t61p wont boot, black screen, no beeps.

[pollack]

Reporting to you guys about me experience fixing my machine.

As mentioned earlier in the thread the computer was blue screening when running a game.  I installed tpfancontrol and it reported the machine's fan was at 2600+ but the temp still hit 90+c then blue screened.

mistake #1: I didn't use compressed air, I just vacuumed out the external port.

remedy #1: I should have just bought a can and blown it out.

mistake #2: I ran another test which hit 90+c which was the last breath of the machine.

remedy #2: If your machine is hot then don't push it to thermal extreme.  It's probably that the arctic silver between the chip and heat sync failed or got crusty.  Mine was crusty.  If I had taken the machine apart and reapplied new thermal paste it probably would have fixed it.

So I talked with TuuS and I provided my exact FRU since my saga from June.  He had a model which was from the reliable period.  I also saw motherboards on ebay.  I got it with the back case attached.  I also got a new fan assembly just incase.  Anyways, I took it apart...it's pretty simple.  Just make sure you keep track of which screws came from where.  I put a piece of paper next to the work area, and taped down the screws and wrote which part they were for.  When it came to the inside of the laptop I also took pictures so I can look back at it if I didn't notice wire routing.  TuuS had good tips about blowing out the cpu area before removing the chip, but I found the videos from Lenovo the most helpful because it has a guy taking apart each piece. http://www.lenovoservicetraining.com/ion/

It probably took me about 2-3 hours to take it apart and put it back together.  I was being pretty slow with it thought to make sure I did it right.  Anyways put everything back together, closed it up, and fired it up and it worked.  Back in operation after being down since June.

So if you're computer is hosed I'm sure you're going through the same thing I did.  Get the artic silver, get a wrist grounding strap, mark the screws, take pictures...  It's worth doing this if your cpu has a high res screen or a nice cpu gpu.  I had the 1920x1200 screen and the t9300 chip and nvidia570m so it was pretty high end.  Spending a few hundred bucks was worth it to me.  Make the call.  I doubt you can get a replacement computer for less than 500.

Thanks TuuS for being so patient and answering my noob questions. I appreciate ya rushing over the package before the 3 day weekend so I can put the time in on it.

Cheers.

[TuuS]

Glad to see another system fixed, and glad I was able to help.

One small word of caution, when blowing out your air ducts, be careful not to over-rev your fan...   compressed air can do that if your not careful. If used externally, perhaps a monthly brief "puff" to blow out any dust won't hurt, but sustained blast of air could damage the fan.

If blowing out internally, you can use a toothpick or matchstick to block the fan from spinning when you blow it out, and keep an eye on your temps. The artic silver is much better then the typical ceramic paste that the factory uses, so it should run cooler. It also doesn't tend to dry out and get crusty as much. The dried out paste isn't as much as a problem by itself, but if the heatsink gets bumped, it will lose its heat transfer efficiency because the dried out paste won't readjust like fresh paste will.

Thanks for shareing your experiene     +1 kudos

[StjepanS]

Hi to all.

My t61p is booting after 3 times I switch it on and off. It only works with generic VGA drivers (with original Nvidia is rebooting all the time). When it start booting after third on/off there are green squares on the screen. When windows starts all is ok. I found planar number below memory modules (42W7653) and my t61p is from 2007 (07/09). I found web shop in Hong Kong www.aapls.com selling this board for 329$ and 44C3928 for similar price. What is the difference between this two boards? Does somebody already buy from that store?

Suggestion will be appreciated.