Talk:Problem with video related system lockup II

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My T42 exhibited pretty much the problem described in the technostate link discussion - sudden blank screen, hard reboot required to clear up. One long - two short beep POST code sometimes on reboot. Happened more often after warm-up. Screen blanking happened after random flexing of the laptop - lid open/close, twist frame, press or squeeze on palm rest area. After reading the technostate discussion, finding a similar discussion about problems with the graphics chip on mac ibooks, and concluding that it was hardware by proving that the problem still happens at first bios boot screen with laptop disassembled as far as possible, I began to look for a solution. Out of warranty, so a new mainboard was hard to swallow. Heat gun rambo seemd like a low success route. I dug around and found a repair house (www.protronics-inc.com) in our area that could handle ball grid array reflow work. I scheduled a visit, broke the t42 down to the mainboard, and took it in. They worked on it about an hour (2 x reflow, video scope, xray = $75). On inspection, the bga did look odd on one side, with the balls looking more like two half silver balls squashed together, rather than the more appropriate one. I took the board home, reassembled the t42, booted up with no errors, ran the pc-doctor diagnostics which all passed, Flexed the laptop a bit with no problems. So far, no glitches in 24 hours of normal use (boot, suspend, open/close, travel to work & back) in the T42's traveling with me to work and back today. So far so good!