wifi removed, kb, palm reset removed, but connected. <br /> <br /> According to http://www.technotaste.com/blog/thinkpad-t42-ati-radeon-9600-driver-and-the-blue-screen-of-death-bsod/<br /> this problem is thermal and is caused by the GPU coming off the MB.<br /> <br /> ==Solution==<br /> Replace motherboard.<br /> <br /> Reflow the solder on the graphics chip. (remove motherboard, take it to a repair house that can reflow a ball grid array package, reassemble) - or go with the heat gun / blowtorch approach described in the above link....<br /> <br /> == See Also==<br /> [[Problem with garbled screen]]</div>

Brg https://www.thinkwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Problem_with_garbled_screen&diff=26877 2006-12-07T05:06:14Z

<p>Brg: </p> <hr /> <div>Information about the problem of a randomly garbled screen.<br /> <br /> ==Problem description==<br /> The symptom is a totally garbled screen (on the internal display) as seen in [http://bellet.info/photos/2003/Aug/10Aug18:10/ these pictures].<br /> <br /> This happens directly after starting up: even the BIOS splash screen is unreadable. The screen can stay garbled for a number of boots and then (seemingly random) it will be just fine right from the start.<br /> <br /> It has furthermore been reported that there might be a relation between the temperature of the ThinkPad and the garbled screen, so that the display starts working fine when the ThinkPad has reached a certain temperature (like after 5 minutes of being powered on). Also by applying pressure to a certain point underneath the ThinkPad (on A30s its below the information sticker on the underside). This seems to affect the garbled screen even more, which is highly noticable on a LILO boot screen [http://www.drakonus.dragoncity.net/thinkpad like so].<br /> <br /> If the screen is exported via VNC the remote screen will also be garbled. However, this may not be always so. At least in an A31 screen got garbled right after returning from a text-only session (ctrl-alt-F1, cntr-alt-F7), but the VNC session previously opened on the same machine did not experience any change. <br /> <br /> Most likely this is a problem with the ATI videochip, can people who experience this indicate which chip their machines contains?&lt;br&gt;<br /> Looking at the effected machines, this is probably an issue specific to the [[ATI Mobility Radeon 7500]]<br /> <br /> ==Affected Models==<br /> *ThinkPad {{T40}}, {{T41}}, {{T42}}, {{R40}}, {{R50p}}, {{A30}}, {{A31}}, {{A31p}}<br /> <br /> ==Affected Operating Systems==<br /> *all<br /> <br /> ==Status==<br /> It is probably a problem of the graphics circuitry. In any case, it's a hardware problem and warranty will apply.<br /> <br /> ==Solutions==<br /> You can have IBM fix the problem if your ThinkPad is still in warranty.<br /> <br /> One reported workaround is suspending to ram after powering on and leaving it on power. This way the screen might still be fine after wakeup.<br /> The moment when you cold boot again, keep the laptop at the garbled boot screen for about 5 minutes, then do a normal reboot and press your thumbs.<br /> <br /> The problem can also be due to bad contact on screen and/or keyboard connectors on motherboard.<br /> Try pulling out the keyboard and pushing slightly the connectors, the screen should display again correctly. If yes try puting a foam hold over the connectors and pull back the keyboard.<br /> <br /> Depending on the ThinkPad model, running the laptop on only battery power should reduce the garbled/corrupt effect. Due to the lowered processor speed, it should generate less heat which should reduce the corruption. It helps to have a high-charge capacity battery to prevent it from happening.<br /> <br /> In some models (At least the T40 with 9000 pro) the problem dissapear if you make an underclock. The default clock of the mobility 9000 pro is 250mhz in the core and 200mhz in the memory. if you lower the core clock to 100mhz the problem dissapear. In linux you can use a tool called rovclock to make the underclock.<br /> <br /> Instructions for gentoo and the mobility 9000:<br /> <br /> 1) Download rovclock from this website:<br /> http://www.hasw.net/linux/<br /> 2) Compile it<br /> 3) Copy the binary to /usr/local/bin<br /> 4) Put these lines in your /etc/conf.d/local.start<br /> <br /> cd /usr/local/bin<br /> rovclock -c 100 -m 200<br /> <br /> Sorry for my bad english, im only speak spanish<br /> <br /> ---<br /> <br /> I recently experienced this problem; in my case it sometimes also failed to boot at all and produced one-long-two-short-beeps. <br /> <br /> My diagnosis was that one or more of the pins on the ATI Radeon chip had come unsoldered, such that it would make contact if the laptop was pressed or twisted a certain way, but not others. I dismantled the laptop until I could reach the chip (it's under the fan assembly, so you can leave things like the PCMCIA assembly and right ultrabay on). Pressing on different corners of the chip made it work or fail. It's a surface-mount chip with the pins underneath (BGA?), so you can't resolder it from the top OR bottom. I had to make a custom tip for my heat gun by bending some aluminum to a square slightly larger than the chip (1.25&quot; square). 15 seconds at the 1000F setting successfully resoldered the chip for me. We'll see about long-term reliability. I hope you find this useful. Obviously I would not do this on a computer which was still under warranty, but for a computer which is not, replacing the entire system board (IBM's procedure for fixing this problem) is simply not economical.<br /> <br /> Also see [[Problem with video related system lockup II]]</div>

