(Old) Thinkpad getting balky. Freeze-ups

I've been using my T60p since July of 2006, so over 7 years. I use it as my *only* computer, ten+ hours a day. Had a couple of minor southbridge and gpu issues, but nothing too serious ... until recently. For the past couple of months I've been getting more frequently system "freeze-ups", sometimes twice a day, where everything just stops and I cannot use the keyboard or mouse -- nothing works. It's totally frozen. Only remedy is to do a hard shut-down (which I *hate* to do).

I'd like to find the cause of these freeze-ups. Could my hard drive be getting old or could this be a software problem?? I am using XP Pro, running Google desktop with some now discontinued widgets (graphical clock and system monitor). I have also done file clean-ups and hdd defrags daily since I've owned it. I use standard software, nothing exotic. Firefox and Thunderbird.

Anybody have the same problem or some educated guess??

 

Once you've ran memtest 86 and HDD utility - presuming they both come back clean - try this:

Video Card Stability Test - Stress Testing & Benchmark the speed of your 3D graphics video card

If you're running TPFC (which you should, IMO, on a T60p) set it to "manual" and let the test run for a few hours...

Good luck.

 

Haven't run any tests yet but your mention of the video card raises a flag. I did have my vid card replaced about a year ago, and it was *not* a brand new unit, I'd be willing to bet. (I'm in Seoul, Korea, for the past two years and I took it to a local shop.) So, you think the freezes could come from an over-burdened or faulty vid card??

 

One doesn't replace the video card on a T60p - or most ThinkPads for that fact - since it's integrated into the motherboard. A faulty GPU equals a planar swap.

While T60/p are not known to suffer from BGA desoldering problems that had plagued earlier ThinkPads, they do develop VRAM corruption every now and then...

That's the best I have until you've ran some tests.

Good luck.

 

"Planar swap" = mainboard swap??

I have been running the Freestone video card test for about an hour ... what should I do next?

Btw, my card is now an Mobility X1300 (benchmark is 36), whereas the computer came with the Mobility FireGL V5200 (bench 78-83).

 

So I ran the video card test for 70 minutes without any freezes, although the system *really* slowed down. I tried to do simple solitaire game and I've never seen the cards move so slowly. But the system did not freeze.
Got a score of "32" on the benchmark.

[edited]
I also ran the native HDD test from the BIOS and it came up clean. Then I did the memtest from boot up, and it also ran for about 40 minutes, finally saying "there are no problems" (even though it was still doing a test (??)).
So, all the hardware is coming up clean. Could software be the problem? I've been running Google's desktop side-bar with a number of small apps (clock, calendar, two system monitors, photos, news feed) ... could they be causing the system to freeze???

[edit 2]
I have removed all the Google desktop apps except for the clock and the calendar. Will see if that helps... So far today no freezes (yesterday I had two).

 

Hmm, have you checked the internal temperature of your laptop using something like HWMonitor? With a system that old, it wouldn't be a surprise if either a mountain of dust or a dying fan is causing problems.

 

Had the box cleaned out not too long ago, re-seated my CPU with new Arctic Silver, and checked HWMonitor just now: CPU is 48 C, GPU is 73 C, and HDD is 35 C. I ran a GPU stress test earlier today and it passed, as did the HDD test and the GPU test. So, I'm wondering if software might be hanging things up. I have been using Google desktop sidebar, with several little apps running simultaneously. Maybe they are causing too much activity leading to a freeze-up. Not likely but I cannot find anything wrong with the hard ware.

 

Those temps sound about right. The GPU cooling on T60/p left a lot to be desired from day one, and was never properly addressed.

How many processes do you have running on a freshly booted machine?

 

Yeah, the gpu sits on some kind of silly putty-like pad that is not an efficient heat exchanger. I have wanted to replace it with a copper shim but never got around to it.

I'm running about 65 to 68 processes at fresh boot.

Also, another note of interest perhaps relating to the vid card: I'm getting one, two, or sometimes three fine lines running along the bottom of the screen, just above the taskbar. They come and go, very intermittently. Seems like a fault of the vid card (??).

I ran the video stress test again, for more than 4 hours. No freezes. Got the same benchmark score of 32 (Freestone chart says it should be 36 ).