IBM T40 heat issues

[attackroy]

I was wondering if anybody experienced any heat problems with their T40, particualrly stability issues when playing games. For me, when I play Warcraft III multiplayer, it runs fine for a while, but after running for an hour or so, it will crash and give me a "Fatal Error" or a blue screen of death. Everytime after this happens, I notice the laptop is fairly warm.

So I am pretty sure it is a heat problem; anybody have any suggestions on some solutions? I was thinking about getting one of those cooling pads with fans to put my laptop on... anybody have one they can reccomend?

Here's my system specs:
237319U
1.3 GHz P-M
256 RAM + 512 from crucial
Win XP Pro (preinstalled)

 

[MWink]

I haven't done any serious gaming on my T40 yet but as far as I can tell it is one of the coolest running laptops around. My T40 (the one with the Radeon 9000) at its hottest doesn't even come close to being as hot as my old Dell Inspiron 8200. I seriously doubt it's heat.

I have however heard of the problem you describe and I think the problem was the extra memory. I read about people who added Crucial memory and had similar problems with WarCraft 3. I'd suggest you take out the extra memory and try Warcraft 3.

I also added some Crucial memory to my T40 but I have yet to have any problems. Then again my memory is over a year old (I took it out of my Inspiron). Maybe there's a problem with newer Crucial chips working with IBM T40's, or maybe I just haven't stressed mine enough yet.

 

[OldSpooky]

Try what MWink suggested - take out the crucial module and see if you encounter the same problems.

Here's an alternative test. Prime95 Download the Prime95 client and have it run torture test on your T40. This test involves lots of CPU usage and lots of reads and writes to RAM. If you can run this program for 24 hours + without problems, odds are that your hardware is not the problem.

I was able to run Prime95 on my 2373-12U (same as 19U but without wireless) for over 25 hours before I halted the test. My only modification to the machine was an extra 256 MB of RAM from Dell.

 

[Leeb00]

There's a thread in a thinkpad usenet group about this. Seems related to the Crucial ram. One guy tried several Crucial chips, then bit the bullet and bought an IBM chip. Problem disappeared.

 

[thelittleprincess]

Leeb00

where can i find th elink to the thinkpad usenet group??

 

[OldSpooky]

where can i find th elink to the thinkpad usenet group??

You can actually access the group through google. Go to google.com and click on google groups. You can search around there - it should be easy to find

 

[Pennstate]

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&group=ibm.ibmpc.thinkpad

Crucial is the problem. You might want to try Kingston.

Recently, I got a 256MB IBM brand ram from this guy for $20 shipped. Can't afford a 512 at this time:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3419883031&category=31575

Email him, he had 20 of them in a dutch auction. Only 4 or so got sold.

 

[attackroy]

Thanks a lot guys, all the responses have been most helpful... I am going to test with it with the original IBM 256 only... then (most likely, since other people have the same problem) return it and go elsewhere... I'll let u know what happens.

 

[canfraggle]

Hey! I was the guy on Usenet that was having this heat problem. I posted about it in the SomethingAwful forums and usenet: ibm.ibmpc.thinkpad

Anyway, I'm still not certain if it's a heat problem or not but I'll tell you what happened in the end.

I have a T40 with
Rad 9000
P4 1.6 Ghz

At first I had a Crucial 512 and it was causing me a lot of problems (bsods, random crashes). I also got a cheap IBM 256 from ebay and when I swapped that 512 for the 256 my T40 worked flawlessly. I could make the T40 to crash unonditionally when I was playing Warcraft for more than 30 minutes and using the Crucial 512 (either by itself or with the IBM 256). I RMAed the first Crucial and got another one, same problems.

I came to the the conclusion that Crucial 512 DDR SODIMM RAM parts were not suitable for use in IBM Thinkpad T40

I had the opportunity to test my T40 with an IBM 512 I borrowed from another T40 and using the IBM branded RAM, I had no problems. Of course, the IBM 512 is just way too expensive, so I am using 2x IBM 256. Better than nothing ^_^

 

[taftalidje]

Originally posted by: canfraggle

I came to the the conclusion that Crucial 512 DDR SODIMM RAM parts were not suitable for use in IBM Thinkpad T40

Hi canfraggle,
I'm the guy who is just to return 2x512Mb to Crucial, based on your research. My IBM 2x512Mb has been shipped last night. It cost me an extra $100 comparing to Crucial. IBM had a sale on sodimm modules last week ($165 for 512Mb); now it's $195 again.

My T40 (1.6MHz, 5400RPM 40GB HD, WinXP Pro, etc.; $2268+Tax) arrived yesterday; looks real cool. I'm looking for a second HD (60 or 80GB).

Has anybody run T40 with Hitachi Travelstar 5K80?

 

[canfraggle]

Well, I use the Hitachi 60 gig 4200 RPM 2meg cache drive. It is reasonably fast and not too expensive (about 170 USD). I was very tempted by the Hitachi 80 gig 4200 rpm, it is meant to be the fastest "big" laptop HD out there, but at 250 it wasnt justifiable.

 

[ES135]

I am begining to have weird crashes too...have T40 with 512k stock. Purchased 512k Module from
Crucial. Seems to happen most often in IE, but has also happened in WinDVD...

Emailed crucial...here was there reply:

Please make sure you have also increased the virtual memory size within your system. Virtual memory should
be at least 2x the amount of physical memory.

Also, WinDVD may not have a "self refresh" on memory allocation. When installing more memory, the memory
address range will also increase. Re-installing the program with the module installed will set the address range
correctly.

If this is only occuring with a single program, more than likely the problem is with the program (memory address
range has been changed)

 

[canfraggle]

Someone from the newsgroups e-mailed me pictures of the Crucial and the IBM 512 SODIMMs and really it looks like there is no difference at all between the two, which begs the question, why does the Crucial cause our T40s to crash :|

Incidentally, when I borrowed someone else's T40 stock 512 SODIMM it looked different from the one pictured but then again I can't remember exactly what it looked like

Anyway the pictures are here for those who are interested

http://www.canfrag.com/t40ram