T61 dying young? 0192 errors, please help

About 6 times in the past 2 months, and twice in the past 10 days, I have turned on my computer (from either standby or power-off, has happened in both) to see a black screen with this message: “Error 0192: System Security, Embedded Security hardware tamper detected.” I have not added any hardware to this laptop or otherwise tampered with it – except for a new battery.

I’ve scoured the internet for help, but this question has been asked and left unanswered on most forums (unless the person added new hardware and caused the error themselves). Others advise that you should get a motherboard replacement immediately: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=74530&start=0. My concern is that this has only happened a few times… could it be a fluke? Is there any way I can tell? I don’t want to part with my laptop for several weeks, since I can't really work without it, but I definitely don’t want to end up with a blown mobo either. It’s under warranty until 10/2010.

Would really appreciate any advice. Thanks!

 

Absolutely.

Not that I know of, though I am not all-knowing. It just seems that way.

One option would be to upgrade the warranty to on-site if it does not have it already. You can look the warranty up. There's a link in the sticky. I'm not sure how much it costs, maybe $100-200, but a tech would come to you and replace the board. I don't think it would be a couple weeks to replace the board, but you never know depending on part supplies. In the thread you linked it said memory can cause the issue. It makes sense since it's intermittent. You might want to try to reseat the memory. It's easy and don't cost nothing. If it were me, I'd send it in and gut it out. A week shouldn't be too bad.

 

my friend had a same problem with this half a year ago, he send it to depot and the conclusion is that the motherboard must be changed. If this chip does decide to fail down the road permanently, then your motherboard will be a useless junk.

 

Do you have that stuff (TPM/AMT/whatever) de-activated in the BIOS?

 

Thanks for the advice all. One followup for now:

What are you referring to? As in, should they be activated or no? Where can I access this in the BIOS?

 

go into security under security chip is it active, inactive or disabled?

 

You should de-activate if you don't want to lose data.

Something similar happened to me yesterday when I overclocked my T8100 to 3ghz. I guess the whole system was unstable and just went nuts.

I think it's a sign that your system is unstable. maybe your GPU (G86 core?).

Upgrade the warranty as ZaZ said.

 

I think the 192 error means that the backup battery is dying / dead. This is a small coin-like battery located inside the computer, try replacing it and see if the problem goes away.

I don't know why the security message is coming up, maybe your security chip is getting flaky as others have said.