T61p dead...

So it seems my T61p has died a second time now from the NVidia defect. Unlike last time I don't get the 1 long 2 short beep sequence and black screen, I get a heavily distorted double image.

I belive the Lenovo 'free' repair out of warranty ended last year. I looked into the whole NVidia settlement thing... but as far as I can tell Lenovo isn't even a part of it? Is that true? Am I basically just SOL?

 

Try calling up Lenovo and see if they would consider the repair, I believe in an earlier thread someone called up Lenovo OOW and they actually did repair it.

 

post the thread with your first T61p that went dead.

also, have you monitored your GPU temps ? ... like do you know what those were at idle and full speed, any overclock ?

 

Yea I think I'll try on Monday. I just found some stuff on the Lenovo forums about it. It seems hit or miss on whether or not they'll do it (I'm past 6 months past my warranty), and I have a garbled screen (external monitor too) and not the 3 beeps this time. I guess it's worth a try though.

I never posted a thread the first time it died. I was under warranty (3 year Thinkpad Protection) the first time. I don't monitor temps and I don't overclock.

 

When was the last time it break down?

Isn't it a typical practice for company to have warranty extended by about 6 month from the day of the fix.

 

No.

Renee

 

Have you tried baking your video card back to life? I did that a few years ago to my failing NVIDIA 7900GS. Cooked it back to life twice and it was like new, but of course it failed again after a few months. Finally I decided to just get rid of it.

Here is a thread about this method.

 

baking the video card is a bad idea, this is only going to help in say 30% of cases and even then it may last long before the same problem comes back again.

 

Yeah but if it's hosed and he is out of warranty that's his best bet IMO. In my cased it worked both times and the MTBF was ~4 months. Of course mine was a 7900GS and it gets pushed to a pretty high temperature inside my old Dell.

 

Most manufacturers warrant their work for 90 days or the remainder of the warranty, whichever applies.

You can bake the motherboard to reflow the solder joints, but the fix is not permanent as constant heating and cooling will cause it to expand and contract and thus the solder joints fail causing GPU to get disconnected. It can last as short as 2 weeks or as long as 2+ years.

 

Is the free repair for the nvidia GPU expired already?

 

i think should be on end of march 2011. anyway if you're at US area. try to give them a call 1st. no harm to try.

 

Yea, after digging around some more it seems like it ends this month. I'll just give it a try even though technically according to their documents I shouldn't be eligible.

 

what would they do ? ... give out another board with the same problem ?

 

There were special batch of nvidia gpu that did not have any problems, which is what should be used on the replacement board.

 

Would it be advised to call Lenovo to see if I can get a repair if I'm not having problems? I guess I always got that faulty GPU in the back of my mind and I always make sure cooling conditions are as best as possible.

 

If your laptop is not faulty then they won't repair it. If you are worried sell the t61p and get another laptop.

 

There is another solution which is, he could purchase a warranty extention from Lenovo which I just did. It's good for another two years.

Renee

 

Or that, which is a good idea.

 

Could Lenovo switch in a motherboard with the Intel GPU to prevent further meltdowns? Dell did that with the D620/D630, after 1-2 Nvidia mobo replacements the user could request Intel IGP mobo be placed in instead.

 

It would require another mother board BUT I think that Nvidia has addressed the problem on subsequent batches of chips including these GPUs thusly turning the problem into a 'luck of the draw' situation.

Renee

 

When lost time = lost productivity = $$$$, I'm sure some people would not want to roll the dice with possibly having a defective chip or a luck of the draw chip.

 

which chip does this affect exactly? I have a T61p with Quadro FX 570M.

Do they all go bad or just some?

 

Depends on date of production.

 

Any idea how much the extended warranty cost? I don't have money to buy a new computer and I don't think I could get much for my laptop.

 

According to lead_org, apparently there were Quadro chips unaffected by the faulty bump material provided by TSMC. AFAIK all G84M/G86M and G72M based cores had the faulty bump material, and eventually will need BGA level repair or have the solder changed.

 

This is not correct. Nvidia has come out with good chips having the same number or ID. This makes the board a toss up as to whether it goes bad or not. It's safe to assume that it will go bad if the board is of a certain age.

Renee

 

Your source...? I was under the impression Nvidia badly screwed over OEMs by not providing a fix for the faulty chips, thus the settlement. BGA repair != good chips. Had Nvidia provided an official fix, then millions and millions of laptops would be eligible for repair but Nvidia settlement was only for 200 million dollars.

 

you need to provide information upon this statement.

I also think all of those G84/G86 are prone to failure. Yet mine keeps pumping at 55% overclock for ~3.5 years

one thing the user could aim to do is keep the temperatures down as much as possible. Mine keeps below 70 deg C at room temperature no matter what I do with it (like 5 hours gaming at 100% CPU usage as well), but I've taken all means to keep it that way.

good luck

 

This thread is great source of informations, you should read it: forum.thinkpads.com • View topic - BREAKING NEWS: T61 nVidia thinkpads now being repaired N/C

 

My source is here. Nvidia did not replace the chips but seems to have made new chips, again from this forum. The mixture of old and new chips makes it a toss up of whether your t61 will fail or nor. Certaintly the ones with the old chip probably will fail. The new chips probably will not fail.

A source of information is:

forum.thinkpads.com • View topic - BREAKING NEWS: T61 nVidia thinkpads now being repaired N/C

Renee