Brg https://www.thinkwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Problem_with_video_related_system_lockup_II&diff=26876 2006-12-07T05:03:33Z

<p>Brg: </p> <hr /> <div>Also Thinkpads with the ATI 9600 video chip used in T42 and T42p can cause lock-ups.<br /> <br /> This happens after about two years of use.<br /> <br /> ==Symptoms==<br /> Screen goes blank, requires hard reboot (power off-on) to get screen display. On boot may give one long, two short beeps POST code. Screen goes blank when laptop flexed, eg adjusting lid angle, squeezing around ultranav trackpad area, twisting, pressing on palmrest. POST code or screen blanking more prevalent after warm-up. Problem gets worse over time. Problem repeatable from first boot (bios) screen with tpad partially disassembled - hdd, ultrabay, extra ram, wifi removed, kb, palm reset removed, but connected. <br /> <br /> According to http://www.technotaste.com/blog/thinkpad-t42-ati-radeon-9600-driver-and-the-blue-screen-of-death-bsod/<br /> this problem is thermal and is caused by the GPU coming off the MB.<br /> <br /> ==Solution==<br /> Replace motherboard.<br /> <br /> Reflow the solder on the graphics chip. (remove motherboard, take it to a repair house that can reflow a ball grid array package, reassemble) - or go with the heat gun / blowtorch approach described in the above link....</div>

Brg https://www.thinkwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Problem_with_video_related_system_lockup_II&diff=26875 2006-12-07T04:48:12Z

<p>Brg: </p> <hr /> <div>My T42 exhibited pretty much the problem described in the technostate link discussion - sudden blank screen, hard reboot required to clear up. One long - two short beep POST code sometimes on reboot. Happened more often after warm-up. Screen blanking happened after random flexing of the laptop - lid open/close, twist frame, press or squeeze on palm rest area. After reading the technostate discussion, finding a similar discussion about problems with the graphics chip on mac ibooks, and concluding that it was hardware by proving that the problem still happens at first bios boot screen with laptop disassembled as far as possible, I began to look for a solution. Out of warranty, so a new mainboard was hard to swallow. Heat gun rambo seemd like a low success route. I dug around and found a repair house (www.protronics-inc.com) in our area that could handle ball grid array reflow work. I scheduled a visit, broke the t42 down to the mainboard, and took it in. They worked on it about an hour (2 x reflow, video scope, xray = $75). On inspection, the bga did look odd on one side, with the balls looking more like two half silver balls squashed together, rather than the more appropriate one. I took the board home, reassembled the t42, booted up with no errors, ran the pc-doctor diagnostics which all passed, Flexed the laptop a bit with no problems. So far, no glitches in 24 hours of normal use (boot, suspend, open/close, travel to work &amp; back) in the T42's traveling with me to work and back today. So far so good!</div>

Brg https://www.thinkwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Problem_with_video_related_system_lockup_II&diff=26874 2006-12-07T04:31:16Z

<p>Brg: </p> <hr /> <div>Also Thinkpads with the ATI 9600 video chip used in T42 and T42p can cause lock-ups.<br /> <br /> This happens after about two years of use.<br /> <br /> Symptoms: Screen goes blank, requires hard reboot (power off-on) to get screen display. On boot may give one long, two short beeps POST code. Screen goes blank when laptop flexed, eg adjusting lid angle, squeezing around ultranav trackpad area, twisting, pressing on palmrest. POST code or screen blanking more prevalent after warm-up. Problem gets worse over time. Problem repeatable from first boot (bios) screen with tpad partially disassembled - hdd, ultrabay, extra ram, wifi removed, kb, palm reset removed, but connected. <br /> <br /> According to http://www.technotaste.com/blog/thinkpad-t42-ati-radeon-9600-driver-and-the-blue-screen-of-death-bsod/<br /> this problem is thermal and is caused by the GPU coming off the MB.<br /> <br /> Solution: Replace motherboard.<br /> <br /> Alternate Solution: Reflow the solder on the graphics chip. (remove motherboard, take it to a repair house that can reflow a ball grid array package, reassemble) - or go with the heat gun / blowtorch approach described in the above link....</div>

Brg