need video help with old ibm thinkpad

   / need video help with old ibm thinkpad #1  

Soundguy

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to all the computer guru's out there:

Ok, my wife uses an older IBM thinkpad for work ( teacher ).. It's a pentium 3, but had xp on it when new.. was not a win 98 upgrade deal.

Has the ati radeon mobility / 16mb memory / 350mhz video processor.

2 days ago at a conference she was watching a dvd video in her hotel room and it worked fine.. then next day, there were lines in the video playback, and on startup you see some 'artifacts' during the 'post' time when the video bios info, and the ibm logo are up right at power on..and occasionally a screen full of '!!!' that goes away when the windows splash screen comes up.. Windows desktop looks fine... etc.

I checked video settings.. everything i could think of.. on a whim, I went into advanced properties / troubleshooting and started moving the hardware acceleration level back.. had to move it to the 3rd notch back which disabled directdraw and direct 3d stuff... Poof... video is fine after that... set it up a notch.. and bang.. video playback is bad.

To clarify.. this is only video playback from a dvd disk.. not other small avi or Quicktime movies .. etc..

fortunately for what she uses the cpu for.. I don't think disabling some of the acceleration on the video is going to have any tangible negative effect for her.. all she does is some word processing, watching an occasional video in it while on trips.. and doing email thru wifi connections when traveling, plus some audio playback via a midi adapter out into a general midi keyboard.

my guess is the internal video adapter is becoming flaky?

any other guess's?

thanks

soundguy
 
   / need video help with old ibm thinkpad #2  
I think "flaky" is probably the best description. Components are killed by power surges (i.e. off and on, power line spikes) and heat. Laptops are even worse with heat. You will not notice the video acceleration loss, but slowing it down will decrease heat to the unit. It could be the video processor or the NorthBridge, but either way you won't be able to fix it. The other thing that happens with any computer is that the entire computer will die for want of a functioning $5 cooling fan. I just had the NorthBridge fry on my desktop system because a 25mm x 25mm x 8mm cooling fan seized up on my motherboard. A $200 motherboard down the drain for a $1 cooling fan. Try to keep good air flow around the laptop and you may get some more time, and save any data off the unit. It was nice of it to give you some warning.

There are some places on the web, like GEARXS.com that sell used computers that come back in after leasing for really great prices.

Edit: Thinking some more about this - I really suggest checking the fan. The good thing about the IBMs is that the market share for the ThinkPads was predominantly business, and there are OEM and Aftermarket parts available for these units. It will remain to be seen if Lenova maintains that same level of support, or will follow the disposable/throw away mentality.
 
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   / need video help with old ibm thinkpad #3  
DocHeb is right on about "flaky". Also be sure the cooling fan is working correctly. Thinkpads are sensitive with any cooling problems. My son's Thinkpad cooked his video processor shortly after the cooling fan completely died. "Gee Dad I thought it was OK after the fan stopped making noise".

Good luck

SimS
 
   / need video help with old ibm thinkpad #4  
I think "flaky" is probably the best description. Components are killed by power surges (i.e. off and on, power line spikes) and heat. Laptops are even worse with heat. You will not notice the video acceleration loss, but slowing it down will decrease heat to the unit. It could be the video processor or the NorthBridge, but either way you won't be able to fix it. The other thing that happens with any computer is that the entire computer will die for want of a functioning $5 cooling fan. I just had the NorthBridge fry on my desktop system because a 25mm x 25mm x 8mm cooling fan seized up on my motherboard. A $200 motherboard down the drain for a $1 cooling fan. Try to keep good air flow around the laptop and you may get some more time, and save any data off the unit. It was nice of it to give you some warning.

There are some places on the web, like GEARXS.com that sell used computers that come back in after leasing for really great prices.

I have got an HP laptop with a 17" screen and I think becuase of the sheer size it gets hot. This is why I always tuck something under the back of the laptop to prop up the back and allow better airflow to come out of the air flow grates. I am on my replacement laptop from HP, the one I bought in September of 2007 kept failing and after sending it back for repairs three times from France they finally replaced it. There was a defect that caused it to overheat. Right after they replaced my laptop they issued a global replacement policy, even for units out of warranty. If you ahd the problem send it in and they replaced the unit.

I'll never knwo for sure but perhaps I had a hand in that recall. It was of course very frustrating to have my laptop keep dying so I went ont he internet to many discussion forums and printed up many threads on the topic from many different forums. Then I searched news and found a news story about a guy at HP who had jsut been promoted to USA Sales. I sent him a big thick packet of the discussions about thier laptops failing and I also sent it to the CEO and someone else I can't remember. In my letter I told the brand new sales manager that he had a tough hill to climb with sales as look how crappy their product was adn this is why people change to Apple. It wasn't real long after that, I think about a month that they e-mailed allt he owners and offered the recall. My was replaced becuase I was still under warranty and on the third failure for the exact same problem I got a new one.

I have always propped up the bottom back of any laptop to keep the airflow going. I usually use a small stack of business cards with a rubber band around them. It does wobble a bit but I am used to it. Gotta keep that hot airflow vents open is what I think.
 
   / need video help with old ibm thinkpad #5  
Soundguy,
the first thing I would do is install a temperature monitoring program (I have used Motherboard Monitor in the past, but I have also heard good things about SpeedFan) and see if there is any temperature change when you switch video acceleration modes. I would also go the the Thinkpad support site and download the latest video drivers.

Aaron Z
 
   / need video help with old ibm thinkpad
  • Thread Starter
#7  
I hadn't even thought about the drivers.. I mean.. the unit is almost 5ys old.. I didn't think there would be any driver support. Might have to look at that.

as for the fan.. I'll check the vent at the bottom but last I remember.. air is flowing.

thanks for the ideas and links guys

soundguy
 
   / need video help with old ibm thinkpad #8  
I hadn't even thought about the drivers.. I mean.. the unit is almost 5ys old.. I didn't think there would be any driver support. Might have to look at that.
soundguy

Do you do "Windows Updates"? If so, you can do the complete update and it should tell you about video driver updates that might be available.
 
   / need video help with old ibm thinkpad
  • Thread Starter
#9  
I doubt my wife does the updates.. I'll have to check.

soundguy
 
   / need video help with old ibm thinkpad #10  
I doubt my wife does the updates.. I'll have to check.

soundguy

If she hasn't done any updates, and isn't installing new software, and hasn't installed new hardware, there probably isn't a need for new drivers. The new drivers are needed when Window XP gets updated, or new software/hardware gets installed, and the "relationship" with the video output changes.
 
 
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