mjm wired ;)  

Towards the end of last summer I purchased a new laptop since I was on road quite frequently. I selected a Lenovo Thinkpad T61 notebook for two reasons: well known reliability and a I got a good deal from a friend. It was working flawlessly till I updated it with XP SP3 (note that I purchased Windows Vista Business but later installed Windows XP). I found myself having occasional lockups and reboots. I downgraded SP3 but I still found it occasionally problematic. I decided that I would eventually re-install everything when I got the chance.

Several weeks ago a collegue informed that several laptops with Nvidia video were failing due to overheating or packaging or something. I really did not pay attention for several reasons. I thought my problems were software related, I never saw noticeable video failures, and the heat/fan noise from my laptop never seemed unusual. In any event my Thinkpad totally DIED the other night. I'm reporting this information in case others might find it useful.

I have a Thinkpad T61. Core 2 Duo 7500 2.2Ghz. Nvidia Quadro 140M 128MB. My laptop info.

1. I noticed a higher number of lockups recently. The only time I could see a blue screen i noticed the following error:
MACHINE CHECK EXCEPTION
Which according to Microsoft help indicates a hardware error.

2. I had updated almost every component using both Windows Update and the Thinkvantage System Update. I did manually update to BIOS 2.19-1.08 (2008/06/11). Additionally I did update the Nvidia driver.

3. A hour before the failure occured I had played with the Microsoft WorldWide Telescope application. I do not know if this is taxing the system too much.

4. When the failure occured I was not there, and upon returning I found the screen totally off. I had left the lid open. I assumed it had gone to "Standby" or "Sleep". So I tried to push the Power button for it to wakeup, but it did not respond. I tried rebooting. With no luck. The screen would not start.

5. The behavior when turning it on is as follows. The LED's blink as if it was turning on. The screen never powers up. The hard drive does power up, but I hear no major disk activity. I cannot tell if the CPU fan is active, it seems like it is. I hear no beeping or any indication that maybe just the screen is not working. Battery or external power does the same. Pretty much dead.

What to do? Well I postponed calling support because I plan to use my external SATA adapter to back up (and clean) my data. I highly recommend everyone keeps an SATA to USB adapter for times like this. (I also have a IDE to USB adapter, also about $20)

Fortunately, I did do a warranty upgrade for 2 years, drop off service. So even though I am in my original warranty period, I do not have to ship it anywhere, I can take it to a local service center. I have heard of some reports online of users insisting Dell (or other manufacturers) giving a warranty extension. I have not tried that yet, so I will make the call this week after my backup.

More to report later.