Thanks again, guys. The collective knowledge of this group continues to amaze me. What a great resource. It's one of the reasons when I get a new notebook next year, it will almost certainly be a ThinkPad. Despite the limitations of the current models (I'm looking at the W520 which has 9.5 mm hard drive height that prevents larger than 750 GB drives, no Blu-ray optical, and while USB 3.0 on the machine, only 2.0 on the docking station), the keyboards, the service, and this group keep me from looking elsewhere.
-Dan -----Original Message----- From: STeve Andre' [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Saturday, December 10, 2011 12:59 AM To: Dan Galender Cc: 'ThinkPad Mailing List' Subject: Re: [Thinkpad] Extremely Annoying Screen Artifacts Chip failures are really weird, and not as well understood as a lot of people would like. Sure, temperature can cause problems over time, but in the case of the Nvidia GPU, the phrase 'time bomb' is pretty much correct. I had three of five thinkpads with them fail, with the 4th crapping out and I still haven't gotten my hands on it. So yeah, Nvidia made a turkey. I think wikipedia might have some stuff on IC failures; look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_circuit and go from there. Yes, your 5th year was a good investment. ;-) --STeve Andre' On 12/09/11 23:40, Dan Galender wrote: > George and Steve, thanks for this info. > > I've had this machine for over 4 years (and Lenovo just last month > renewed my warranty for a 5th--and they say final--year) and this has > only started recently. Is it possible that the faulty chip is only starting to "go bad" > after all this time? Might it be a sign of other issues (like the fan > not cooling sufficiently) that are causing the chip to start to fail? > Maybe a real good thing I got that extra year. :) I assume it would > be a covered replacement. > > -Dan > > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] > On Behalf Of STeve Andre' > Sent: Friday, December 09, 2011 8:20 PM > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: [Thinkpad] Extremely Annoying Screen Artifacts > > I get the feeling that George might be right. Nvidia, the gift that > keeps giving! > > However, you should try using another video driver and see what happens. > I might rip the driver out and let Windows discover/find one. See > what happens. > That, and/or find Linux live CD that knows about the NVidia card, and > see what that does. > > --STeve Andre' > > On 12/09/11 20:47, [email protected] wrote: >> I believe that your GPU might be on its way out...do a little >> research on > faulty nvidia chips that T61/p (along with Macs, Dell, HP...) shipped with. >> Good luck. >> >> Cheers, >> >> George >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Dan Galender<[email protected]> >> To: 'ThinkPad Mailing List'<[email protected]> >> Sent: Sat, Dec 10, 2011 12:20 am >> Subject: [Thinkpad] Extremely Annoying Screen Artifacts >> >> >> I have a T61p running Windows 7 (64-bit) and recently I started >> experiencing a very annoying thing happening. When I right-click on >> menu items in various applications (including Windows Explorer) >> certain menu selections remain on the screen (white text on a blue >> banner). This graphic sits on top of any other windows I open and >> the only thing that I have come up with to clear it is to restart the machine. >> >> >> >> Anyone else ever see this happen or know how to get rid of it? >> >> >> >> One other thing that may or may not have anything to do with this is >> that the Lenovo's Message Center periodically shows a flag and when I >> click on it, it tells me about a problem with the nVidia driver. >> However, when I click on the link to get a new driver, it tells me >> that I don't have a connection to the internet which is obviously not >> correct. This message about not being able to connect only happens >> on reports of nVidia problems and not on other problems that get flagged. >> >> >> >> Thanks. >> >> >> >> -Dan Galender >> >> _______________________________________________ Thinkpad mailing list [email protected] http://stderr.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/thinkpad
