I am currently working overseas, and have been dealing with a hardware failure on my laptop. The IT people suggest that it's probably the motherboard, but there are several variables I would like to explore:
First computer: Lenovo T430, bought refurbished, tested for over 3 months and no issue.
Several potential causes: 1. Before I left for traveling, I upgraded one of the RAM from 1333Mhz 4GB stick to a 1600Mhz 8GB stick(tested for 1 week, no issue).
Eversince I landed at one airport, my laptop crashed as I was attempting to connect the laptop to a power outlet. The crash happened before I could plug in the power.
Now, the power supply (which is rated for 110-230V, 50-60Hz) whistles on load.
The failure is extremely random, but it usually happens while I fall asleep while watching a movie off of my external HDD(external HDD is NOT the cause, I know because the first instance was without the external HDD).
The crash looks like this exactly, the screen freezes with vertical "broken" parts
The speakers make static sound with random oscillations.
I have opened this laptop up, and and did not find issues with connections anywhere. The IT suggests motherboard, but I want to test the power supply, battery and RAM before concluding to it.
Weirdly enough, there is no data loss. It's the terrible crash that I really dislike.
I've been recently reading about different RAM speed potentially causing issues on a computer The two RAM sticks are:
(the new one) f3-1600c11s-8gsl DDR3L, 1600MhZ, 1.35V
[cannot post link] (the old one) hmt351s6bfr8c-h9 [cannot post link] DDR3, 1333MhZ, 1.5V
I should also describe that other than the first time, the crash ONLY happens when the computer is at idle, and I am not paying attention to the screen, and often while the screen is closed.
Please let me know what you think. What do you think is the cause?