what's the rundown on which chips fail/desolder on the t4x laptops?

[astral]

since i've got a couple i should probably know this. especially since my t40 looks to be about to phone it in - random lockups where the display goes blank.

i'm aware of the common faults here - thermal issues and bad solder quality. i've heard all sorts of things on which things end up cracking the solder though. southbridge, ati gpu, what else?

does the northbridge come undone too?

what should i try to reflow on these....

funny how people say that ibm era thinkpads are the pinnacle of reliable laptops, yet all the 2000s ibms have some issue or another.
atmel on the t2x, ram slots on the t30, main chips on the t4x...
i've managed to run into all of them too...lol. Never lost a 2000s latitude to one of these things, just saying!

[TPFanatic]

The IBM favoritism is funny. I read some people even believe the IBM badge on select *60/*61 series means something. The truth is Lenovo has been excellent.

I believe by the time of T43/R52 the solder issue was improved, but they still burn out their Southbridges. You can try putting a heatsink on the Southbridge, might prolong it. I would do that on my A31p's FireGL, if I cared...

[dr_st]

Some people always seem to think, at any given point in time, that whatever was 5 years ago was the pinnacle of everything.

Every manufacturer has had their own share of problems and faults, often unique.

[kfzhu1229]

funny how people say that ibm era thinkpads are the pinnacle of reliable laptops, yet all the 2000s ibms have some issue or another.
atmel on the t2x, ram slots on the t30, main chips on the t4x...
i've managed to run into all of them too...lol. Never lost a 2000s latitude to one of these things, just saying!

On the T4x the T40-42's have uncooled graphics chip (except for the rare Radeon 9600 version) that eventually crack their 1st gen lead free solder joints, on T43 the southbridge overheats too much and desolder itself as the front of these T4x's have no metal chassis protection and can bend easily. The HP Compaq nc6120/nx6110 and nc6220/nc6230 have the same faults as T43 since both nc6220/nc6230 and T43 have very similarly thin construction.
14.1" T4x can actually develop hinge failures as well, specifically always at the left hinge.
Some Latitudes have their own faults too where the D600/D800 are pretty prone to hinge failure as on the D600 the hinge is way too small and when it seizes it will disintegrate catestrophically (almost always the right one first). But these D600/D610/D800/D810 motherboards almost never go bad despite basically identical specs to the ThinkPads thanks to a thicker chassis with more thorough magnesium cage and cooling for both the northbridge and GPU.
D620/D630/D820/D830 have rock solid chassis but dGPU versions fail just like the T61 ones, iGPU ones are rocks in reliability.

[astral]

yeah i'm not about to be eliteist towards any brand. i'll yell at dell for using that terrible 3 prong charge port on the c series, i'll yell at hp for their repulsive designs from the time, i'll yell at ibm for not putting cooling on the t30 and t40 gpus, and so on.

i'll also praise ibm for making the most solid no-nonsense designs, dell for general reliability in most cases (and putting a better keyboard on the c8xx/8xxx laptops than most thinkpads ive used), and hp for... well that's tough. i don't have much experience with hp laptops from the day. i'm sure they did well somewhere. from the looks i'll bet those ugly pavilions have pretty nice speakers, there.

in any case it's good to know that ibm sorted out most of the gpu issues by the t43, ive got one in the mail.
from what i know though, the wifi nic is right over the southbridge, so how would one put a heat sync on it? def something i would like to do, don't want that 43 dying.

another thing, one of my parts t40s came with an extended heatsink that looks like it might fit over the gpu, only the board it was attached to was an igpu model... would that work and possibly prolong the life of my dying t40?

also how's that latitude cp treating you? ive had a few but they keep falling apart. garbage plastic quality.

[TPFanatic]

Been a long time since I was inside a T4x so consider me now informed about the WLAN. My first ThinkPad surgery, ever, was a planar replacement on a T42p.

Could go without the internal WLAN and use a Cardbus, USB, or Ethernet 802.11 adapter; or just use wired, if networking at all.

[astral]

I think I remember seeing somewhere where someone just shoved a piece of metal in there that was bent in a way that it could dissipate to the cardbus slots. i think that was this model and the southbridge.
if i can find that again then that's what i'll be doing.

[astral]

https://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/How_to_b ... dge_cooler

this one.
should probably do this to improve the life span of this guy.

i could also try an undervolt.

[kfzhu1229]

yeah i'm not about to be eliteist towards any brand. i'll yell at dell for using that terrible 3 prong charge port on the c series, i'll yell at hp for their repulsive designs from the time, i'll yell at ibm for not putting cooling on the t30 and t40 gpus, and so on.

