Thinkpads Forum

Hey gang.

The A31p in my signature quite literally died in its sleep a few nights go, and after checking it over, I am fairly certain something on the motherboard gave out.

I know I would probably have better luck replacing the unit with one of my other computers, but I have two hang ups in that regard. First, I have an old laser printer that works fine on Windows XP, but has no driver support for new Windows operating systems, and so the A31p handled all the printing for me, as it remains my only XP machine. The way I see it, it's cheaper to service the computer than to replace the printer. Second, and perhaps more importantly, it's the first laptop I ever reassembled for myself from remains of other tired units. I have a sentimental attachment to this particular computer, and I want to keep it around.

So here I am writing this post, and kinda putting feelers out for what is available out in the community. I'm open to offers, trades, whatever. Just let me know here or shoot me a PM, and maybe I can get my computer pressed back in service again.

Nycto wrote:

The A31p in my signature quite literally died in its sleep a few nights go, and after checking it over, I am fairly certain something on the motherboard gave out.

Unfortunately, I believe that you're correct. That's why they should never be allowed to go to sleep to begin with. Seriously.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, it's the first laptop I ever reassembled for myself from remains of other tired units. I have a sentimental attachment to this particular computer, and I want to keep it around.

Didn't you get an A31p from me while I was still active on feebay?

So here I am writing this post, and kinda putting feelers out for what is available out in the community. I'm open to offers, trades, whatever. Just let me know here or shoot me a PM, and maybe I can get my computer pressed back in service again.

A *known good* board for these machines is next to impossible to find these days, so it's the matter of buying an entire unit in order to get to the board.

I bought a lot of 8 machines, tested 7 so far and came out with one good board at this point. If the eighth one turns out to be a properly working example, I'll PM you.

Happy hunting.

Thanks for the response.

That the machine was asleep to begin with was weird to begin with. Both my tower and the A31p I leave set to turn off only the monitors to preserve the screens, and so seeing it asleep was not expected. The A31p stays on both because I print through it, and because I seem to recall some here...maybe it was you...saying that turning them off and on was bad for the system.

I probably did get one from you. I've bought a few online through eBay. Typically I scrounge around for broken machines going cheap, but I have purchased one or two complete units in the past.

If you do come up with anything, I would indeed appreciate the PM.

These use discrete third party graphics accelerators from ATI. It sounds like they tend to cook themselves? Has anyone tried solder reflow on these? After I finish an ambitious 760XD project I might start on the A31p in 2013. If there's a cache of motherboards somewhere I'd like to try and see if any of them will work after a reflow. I've had success doing this with other brands, even on a PS3.

ajkula66 wrote:A *known good* board for these machines is next to impossible to find these days, so it's the matter of buying an entire unit in order to get to the board.

I bought a lot of 8 machines, tested 7 so far and came out with one good board at this point. If the eighth one turns out to be a properly working example, I'll PM you.

Are we approaching what truly seems to be the end of the A31p life cycle? 1 out of 7 is not promising...

Speaking of which - what are the flaws you found with the boards? I know that GPU issues are pretty common, but what are the others?

dr_st wrote: Are we approaching what truly seems to be the end of the A31p life cycle? 1 out of 7 is not promising...

Speaking of which - what are the flaws you found with the boards? I know that GPU issues are pretty common, but what are the others?

Some were outright dead, some had charging problems - but the machine # 8 turned out to be good and OP was already given a quote on it... ...or its planar...his call.

I believe that there are many A31p units still working in homes of people who see no reason to upgrade as long as they're running XP...especially older folk...we'll see...

Hello,

while looking for spare parts myself, as one of 4 working ones died (?) some days ago...

I do have quite a lot of spare parts, as 3 of 4 I rebuilt myself for my family.

I do have displays, that need replacing the backlight. That is possible, but You need to have perfect eyes and relatively fine fingers (or tools) to manage. I do believe that this should be all, that would be neccessary to revíve them.

I do have some boards, of which I know that they refuse to work following my mistakenly separating the boards and their securitychip. If You have a chance to find someone who is able to rewrite the chips (using the info given by the board sticker), it should be possible to revive them.

sincerely