T61 + NVS 140m ---> Random Green Screen Distortions ---> Now Dead laptop

[vijay]

Hi All, 

I purchased my T61 (7662-CTO) in the October of 2007. Zero troubles until 4 days ago, when my screen became all distorted with green tint and lines running in horizontal and vertical directions. Once this came up, the system froze and restarted. Event Manager in WinXP (32 bit) did not seem to register this crash. This happened a couple times again. I restarted the system in the Safe Mode, where i had the same Green screen but i could work without crashing. (Screenies: Green screen in Safe Mode too, but did not crash as it did in Normal Mode. Linky: http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/4314/greenscreen1safemode.jpg)
Temperatures obtained at the same time using SpeedFan utility http://img146.imageshack.us/img146/6898/speedfanvalues.jpg)

Re-installed the latest nVidia certified Graphics drivers but to no avail. 

Finally, the laptop would not restart. The backlight of the LCD brightens up and i can see some HDD activity, but the screen is blank. 

My 1 yr. depot warranty expired last October. 

The nVidia G84 issue came to my notice while looking for the cause of this impending issue. 
I have tried connecting an external monitor to the external VGA port, but the ext. monitor does not seem to display anything either. 
Looks like this is an issue with the Quadro NVS 140m card rather than a loose LCD cable or dieing LCD. Replacement of the MB and graphics card seem to be costing $500 upwards. Can some one confirm that the above described symptoms are indeed that of failing nVidia 140m card?
Has anyone been able to find a solution to this issue, that could get my T61 for less than $500 that Lenovo asks for. I am so used to my T61 that i do not want to use any other brand and i am too broke at the moment to make a new purchase. 

Has Lenovo offered any service plan to its customers with the nVidia Graphics Card failure ? 

Vijay 

[ajkula66 Guru]

Your GPU has indeed failed and the machine is in need of a new planar.

Should you decide to have it repaired, feel free to PM me for recommendations.

Good luck.

[vijay]

Thanks George, 

[Mo-T]

I'm having the same exact problem.

It had: "Attempt to reset the display driver and recover from timeout failed" BSOD before it became dead.

I'm pretty sure latest Bios Update did this.

I'm definitely stuck now.

Now I'm considering resetting the bios.... until i got the guts to do this...

Any other option are very much welcome.

EDIT:

Did reset the bios... nothing happened.

Sent My T61 to Lenovo. It turned out that the Mobo is fried.

Lucky that mine is still under extended warranty.

Message Edited by Mo-T on 07-07-2009 08:34 PM

[lenovot61]

George, my son's laptop has the exactly same problem as vijay's. I'd like to know your recommendations how to repair it. Thanks a lot!

[lead_org Microsoft MVP Contributor]

need a motherboard change. 

[milleryuan]

I have three thinkpad laptop before, two t61 and one t60, they have same problem, the NVS 140M dead, two laptop  are in the warranty, Lenovo changed motherboard free, but last one is out of warranty. I have no idea now, how much to replace the motherboard?  how log time warranty for the new motherboard? if this problem happen again, what we can do?
 

TIP:

How to crash your NVS 140M ( Don't  try if you have no warranty)

1.Connect your laptop to a external monitor(more than 24")

2.Set a high screen resolution

3.keep runing a game or dvd  more than 2 hour

4.shutdown your laptop immediately.

......

Thanks

Miller

[lead_org Microsoft MVP Contributor]

firstly T60 doesn't use a nvidia NVS 140 M GPU it uses either the ATI X1300 or ATI X1400 graphics card. 

You can crash most computers (even desktops) using your method, what you are doing is trying to overheat the CPU and GPU. 

[milleryuan]

Ok, you are right, I think I should be pay about $300 to buy a new Atom laptop. good by my t61.

Thanks for your reply.

[lead_org Microsoft MVP Contributor]

if you can get by using an atom equipped laptop, then you don't really need a powerful CPU or GPU. 

Atom equipped laptop are mostly for people whom do some light web surfing and do some word processing.