Trackpoint freezes on T60P

[Michael75]

I need to get the other Trackpoint functions back, so unless the Trackpoint freezes up again soon, I'll reinstall the driver without the utility, as you suggest, and see if everything is back to normal.  If it isn't, the next step will be to follow your suggestions.  If it is, and I want more functionality, I'll try installing the utility, and then see what happens.

Thanks again for your input.  I hope to get to the bottom of this soon!

[Michael75]

Since my last post I have noticed that the TrackPoint may take days to freeze, and it occasionally unfreezes by itself after 5-10 minutes, so it's been unpredictable despite all the driver uninstalls and installs I've done mentioned previously.

Not having gotten anywhere, to narrow the problem down I've followed Tuus' suggestion:

The easiest way to diagnose the problem since you have two of these laptops is swap parts, if the problem doesn't follow the keyboards, try swapping harddrives, if it follows the harddrive, you have a driver issue, if it stays with the system board, then you may have a more serious problem.

I swapped keyboards with another T60P I have, and the problem remained.  So the problem isn't related to the keyboard.

Next, I swapped HDs.  I have a total of three T60Ps in my office.  I couldn't take a HD from either of the other two because one runs Win7, and its HD won't run on the machine that misbehaves and which runs XP.  And the HD from the other died.  So I took the HD from the machine whose TrackPoint is misbehaving and put it in the latter T60P, where it runs fine.  And the TrackPoint hasn't frozen yet after several days.  (I haven't reposted since I've been waiting to see if the TrackPoint on this second machine would misbehave, but it hasn't.)

So having eliminated the keyboard and the drivers as possible causes of the problem, based on your reasoning that leaves the motherboard on the original machine as the cause.

Does anyone see other possible causes for intermittent freezing of the TrackPoint?

If not, what are possible scenarios and next steps?

Can I expect the problem to worsen?  If not, just live with it with my simple fixes of changing the TrackPoint settings using an external mouse or rebotting the machine if that fails?

If the problem might worsen, is there a way for me to test and troubleshoot the motherboard?

Is there anything I can do by accessing the motherboard settings through Device Manager in XP?

Since the problem is both intermittent and occasionally repairs itself, could it be caused by heat?  FWIW, the fan runs at what seems like the same speed on both T60Ps on which I've installed the HD, neither seems warmer than the other, and neither of the palm rests gets hot.

All thoughts welcome.  Many thanks again.

[ajkula66 Guru]

There's really no "troubleshooting" when it comes to the motherboard on these machines. No jumpers to pull, no settings to change.

And no, you can't do anything with the board itself from the OS environment.

Have you tried unplugging the touchpad and using the machine that way? Or swapping the palmrest altogether?

[Michael75]

I haven't tried unplugging the TrackPad or swapping palmrests.  Never occurred to me since I didn't see the connection.  Nothing like having another opinion

I'll try both and report back.  Thanks for the advice.

[TuuS]

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Michael75 wrote:

I haven't tried unplugging the TrackPad or swapping palmrests.  Never occurred to me since I didn't see the connection.  Nothing like having another opinion

I'll try both and report back.  Thanks for the advice.

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Definitely unplug the touchpad, it's not needed and since they are designed to work simutaneously with the trackpoint, they do have some interaction. If the problem persists it's going to get complicated. You need to be sure that it's really only the mouse that is freezing as opposed to a program that is failing to respond. I've seen some cases where a program can cause the mouse to stop working and as soon as the process is killed in task manager the mouse is freed up again, this would indicate a software problem not a hardware. We've pretty much ruled out software by swapping the drive into another laptop, but since the probelm isn't consistant you should be slow to rule out software as the cause.

Assuming that it is hardware and  you've ruled out keyboard, touchpad, and software, you're probably looking at a motherboard replacement, but you might want to install thinkpad fan control (tpfancontrol.com) and see if you have any adnormal temps reported when this happens. The board could have a failing circuit that is triggered by thermal conditions, but I doubt it would be anything that can be easily fixed. Unless you have a serious overheating problem that triggers it, I doubt there is much that can be done, but checking the operating temperature would be a wise thing to do. It's conceiveable that it could be overheating and you're unaware of it...   it's not likely, but would be wise to rule this out.

If you do find you need a new system board either George or I could get you one, they are available and reasonably priced for the T60 family line. 

[Michael75]

@TuuS Thanks for the runthrough of the explanations and possibilities.  I'll first unplug the touchpad, wait a few days to see what happens, and report back.  Meantime I should have reread one or both your previous suggestions to do so.  Duh.

If that doesn't work, I'll install tpfancontrol, which I should have done anyway.  Thanks for pointing it out; it was on my list.

