My Thinkpad T61P has died :(
It seems like a common problem, with the graphics chip not being adequately cooled enough to survive several hundred hours of ET:QW and more than enough Padman and SG as well.
The most common issue is the chip itself breaking free from the mainboard, so I pulled apart the entire thing to see if I couldn’t solder it back on again. 3 hours later, after a long disassembly and testing some 100 or more solder points for continuity it seems that the chip itself is fully fried and not just disconnected.
A replacement graphics chip means a replacement mainboard, which also means $$$, and I’m a year out of warranty.
For the short term I’ve borrowed an older laptop from work. Luckily the replacement booted fully off my T61P hdd after about half an hour of playing with drivers. Unluckily it has an old Intel integrated chipset, which barely runs a desktop… it’s painfully slow and has a crusty low-res monitor.
