Also still alive, albeit due to numerous various health issues had to put down thinkpadding for a bit. You're not the only one, old boy...great to hear that you're on the mend.... :thumbs-UP: I'm still nursing two ThinkPads I have left, and wondering which path to take when they decide to drop dead...

For the sake of fairness, let's not forget how old these things are either...

As per the tests I conducted I am still little concerned if my motherboard is gone bad ? I doubt it. The 6205 in my T520 has been misbehaving for the past few months so I just threw in a USB wireless mini-stick. Still on stock BIOS and W7. These cards were nothing to write about when they were new ...

Nice work... :thumbs-UP: It's been a long time since I've last owned an X30* series machine, but remember having very mixed feelings about them at the time. The LCDs were dreadful. The 1.8" drives were a compromise I wasn't too happy about. The form factor was perfect for a "on the go" system at the...

How much is a tariff price on a PC from Europe or Asia? Can be a PC case or complete tower. Case/PC price around $200 for example. I put a hold on buying anything outside of the US as the tariffs are costing more for the item. You will also find out that many companies as well as private sellers re...

Try removing the LAN card and see what happens.

It doesn't sound like a BoD to me, but can very well be some other kind of planar problem nevertheless.

Good luck.

What's the battery condition ?

theterminator93 wrote: ↑

Thu Sep 11, 2025 1:56 pm

Another justification for me having abandoned them for good after they hoisted me over a barrel 5 years ago. My wallet is fatter and my shelves are less cluttered.

Amen.

Many thanks for all the input, gentlemen...

Off to find out what I can possibly locate around here somewhere....

Yes, I know this sounds outlandish at best but... Is anyone making a high-end monitor that is CCFL backlit nowadays ? There used to be some *really* nice ones - EIZO I believe - which were aimed at photographers and quite expensive once. LED panels had already become mainstream at the time that I'm ...

Nycto wrote: ↑

Fri Aug 29, 2025 10:15 pm

The vertical lines in the display would make me lean toward a GPU failure.

+ 1 right here...

Thank you gentlemen! :thumbs-UP: I'll be setting a system for a friend of mine who has limited computer knowledge and is not willing to give up on W7 - heck, neither am I for that fact - while also being on a fairly limited budget. I found a near mint W540 in the local ads that I'll likely stop by t...

Skylake was the last officially supported by Lenovo, so P70, P50, T470, T25… I was able to make W7 work on P71 (Kaby Lake) but lack of DX12 and TB3 support undermined my interest in casual rendering, so to this day it’s ran 10. Some folks have made W7 work on T480 and other newer chipsets but ymmv....

I'm certain that there's an answer to this question somewhere on the forum, but it's late and I'm kinda lazy right now...

Which was the last generation of ThinkPads that shipped with Windows 7 as a factory option/pre-load ?

Will elaborate later...

Many a thanks in advance.

Thank you so much for your time, any feedback would be greatly appreciated! :) Welcome to the forum! A couple of things here... a) The youngest T4x will turn 20 years old this year. At this point in the game any of them can drop dead without a warning at any time. b) These are hot-running systems, ...

axur-delmeria wrote: ↑

Sun Apr 20, 2025 5:39 am

My go-to approach with this is to boot with another OS, usually Linux. If it works there, then it's a Windows driver issue. If it doesn't, it's probably a hardware problem.

This.

Good luck.

Whoa - I wasn't trying to pick an argument, I was just asking out of curiosity. I wasn't intending to insult your experience or anything of that sort. All is well. Sometimes stuff written on the Internet doesn't translate to writer's intended thoughts. Quilty of that myself in many cases. In any ca...

TPFanatic wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 18, 2025 11:42 am

You could also put a T43p lid on a regular T43 so it identifies as a T43p. This is legal by the first amendment in the United States, for it to self-determine itself. This is not legal advice.

What makes the A31 any different from the dozens of other laptops affected by the lead-free solder plague that can be made reliable via BGA reballing? The fact that it doesn't hold on them. Proven by experience with several different high-qualified individuals both in the U.S. and the UK reballing ...

These LCDs were discontinued almost two decades ago. The chances of finding a NOS one are incredibly slim, and most of the used ones are likely on their last leg.

Try posting a WTB (want to buy) ad in the forum's Marketplace. Maybe a fellow member has a decent one sitting somewhere...

Good luck.

I also think the GPU was on the bottom of the board on that laptop? Correct. I I'd imagine that the wear on the VRM, fan, and other hardware from keeping a "couple times a month" laptop running 24/7 is going to be more harmful to it than the heat cycling would. That might have made more sense if it...

As the A31 failures were caused by defective lead-free solder that cracked easily, a reballed A31 should actually be decently reliable. It's a bit more complicated than that. GPU has no active cooling in the A3x systems, just the "sponges" that dry out over time. Once reballed, the machine should b...

The unfortunate truth is that most TrackPoint buffs are dinosaurs. Myself included, of course. If I had a $ for every time I had to answer questions about the little red button to my younger and genuinely curious friends, I'd likely be able to afford a new ThinkPad myself... :lol: Not that I would w...

You'll also need the LCD cable upgrade if going from XGA to SXGA+. Personally, I wouldn't bother. These screens were crap when they were new and I can't see them improving with age. V3200 will run hot in a small 14" frame, especially if paired with a faster CPU. 15" is a different - more tolerable a...

I would strongly suggest installing a known working hard drive before attempting any further diagnostics.

There were several occasions in the past where I ran across ThinkPads that wouldn't boot from the CD without the HDD installed, for seemingly no rhyme or reason.

Goodluck and keep us posted.

fegabi wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 10, 2025 5:27 pm

Hi. I know it’s a long shot 2 years later, but have you still got this board?

Thanks

14 years later my friend... ...long since gone.

Good luck finding one.

No IBM laptop at the time used AMD processors. None.

Vista and above are painfully slow on A31 due to an outdated graphics chip. W2K and XP are the realm of these machines.

Have fun.

Now back in November 2017, when we first got this dining room table, we paid a great deal more than fair market price for the table because it is made in America by God-fearing folk, etc. The lady told us who worked on it, that the wood came from Pennsylvania, but it was painted here, etc. Just to ...

TPFanatic wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 16, 2024 11:51 pm

i am literally installing windows XP on a laptop as we speak, and I will pay $200 for a Windows license, before I deal with linux.

You, good sir, made my day. Thank you.

Welcome to the forum!

I'm not aware of a modded BIOS for R32. The machines of this generation used the so-called "no 1802" hack. You can check thinkwiki for more about it.

From memory, R32 had problems accepting it but it's been so long ago I'm not certain...

Good luck.