[Thinkpad] Need help: Thinkpad Crashing

All -

Help!

I have a Thinkpad T22 running Windows 2000.. I have been trying
to debug a problem with it for more than 2 years, and am now at the
end of my rope. :) Any assistance you can provide is greatly
appreciated.

The problem seems a complete hardware crash -- not a Windows Crash: The
T22 itself "resets" and goes from "fully operational" directly
to the "power on" screen.

What I know about the crashes:

1. Crashes can seemingly happy "any time", but most regularly happen
    while running some graphics-intensive application. This is especially
    true if the graphics application is also IDE-device intense [e.g. A crash
    is guaranteed within 5 minutes if running something like Microsoft
    Flight Simulator; Within 30 minutes for some less-intensive graphics
    application or game. Probably once per week if I am just running
    normal windows applications -- recognizing that while windows itself
    is graphical, that the applications underneath are text based.. Like
    the MS-Office Suite].
2. Each crash is precipitated by about 500ms of system "lock up", followed
    by what sounds like the devices on the IDE bus resetting, (I believe the
    sound is that of the heads on the drives doing a full re-position/reset),
    then black-screen, then back to the hardware power-on screen. Never
    windows blue-screen-of-death or any software message - it appears to be
    a hardware crash/reset.
3. Without a power-cycle, the system will never fully reboot. The reboot
    starts, but in "Windows 2000" terms -- will only get as far as the first
    graphical "Windows 2000" screen with the cylon-like blue bar below (that
    shows the boot is in process). Eventually the cylon bar stops, and the
    system is locked and requires a power-cycle. So, the IDE devices appear
    to all come back online and operate (enough to load the boot code, at
    least).. but at some point of the boot-time inventory things lock .

What I have done to diagnose:

1. I have tried running these crash-prone applications on other machines --
    and they run fine.
2. I have reloaded the OS from scratch several times, but the symptoms of the
    crash are the same.
3. I have reloaded and updated every graphic and device driver that seems even
    remotely associated with the symptoms I describe above, but the crashes
    persist. I have also tried different versions of DirectX, etc -- no change
    in symptoms.
4. I have booted the system having removed all IDE (and peripheral devices)
except
    the hard disk (obviously), but the crashes persist.
5. I have replaced the hard disk -- no change.
6. I have tried each hard disk in a different laptop (a Thinkpad 600E) with
    the same applications, and it/they work(s) fine.
7. I have run the Thinkpad self-test hardware diagnostics -- all tests pass
    successfully.
8. I've scoured the net looking for a similar story/resolution, but have
found none.
    (Doing a search with "windows" and "crash" as keywords is particularly
    useless.) IBM's helpline wants me to "Click on 'My computer'", etc, etc,
    bla, bla, bla.. You know where those attempts have gone.

Hence, I have tried to isolate hardware and software problems by testing,
new hardware, new software, etc.. but with no effect. I am now officially
completely baffled. My fears are that there is some "undetectable" problem
with the system board.

Any guidance is appreciated. Thanks.

        -Jeff

_______________________________________________
Thinkpad mailing list
Thinkpad@stderr.org
http://stderr.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/thinkpad
Received on Mon Sep 29 13:27:21 2003