New Laptop!

[Teratoma]

Recently got a new Company Laptop! Just in time, too. My old Thinkpad T61 started to lock up and crash (winXP) The graphics got all screwy so I couldn't even read the BSODs I think it may be a bad memory module, but I haven't had a chance to test it yet. This is a really busy tme of the year and I rely on my Laptop heavily so it was a real bummer. We had another one at the office sitting around, someone had spilled something on it, but I took a chance and switched drives. As long as I don't bang on it too hard it actually works, otherwise it just powers off.

So I actually have 2 T61s running which is helping my QCN output. Eventually I will have migrated everything off of mine and caniblized the two into one usable laptop. At that point I will have to give it up. Until then I am going to make the most of having them. Rambling, sorry.

The new Laptop is sweet. It's a Thinkpad W510. Almost got mine CTO with more memory and a larger drive, but I needed this fast and couldn't wait for it to be built. So I got a preconfigured one. I'll probably upgrade the RAM next year.

WIndows 7 Pro 64bit
Core i7 820QM 1.73GHz w/ 8M cache
4GB PC3-8500 RAM 2x2GB (max 16GB)
320GB Drive 7200rpm
15.6" TFT Multi-Touch LED backlit display (not sure I will ever really use the touch screen much, but it is lind of cool...my Son likes it)
NVIDIA Quadro FX 880M w/ 1GB RAM
yada, yada, yada

I still have to load a lot of apps and whatnot, but of course BOINC was the first one . For now I will leave the HT on as I want to see how my VMs run once I get Workstation loaded. Then I might see how it does without. Sometimes I use my Laptops very heavily (and sometimes I actually stop BOINC ) so it's RAC will fluctuate and I may never really know if it crunches better with HT on or off.

I know this is not a huge upgrade but every little bit counts.

I was planning on upgrading one of my ATI GPUs, but I've thrown $1,600 into my car over the last 6 weeks and my car still may not be fixed! I'll be getting another bill tomorrow as well. So......the money for my GPU is gone Sorry guys. Maybe Santa will take pity on me this Christmas.

[Mike029]

Good news and bad news there Tera. Have you been naughty or nice? Either a nice 5970 or a lump of Nvidia err coal. I see we are neighbors. Hope your an Islanders fan?

[Teratoma]

Sorry. I was born in Philadelphia so I am a Flyers fan. The Rangers are my NY team since they used to be in a different division.

[Fire$torm]

Nice new lappy there Tera. New tech is always good
About your T61. Have you ever opened that puppy up to clean out the heatsink(s)?
Those symptoms you describe sound like overheating issues. Just a thought.

[Teratoma]

Nice new lappy there Tera. New tech is always good
About your T61. Have you ever opened that puppy up to clean out the heatsink(s)?
Those symptoms you describe sound like overheating issues. Just a thought.

That is the very first thing I did, but did not help. Wasn't very dirty anyway. From what I can see it loooks like the GPU & CPU share the same heatsink/fan. But it looks like the GPU is downstream from the CPU. WTF?! I installed TPFanControl to override the BIOS settings a long time ago. Was able to get the fan up anther 1500RPM to help with the cooling. But like I said, it may be memory related, just not sure if it's system or GPU memory. Hopefully I can get the 2 of them into 1 stable one. Eventually I will propbably have to give it up. But my boss is very generous, so if there is no need for it in the company anywhere (and there is doubt of it's reliability) he may let me keep it.

[DrBob]

...Hopefully I can get the 2 of them into 1 stable one...

Being a ThinkPad you have an excellent chance, IBM designed them to be opened up and worked on.
I haven't had a Lenovo built to look at yet but I understand IBM is still doing the design.
Hardware Maintenance Manuals can be downloaded from the Lenovo website.
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/si...cid=MIGR-74633

[Teratoma]

I haven't had a chance to review the manual, but I believe that the GPU is not an FRU. So, if the GPU is bad an ew mobo would be needed. If I can solve the power connection issue on the second one I'll be good on that one at least.

The one with the graphics issue has been stable for a few days now. But I'm not really using it. It's just sitting on my desk at home crunching away (no gpu tasks). I really don't have a lot of time to work on them right now anyway. I don't even think I have copied off all of my data over yet.