From: "Andy Willis" <ecs-t6x@2rosenthals.com>
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Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2010 21:15:14 -0700
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To: eCS ThinkPad T60/61 Mailing List <ecs-t6x@2rosenthals.com>
Subject: Re: [eCS T60/T61] T61 Nvidia Quadro heat issue: how I fixed it
References: <list-2723180@2rosenthals.com>
In-Reply-To: <list-2723180@2rosenthals.com>
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Lewis G Rosenthal wrote:
> Greetings, all, and in case we don't chat again in the interim, Happy
> Thanksgiving (and belated Happy Thanksgiving to our Canadian friends)...
>
> Several of you are aware of the issues I've had with my wife's T61
> recently, specifically, the failure of her video about one month out of
> the 3-year factory warranty (nice).
>
> This is a known issue on T61's (and other notebooks with the Nvidia
> Quadro GPU), as apparently over time, the constant heat up/cool down
> leads to some minute cold solder joints on the GPU connection to the
> system board. While I'd read about this problem (after the fact), I was
> pretty much convinced that I had five options:
>
> 1. Purchase a new system board from IBM/Lenovo, and my channel price
> on the part is about $600 (this is a higher end T61 - how lovely);
> 2. Attempt to purchase post-warranty coverage (I believe this is
> called "Service Plus" or some such), for about $150-$200/yr,
> hoping that that would cover this repair;
> 3. Pay IBM/Lenovo for the repair outside of warranty (ouch!);
> 4. Find a used T61 of the same model on eBay, and perhaps swap parts
> back and forth to make a single "working" machine (of course,
> *all* T61's with this chip are getting to be about this vintage,
> so finding one *without* this issue - unless previously addressed
> - is nigh on impossible); or
> 5. Junking the unit.
>
> I spied another thread in the Lenovo forums on this
> (http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T61-and-prior-T-series-ThinkPad/T61-Nvidia-Quadro-NVS-140M-garbled-display-problem/td-p/46469)
> just this morning, and set off to fix it myself, by baking the system
> board in my toaster oven for 7 minutes at 385℉ (no kidding!) to get the
> solder to reflow. Read my blog post on my experience, here:
> http://www.2rosenthals.net/wordpress/?p=127/ . Suffice it to say, that
> while this was indeed the wackiest repair I've ever attempted, I'm
> pleased with the results. The machine is working like nothing ever
> happened, and the best part is that Diane is pleased as punch. :-)
>
> Cheers/2
>
If I had seen this post less than a week ago, I might not have just 
ordered one for my wife.  It is a refurbished unit from IBM for about 
$400... funny that the cost of the whole is less than even one of the 
parts :/