Hello,

I'm new to this ng so forgive if this question has been posed and answered 
many times.  I obtained a Thinkpad A31 from a friend who got frustrated with 
random freezes.  I have Googled the problem and seen many answers, but none 
seem to apply to this machine.

It may freeze at any time.  Right after bootup, after long periods of use, 
anytime.  It sits on a cooling pad, too.  I removed the cpu fan (see below) 
and cleaned it.  Still freezes.

Increased memory from 256 to 1 gig. Checked memory with memtest - no 
problems.

I replaced the cpu with an identical chip.  No difference. This is when I 
cleaned the fan.

I reinstalled XP Pro SP2 from scratch and updated the video driver.  Still 
freezes randomly.

I updated XP SP2 with all MS updates and this made the problem worse.  I 
went back to unupdated SP2.

Maybe this laptop is not completely fixable.  If anyone can suggest more 
possibilities, I'd appreciate it.  If an IBM tech is reading this ng, I'd 
like to hear from this person, too, even if the answer is that it's just 
something quirky about this model and is unfixable.  Then I won't be tempted 
to waste more money on it.

Does anyone think that switching to PCLOS might help?

Thanks, all,  JG

"JFG" <jfg@bigmchsi.com> wrote in message 
news:Hr7Gj.38102$TT4.16612@attbi_s22...
> Hello,
>
> I'm new to this ng so forgive if this question has been posed and answered 
> many times.  I obtained a Thinkpad A31 from a friend who got frustrated 
> with random freezes.  I have Googled the problem and seen many answers, 
> but none seem to apply to this machine.
>
> It may freeze at any time.  Right after bootup, after long periods of use, 
> anytime.  It sits on a cooling pad, too.  I removed the cpu fan (see 
> below) and cleaned it.  Still freezes.
>
> Increased memory from 256 to 1 gig. Checked memory with memtest - no 
> problems.
>
> I replaced the cpu with an identical chip.  No difference. This is when I 
> cleaned the fan.
>
> I reinstalled XP Pro SP2 from scratch and updated the video driver.  Still 
> freezes randomly.
>
> I updated XP SP2 with all MS updates and this made the problem worse.  I 
> went back to unupdated SP2.
>
> Maybe this laptop is not completely fixable.  If anyone can suggest more 
> possibilities, I'd appreciate it.  If an IBM tech is reading this ng, I'd 
> like to hear from this person, too, even if the answer is that it's just 
> something quirky about this model and is unfixable.  Then I won't be 
> tempted to waste more money on it.
>
> Does anyone think that switching to PCLOS might help?
>
> Thanks, all,  JG

Follow up to my own post:  I nuked the hard drive and install PCLinuxOS 
2007.  This may have cured the problem since the laptop was under heavy use 
all day with no lock-up.  If this is the solution that would suggest that 
some setting or driver in XP was causing the problem.  I realize that this 
is a drastic solution since so many owners have XP, but it worked on this 
laptop for me.  Best, JG