Too much information

Today I just wanted to share some thoughts on how you sometimes are better off without other peoples' advices. How advices and too much information can be disturbing and cause more confusion than they actually help you. And I am also including some computer stuff. Come on, you know me. :-)

My story with laptops goes back to a 1995 model IBM Thinkpad 360Cs. I actually started out with two separate ones that I got from my old boss. One had a broken chassi and the other one had a broken harddisk drive. So with some mixing of parts I ended up with a workin' one. It isn't good for much these days, but I boot it up some times, including tonight. So the text for this blog is actually created in WordPad for Win 95 on this 360Cs laptop, and saved on a floppy. Just because I can. :-)

The good old 360Cs

So in 2001/2002 my boss bought a pair of Thinkpad T30's for us and I got one of them. I used this laptop as my personal laptop until I quit at the dairy last fall, then I had to return it. Over the years I used it, I had no problems at all, and I really liked this compact little laptop. After I returned it, I needed a new one, so I found a used Thinkpad T43p online. This is a bigger sized and newer laptop, and with a 1.75GHz Centrino / RAM upgraded to 2Gb, it has the resources I need. The only thing I miss is a DVD burner. All my IBM laptops have worked without a single problem, and these laptops seem to be solid built, reliable and durable.

The Thinkpad T43. The T42 looks similar.

The latest purchase when it comes to laptops is a T42. I ordered it a couple of days ago, but I have still not recieved it. The purpose of this laptop is to leave it behind here in Norway for my mom, with Skype, Google Talk and LogMeIn installed. And we are now getting closer to what this blog is about. At this point I joined an online discussion forum for Thinkpad owners to get some general advices. The first thing I see in the section for T4x series Thinkpads are several postings regarding a "GPU issue". And it turns out that the entire T4x range seems to have a problem with the GPU (Graphics Processing Unit). The GPU is soldered onto the motherboard, and over time the soldering breaks up, causing the graphics to go black and leaving the laptop useless. The cure is to replace the mobo, or have someone "reflowing" it. This is a cure that fixes the problem in most cases, but it requiers the mobo or even the entire laptop to be shipped to the UK.

A typical ATI GPU unit.

After I started digging into this issue, it turned out that my T43 is less prone to suffer from these failures, because of improved soldering techniques. So that's relaxing. But the T42 I have ordered for my mom seems to be affected. And this made me wonder if I had done a bad deal buying the T42. I tried to ask a question regarding how common this problem really is. Is it a question of WHEN it will happen, rather than IF? One of the replies said that this forum is a technical advice forum, and that most people are there because they have problems with their Thinkpads. And that the members here are only a tiny fraction of all the Thinkpad owners around the world. Another member told me that his IT support friends was sick and tired of T4x's with GPU failures. And that this wasn't cured before IBM switched from ATI to Intel based GPU with the late T43 and the later T60 series laptops. A huge problem, according to him.

So how did it actually help me to know this? I am now much more aware of how I handle my laptop. Making sure it is never carried by its edges and generally avoiding having twisting forces applied to it. And selecting the Power Option "Balanced" instead of "Performance" which causes less heat. And if my graphics eventually should fail, I would know the reason. But how big of a disaster will it be? My computer interest and knowledge is above average, so I am able to dismantle my own laptop and replace the mobo. Unlike the average user, who will probably simply scrap his old T42 when it fails, and buy a new laptop.

This reminds me a little bit of a car forum I was a member of back in the days when I had my Opel Omega Evo 500. The six cylinder 24 valve engines used in these cars had a timing chain that could break. This was particularly a problem with the bi-turbo Lotus Omega engine and the Evo 500 race engine, but not so much on regular Omegas. The problem was that the discussion forum turned this into a huge issue. It came to the point where some guys at the forum had a special Heavy Duty chain specially manufactured and lots of people changed their chains. (I changed them in my Evo engine) On the high performance engines this probably had its purpose, but it is later proved that most regular engines survived for years and years with the stock chains. So lots of unnescessary worries were made for nothing...

The word for the day must be to deal with problems when they occour. Take pleasure from your car, laptop, whatever, without worrying what CAN happen. Know that forums and other sources of information are there to give you help when a problem occour, and that a cure for most things can be found. But be careful to actually go there and explore the list of possible faults. Enjoy today, use common sense about avoiding problems, but don't let the worries about what can happen destroy the pleasure and good use you hoped to get from the equipment you bought.

Written by Bjorn Sveigdalen