That is the stance I am having currently, I stopped having loyalty on just ThinkPads a few years ago and right now I am fairly comfortable working on many HP, Dell, ThinkPad and Acer models.
Good luck with HP/Compaq charging ports of that time though - they come in all sorts of connectors.
Yeah IBM deserved to be criticised for not consider GPU cooling whatsoever until the T43 and T4xp. ThinkPad A30/A31 series are also plagued by GPU failures where Dell thought of their GPU cooling thoroughly on those Latitudes. I stacked some copper shims on top of the GPU for my ThinkPad A30p so that it would make contact with the cooler and cool the chip. Battery on the A30/A31 are also tiny 6 cell batteries whereas the Dells have a much more reasonable 8 cell providing decent runtime on a workstation.

i'll also praise ibm for making the most solid no-nonsense designs, dell for general reliability in most cases (and putting a better keyboard on the c8xx/8xxx laptops than most thinkpads ive used), and hp for... well that's tough. i don't have much experience with hp laptops from the day. i'm sure they did well somewhere. from the looks i'll bet those ugly pavilions have pretty nice speakers, there.

Kinda getting off topic, but Latitude CPx and C800/C810 series have mechanical keyboard switches made out of metal arms. They are loud but very satisfying to use. Both the earlier CP/CPi and the later C840 use fairly generic dome keyboards that are nothing special - ThinkPad keyboards will beat those any day.
HP Compaqs were right up there with ThinkPads in terms of elegance. The Compaq nc6220/nc6230 is basically in every dimension identical to the 14.1" ThinkPad T43 which was crazy thin back then (and share the same faults). The later Compaq nc6400 and 6910p are like 14.1" widescreen ThinkPad T61 but simply better designed - similar thickness (although boxier), even (and overall smaller) left and right LCD bezels, and still has room for internal 6 cell battery while the widescreen T61 does not.

in any case it's good to know that ibm sorted out most of the gpu issues by the t43, ive got one in the mail.
from what i know though, the wifi nic is right over the southbridge, so how would one put a heat sync on it? def something i would like to do, don't want that 43 dying.

I bought some DIY flattened heatpipe and thin copper shims from China, bend the heatpipe to shape, thermal epoxied it to the copper shim, then wedge the cooling under the mPCI card while the other end goes onto the PCMCIA cage. I think I posted pictures of that years ago somewhere on this forum. That clearly worked as it made my NOS ThinkPad T43p motherboard's southbridge outlasting the GPU which desoldered itself instead (and when the mobo was working, the left palmrest plate was clearly getting very noticibly hot)

another thing, one of my parts t40s came with an extended heatsink that looks like it might fit over the gpu, only the board it was attached to was an igpu model... would that work and possibly prolong the life of my dying t40?
also how's that latitude cp treating you? ive had a few but they keep falling apart. garbage plastic quality.

Fairly certain the iGPU heatsinks for these are no good for that purpose but I haven't tried that.
Yes Latitude CP really had bad plastics. Both the earlier XP/XPi family and the later CPx family have way better plastics than CP/CPi. I have bought NOS palmrest + bottom chassis replacement from parts-people now sitting on my shelf for one day when it falls apart outright I will just rebuild it completely. It's not until the millennium with the ThinkPad T/A series (slightly less well built than ThinkPad 600/E/X) and Latitude C6xx/C8xx series (significantly better built than Latitude CPx) that they are more or less in level playing field as competitors.

[astral]

nos latitude cp/cpi parts are going to be just as bad as the originals really. plastics so bad that i shattered an hdd caddy just trying to pull it out. also make sure you remove the varta clock battery from in there too. the speakers also blow out very easily, on the 8100s too.
cpi keyboards are actually quite decent, if no keys break off that is. very easy to do so.
latitude csx subnotebook plastics are just as bad, but at least they use magnesium in some parts no no hinge failures.

so the xpi systems are ok? still dont have one. they used a different pinned 3 prong plug on those too, ugh. that and the lat. LM did that, maybe others. does the lx do that too?

nice to hear the cpx has the nice keyboard too. have yet to get one of those but i'd like to.

that varta warning goes for all the dells up until the d series too. xpi, cpi, cpx, cs/x, c810, c610, c400, ls, d600 even. basically any c series, earlier, and the d600, wasn't until the d610 thereabouts that they ditched them for lithium.
gonna be a lot of dead dells in a few years time.


on the topic of hp laptops, the hp compaq business systems look good, ive got one and they're nice. core 2 widescreen.
it's the pavilions and presarios from the time that i can't stand the look of. so goofy.

and for the t43, i just hope it lasts long enough that by the time it dies i can just bga reball it and be done. that should solve all problems with bad solder.
gonna be a while though before i can do that, can't even manage to swap the adp3421 on my t21 properly right now. that or the 3410 and maxim chips are bad too. no idea.

