IBM T40 boot virus? stumped... HELP

[Scorponok]

First off:
IBM T40
Type 2373 - RU1
Windows XP professional

The other day I was computing as usual, I notice the graphics for the cursor look a little glitchy. I backed up the entire computer (thank god) using ntbackup. I restarted the computer and right away the graphics cycle through this!

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I tried rebooting but got the same thing. It seemed to be following normal boot up procedure as I think i logged in to windows once just by clicking around randomly and watching the hdd activity light. Anyways, i messed around with it and one time i got it to hibernate; upon waking it came back to windows but was glitchy still. Tried setting up a virus scan on next reboot and backed a few things to my external drive and rebooted. From this point on, when booting I just get the jumbled graphics.
Originally my t40 came with a partition on it containing windows and some preinstalled stuff. I got there by pressing f11 during boot. decided to use "IBM product recovery program v5.7" and reformatted and reinstalled everything. I thought this was the end of the problem as the reinstall went fine and it was back to day 1 status. Comp comes preloaded with symantec antivirus so I upgrade the virus definitions first thing. then I upgrade windows patches. at this point windows needs to restart to install patches. fine i restart. Jumbled graphics again.

Now I cant even get the f11 thing to work anymore.
I'm convinced this is a bios virus , never seen one, but apparently they exist. I updated the virus scanner from behind a router so it should have been firewalled from the internet.
I didn't get a recovery cd with this comp, just that preinstalled hd partition which now appears to be useless.

Someone please help, I'm out of ideas here...

 

[Lemon law]

I would tend to believe you have a dying hard drive that had a virus. You could try booting to dos or something like knoppix. At least you could see if the rest of your computer hardware is working. But you could also have a bad stick of ram that can be tested with something like memtest86. Its likely that you will have to contact IBM to see about getting a replacement OS boot disk. You can also try reflashing your bios, but at this point, that could be risky if something else is failing. But your entire motherboard could be failing also.

But you have a troubleshooting problem. Lots of things could be causing this so put all possibilities on the table. Then use what tools you can scratch up to test what you have left.

 

[Scorponok]

Well, i pulled the hard drive and i get the same thing. Bootup shortcuts don't work. It seems after trying the f11 and f8 options during bootup i was unable to return to these menus.

You could be right about the failing motherboard, but at this point I just don't know. Guess I'll try a boot cd; try to rule out the motherboard.

 

[Lemon law]

Your problem kinda puzzles me, but I had hoped you would get someone more in the computer repair field responding to your post. In short, somebody more knowledgeable
than I am on how to do it systematically.

But here is that statement that puzzles me---Originally my t40 came with a partition on it containing windows and some preinstalled stuff. I got there by pressing f11 during boot. decided to use "IBM product recovery program v5.7" and reformatted and reinstalled everything.

The question I have, did the OS reinstall actually reformat everything on your hard drive?
Clearly it can't have reformatted the partition the containing the windows and other stuff
you used to restore it with, but otherwise it may or may not have reformatted everything else. And a actual reformat should in theory wipe out any rootkits or other malware on the
HDD. But did your computer actually do a real reformat or did it do something less? In the latter case a virus already on your computer may have survived and then in short order
may have overwritten enough windows data to make your computer un bootable?

 

[gsellis]

That is a hardware problem (Period.) Using the CD, rebuilding, etc., is a waste of time. Pulling the HDD would have eliminated the issue with a boot sector virus and all the one's like that were not random (was it Hawaii that did something like that - that was about 15 years ago - SAV would have caught that without new definitions, even a copy from 2000).

You have either a mobo problem, a graphics chipset problem (physical), or a display/display connector problem.

 

[Kaervak]

GPU separation from the motherboard. It's a known issue with the T4x series. If it's still under warranty have the motherboard replaced. If it's not under warranty, try to find a local or mail in reflowing service. A reflow should cost you about $75. Aside from that you can try putting pressure on the GPU but if you move to laptop around, that won't do you much good.

 

[Blazer]

goto the laptops website and look for a utility to test the laptop hardware. clearly a hardware failure.

 

[Scorponok]

Thanks for all the help guys, I guess I better take this one to the repair shop.
At least i know there is nothing I can do about this software wise (I'm not about to take apart a thinkpad).
It must be the motherboard or the graphics chip, because I've tried using the External monitor option and it gets the same thing.

 

[Scorponok]

Update:
Repair shop guy had a look for $20 and said that the mobo was basically junk. and would need to be replaced.
Looks like I should just sell the thing for parts.