From: "Andy Willis" Received: from [192.168.100.201] (HELO mail.2rosenthals.com) by 2rosenthals.com (CommuniGate Pro SMTP 5.1.16) with ESMTP id 2723189 for ecs-t6x@2rosenthals.com; Sun, 21 Nov 2010 23:15:32 -0500 Received: from secmgr-va.2rosenthals.com ([162.83.95.194] helo=mail2.2rosenthals.com) by secmgr-ny.randr with esmtps (TLSv1:AES256-SHA:256) (Exim 4.43) id 1PKNoQ-0002P7-Nw for ecs-t6x@2rosenthals.com; Sun, 21 Nov 2010 23:15:32 -0500 Received: from mail-iw0-f174.google.com ([209.85.214.174]:40713) by mail2.2rosenthals.com with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1PKNoF-0003DH-2F for ecs-t6x@2rosenthals.com; Sun, 21 Nov 2010 23:15:19 -0500 Received: by iwn34 with SMTP id 34so2538385iwn.33 for ; Sun, 21 Nov 2010 20:15:18 -0800 (PST) X-CTCH-RefID: str=0001.0A020204.4CE9EE57.0227,ss=1,fgs=0 DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:received:received:message-id:date:from :user-agent:mime-version:to:subject:references:in-reply-to :content-type:content-transfer-encoding; bh=ThGbnR24OCiAE1Ok1eYHgMOKlg9WAsocn8gERsb79x0=; b=Nm0jy+fgSwh1Jo9iu8Pl0n+mftl9LaKxYgnT20ZZubm5rc8iI+jcVhlbJNkKflmVFj mBDIYBkLVdtoZTAKmIHD2KvdKOZQZzFuVXHfI8S1eXokH4zTWDjg+gZ3/eh1gz+15jg+ klYNmvyNlHqj1x+mY/4hZQ+hAF2xAdcdsUykg= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=message-id:date:from:user-agent:mime-version:to:subject:references :in-reply-to:content-type:content-transfer-encoding; b=HHWQ6agbdYbkJgPutTIg4nrcbrX7b+uiL4+p5Gjot6vDcS/UrYQUxA6AuDuyIfYq10 vv/r4BjiSTpjUWaE2g0xQRe7diruVaU9vwIX7lTdnV6s7WlyaWYfzmVdJ9bMuNsZGig2 7kGVzdgJKwoxcIVpx81wbw3hn1/OrC5fbBodk= Received: by 10.231.157.14 with SMTP id z14mr6183046ibw.85.1290399317157; Sun, 21 Nov 2010 20:15:17 -0800 (PST) Received: from [192.168.0.3] (75-166-37-21.hlrn.qwest.net [75.166.37.21]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id 34sm5000537ibi.8.2010.11.21.20.15.14 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=RC4-MD5); Sun, 21 Nov 2010 20:15:15 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: <4CE9EE52.7080407@gmail.com> Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2010 21:15:14 -0700 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (OS/2; Warp 4.5; rv:2.0b8pre) Gecko/20101030 SeaMonkey/2.1b2pre MIME-Version: 1.0 To: eCS ThinkPad T60/61 Mailing List Subject: Re: [eCS T60/T61] T61 Nvidia Quadro heat issue: how I fixed it References: In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit 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 :/