Meantime, it occurs to me that if software is causing the TrackPoint to freeze, it would have caused it to freeze both on the first T60P and on the second T60P into which I plugged the HD, but the TrackPoint hasn't frozen yet after several days in the latter.  Could that be faulty reasoning?

More news soon, guys.  And thank you both again so much and for volunteering a source of motherboards.

Michael

[TuuS]

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Michael75 wrote:

Meantime, it occurs to me that if software is causing the TrackPoint to freeze, it would have caused it to freeze both on the first T60P and on the second T60P into which I plugged the HD, but the TrackPoint hasn't frozen yet after several days in the latter.  Could that be faulty reasoning?

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Logic is sound, but I was trying to imagine ways the logic could fail, like  a software issue that's triggered from thermal thottling and making the mouse driver unresponsive. As unlikely as this type of thing sounds, unlikely events do sometimes occur.

[Michael75]

It's been two days since I unplugged the TrackPad, and so far the TrackPoint is still working normally.  If it continues to work normally, I'll swap a palm rest whose TrackPoint and TrackPad work normally in another machine and plug in both the TrackPoint and the TrackPad.

If the TrackPoint works normally with that known-to-be-good palm rest installed, then I assume it's the original palm rest that's at fault.  But if the problem reappears with the good palm rest, then I will assume the problem lies with the motherboard, in which case I would just leave the TrackPad disconnected, and hope the mboard isn't heading south in small steps.  Does that make sense?

Meantime, to see if temperature could be a factor, I just installed TPFancontrol (thank you for the suggestion), but I'm unsure which setting to use for optimum component temperature (and quiet).  To answer that question, I'd like to know which component's temperature is most important in the component/temperature list, and what should that max temperature be so I know which setting to choose: BIOS mode, Smart mode 1, Smart mode 2 or Manual mode. 

With a few apps open (Firefox with ~50 tabs, and Word) but otherwise no activity, in Smart mode 2 the fan runs at 4650 rpm (faster than before installing TPFancontrol) with the CPU at 56 deg C and the GPU at 65 deg C.  In Smart mode 1, the fan runs at a nearly inaudible and constant 2900-3000 rpm with the CPU at 62 C and the GPU at 69-70 C after settling for a few minutes. In BIOS mode the fan cycles a bit and occasionally speeds up to a more audible but tolerable 3600 rpm from around 3470 rpm, and the CPU temp drops to 59-60 C and the GPU temp to 68 C but can rise to 64-65 C and 70-71 C respectively with some processing activity (running a Youtube video, for instance) but, I notice, without the fan speed increasing beyond 3470 rpm after 30 minutes of the video running.

So to get back to my question (if it's the right one), what temperatures should I shoot for and for which components?

Any suggestions welcome, unless I should start a separate thread for this or there is already one that covers the question of heat management in a T60P (like this one with a T2600 2.16-GHz Core Duo [not 2 Duo] processor).

Otherwise, I'll be back when I have something definitive to report on the TrackPoint's behavior.

Many thanks again.

[Michael75]

@TuuS @George: After swapping palm rests in and out several times, cleaning contacts, checking the temperature is the same when using both palm rests and waiting days to be sure, I've come to the conclusion a malfunctioning TrackPad is indeed the cause of the TrackPoint freezing, and that heat is not a factor, or if it is it only affects one of the TrackPads.

So I think the next step is to replace the faulty TrackPad.  The P/N on the TrackPad on each palm rest is the same: 39T7210.  And I see a couple of people on eBay selling them "new" for ~$5 with the bracket.

So unless you have other suggestions, I'll buy a replacement.

Meantime, per my previous post I wonder which device's temperature I should watch most closely using TPFancontrol to prevent damage: the processor, the GPU, other?

Last point: since the fan runs constantly no matter what load the machine in under, would replacing the HDD with an SSD generate sufficiently less heat to require less cooling and thus lower the fan speed and noise substantially?  I'm aware that with the SATA interface in this standard T60P I won't be taking maximum advantage of an SSD, but less noise might be a worthwhile tradeoff.  And I may get some performance improvement beyond boot times.  Thoughts?

Many thanks again for your advice.

Michael

[TuuS]

If they are selling "new" trackpads, they are probably generic parts. If you can find a used original in good condition I'd prefer that, but the generic will probably work ok. 

For monitoring temps, the gpu and cpu are most important.

The best way to cool a T60p is with a T61p heatsink. Some minor modification is required to your retainer (see photo), 

http://www.e30tuner.com/assist/frankenpad/fpad_hs010.jpg

and you'll use thermal paste instead of the silicone pad on your GPU and I also recommend careful attention to the fitting and anytime you modify a cooling system you'll want to monitor the temps ongoing. I've done this to many T60 and T60p models and have seen substantial benefit.