ThinkPad nVIDIA Quadro NVS 140M are defective?

ThinkPad nVIDIA Quadro NVS 140M are defective?

 

Yes it uses one of the defective cores.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=280238

 

so what can we do?

and what will lenovo do?

 

Hopefully Lenovo will extend your warranty for free. Im not too sure if Lenovo's have this defect too. Its only confirmed for Dell and HP so far.

Has Lenovo issued the new BIOS that will tweak the fans to engage sooner?

 

I'm pretty sure that if there exists a problem with "nVidia Quadro NVS 140m"-equipped ThinkPads, this forum would have been flooded with threads reporting such. Just try searching the forum or google. I did and can't find any major issues reported.

I actually started a thread so that owners of ThinkPad models with the said gfx card can post their experiences, good or bad.

 

Mine runs fine. Haven't had any signs of defect.

 

I havn't had mine for very long but I havn't had any problems with it yet *knocks on wood*

 

I've purchased a bunch of 140M-equipped ThinkPads this year. No problem with any of them.

 

I have one in a T61 that's about 9 months old. No problem so far. I'm a photographer, not a gamer, so I don't really push it too hard.

FWIW, I received a system update push from Lenovo yesterday that included a BIOS update. Don't know whether it addresses the nVidia issue.

 

so what exactly would be the defect ?

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=280238

It uses a defective G86m core.

 

so they overheat or something ?

 

The substrate material used in the core isn't up to spec, and can fail prematurely.

 

I hope mine is ok....I got an R61 too

 

I have a T61 (bought in Aug 2007) with Nvidia NVS Quadro 140M. I am consistently having display problems with the screen suddenly going green (?). On restart the BIOS itself shows a corrupted image (half screen blue, half red) and some random characters. This only happens if I use the PC over 15 mins. Once it gets a chance to cool down, it goes back to normal working condition.
My warranty expired around one month ago and ever since I am seeing this problem.

Customer rep says I need to pay to replace the LCD ! Lenovo does not even acknowledge that the Nvidia GPU is faulty!

 

I'm sorry to bring this old thread up again... I've been shopping around for many weeks like it's my job for a new (to me) laptop. Lots of time on eBay, slickdeals, and other annoying (but I hope ultimately economical) places. I've been paralyzed from buying a computer (missed possibly the sweetest T61 deal I'll ever see) because of two horror-story themes I've come across in this forum and others lately. One has to do with Lenovo EZServ warranty nightmares, the other with the nVidia thing... I read the Inquirer story and some others, as well as the first 20-some pages of the long thread discussing it on here (couldn't make it through the whole thing in one sitting) an hour or so ago.

Many of the computers I'm looking at are T61 and R61 14" models with the Quadro 140M card (wasn't aware 'til today that R-models could come with dedicated graphics -- not sure then what would differentiate them from the T? -- but then I am a newb, and this isn't my field of expertise).

Some non-Lenovo models I've looked at with at-issue cards (if it's okay to mention that here) are:

Dell Vostro 1400 (2 on sale here, actually), with 8400 GS and 8400m GS (are these the same card?)

NVIDIA GeForce Go 7400 Video Card in a Dell XPS m1210

I've never thought about the components inside a notebook in as much detail as I have these last few weeks (mixed blessing/curse of finding this forum). I wasn't aware that there were utilities that'd let me monitor the temps of various internal components, that there was such a thing as "undervolting", or that I could put a funky paste around my cpu to help cool it, but when I get a new notebook I will look into all of those things.

With the above models/gpus, though, I'm wondering:

1) If the gpus are easy to replace/upgrade, and if they're soldered to the motherboard (read this can be the case even w/dedicated gpus in some cases).

2) If the above is possible, would it be prohibitively expensive.

3) Of course, how much I am at risk/issue in each case

4) If I should just go with GMA x3100 (integrated graphics from Intel, right?), how much of a performance hit I'd take, and whether it'd be worth it. I will game little to none on the computer, but I thought graphics capability would be something that would help it stay relevant/usable longer...

5) Flip side of #4, will I gain a lot of battery life/less heat using something like the x3100 vs. even a modest, semi-dedicated ('cause some of them seem to have 128mb dedicated and share another couple hundred mb) processor like the 140m or an 8400 w/128?

I'm just trying to figure this out... if I take much more time w/comp shopping and reading boards I'm going to have to repeat this term of school!

If the non-Lenovo questions are not kosher here, I'll bring them up in another thread elsewhere. I just came upon this one looking to see if the gpu issues applied to lenovos as well.

Thanks for any insight, support, encouragement, etc. Or a burrito. I'm kinda hungry. I'll take a burrito in lieu of the above.