I agree with what George says. On Mon, Nov 15, 2010 at 4:17 AM, <[email protected]> wrote:
> You're looking at VRAM corruption. That machine needs a new motherboard. > > > Good luck. > > > Cheers, > > > George > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Laurence <[email protected]> > To: [email protected] > Sent: Mon, Nov 15, 2010 2:13 am > Subject: [Thinkpad] Strange video issue > > > My T40p, which has been quite reliable until recently, has started to > become > unstable with a strange, repeatable issue. So far I can't tell if it's > hardware > or software. > > After being on for a number of hours - variable, from a few hrs to >8 - the > video becomes corrupted in a specific way. This leads to difficulty > shutting > down, risking file corruption. > > > Details: > The lettering, but not graphic content in the top window is replaced by > straight > > lines or on one occasion Arabic characters. > > Taskbar buttons may lose their lettering. The battery icon almost always > loses > its numerals. > Windows may lose their titles, but that tends to happen after the initial > corruption. > Task Manager will (usually) not launch but can be selected if already open. > Some options such as Shut Down / Restart are greyed out in task mgr, though > they > > usually work at least if attempted a couple times. > > Ctrl-escape may not produce anything, or it may provide ghosts of the log > off > and turn off options but with no lettering at all. If I catch it right away > I > have been able to shut down, but after a minute or two the only out is a > hard > reset. > > The screen does not flicker or go black, and the desktop icons seem to > remain > intact. > > After a reboot it runs fine, unless it had to crashed with a power cycle. > In the > > latter case some program settings get flipped. On one occasion the display > reset > > itself to 16 instead of 32 bit color depth - I hadn't touched the setting. > > Also strange is the the display settings gives me options up to 2048x1536, > while > > the LCD is 1400x1050. Display Properties|Settings also seems to think I > have > multiple monitors, with the current one being capable of 2048. > > ATI PowerPlay applet, Displays tab shows the correct LCD panel tho. > > So far I've run PC doc tests from within windows and from a boot disk, > though > not extended times. I have run memtest for a few hours. Neither produced > any > errors. I also ran chkdsk and system file checker, neither found errors. > I > don't see any sign of a virus or other malware, at least nothing obvious. > > > I have heard that this model has an issue with the graphics chip, but I've > never > > heard of it presenting like this. > > > So... at this point I am not sure whether it's a hardware or software issue > nor > of what is a reasonable way to diagnose it. Event Viewer comes up with > nothing. > > I'll try deleting the video adapter in Dev Mgr and see what happens. > > > How can I tell if this is hardware or software > and > in particular what is the problem? > > thanks! > _______________________________________________ > Thinkpad mailing list > [email protected] > http://stderr.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/thinkpad > > > = > _______________________________________________ > Thinkpad mailing list > [email protected] > http://stderr.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/thinkpad > _______________________________________________ Thinkpad mailing list [email protected] http://stderr.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/thinkpad