[kfzhu1229]

so the xpi systems are ok? still dont have one. they used a different pinned 3 prong plug on those too, ugh. that and the lat. LM did that, maybe others. does the lx do that too?

My XPi P75d is in perfect working order, the only plastic related issue is one broken screw thread and that's kinda it. hinges are plenty durable after I lubricated it. The different charger is annoying though. I have rebuilt the CMOS battery on that thing so it now keeps CMOS information for about 3 months and can now hold RAM contents in sleep mode after unplugging the charger.

that varta warning goes for all the dells up until the d series too. xpi, cpi, cpx, cs/x, c810, c610, c400, ls, d600 even. basically any c series, earlier, and the d600, wasn't until the d610 thereabouts that they ditched them for lithium.
gonna be a lot of dead dells in a few years time.

well aware of that. up to the D400/D600/D800. I check for these on every machine that I buy, some still work perfectly fine though. D600 and D800 have the varta stored far and wide away from the motherboard, at that little compartment in the battery bay so that shouldnt' do much damage. The C610 and C640 are the most evil ones and have it right on top of the motherboard!
I have rebuilt the Varta on my C840 also, these are under the palmrest and separated from the motherboard too.

on the topic of hp laptops, the hp compaq business systems look good, ive got one and they're nice. core 2 widescreen.
it's the pavilions and presarios from the time that i can't stand the look of. so goofy.

Work on a Pavilion dv6000 or dv9000 and you'll know what is the pain of dealing with low quality badly designed components for everything. Everything from bad cooling design to stupid screen side hinge design to the ultra fragile ribbon cables that aren't even ZIF to the fans that somehow always desperately need lubrication to the fact that you CANNOT turn on the laptop without the lid sensor attached - which adds wear to the fragile ribbon cable when you overhaul and test it.
Both the earlier Pavilion dv5000 and the later Pavilion dv5 are far and wide better in quality. The fact that dv5 looks similar but is so much nicer built is probably due to HP splitting the dv6000 line into dv5/dv6 and then the budget G6x series each with a different focus in design

and for the t43, i just hope it lasts long enough that by the time it dies i can just bga reball it and be done. that should solve all problems with bad solder.
gonna be a while though before i can do that, can't even manage to swap the adp3421 on my t21 properly right now. that or the 3410 and maxim chips are bad too. no idea.

My experience with that on my dead A21m motherboard is that it's a rabbit hole. Flawed chips (more than one) + aging capacitors make it very difficult to concretely point out what exactly is the problem, on mine I think both the ADP3421 and the maxim chip are dying as before it truly died the machine was kinda spontaneously freezing and also the (known 100% good) hard drive start clicking as a result of unstable 5V rail.

[astral]

yeah i think for the t21 ill just have to do a full electolytic recap and then replace all 3 of those regulator chips if i want one reliable.
issue is will i do all that and then will the new chips die in a few years?

and then there's the issue with the a22p which probably is affected too... don't want to lose that one!

the c610 placement is evil indeed. mine's safe though. i should probably stock some spare motherboards even while i can still find them in case my board dies.
the c640 had a different placement for me, over the metal shield instead of in that one pocket over the main board. should shield it a bit at least.

in other news while testing t40 parts i found an mlc cap lying on my desk... traced it back and found it was in the cpu vrm. the system still works, but nevertheless it's time to warm up the soldering iron...

also test fit that extended heatsync and it fits the dgpu t40. i'll bet the fan in the igpu t40's gpu must have died at some point and then they replaced it with that one. must have been for the 9000 varient you spoke of?

with any luck resoldering that ceramic cap and using that heatsink will extend the t40's life a bit. not sure exactly what's behind the crashing though. it's not the hdd as it does it in bios sometimes.

and yes the inspiron 8xxx and latitude c8xx series do have it in the palmrest but eventually the corrosion is going to mess up the trackpad in there. wait 5 years and i'll bet ebay will be littered with dead trackpad units that otherwise work

also fun fact: the d610 still has the cmos batt slot that the d600 had, but there's a tiny pcb behind the cover instead. i think it's the bluetooth board.

[kfzhu1229]

yeah i think for the t21 ill just have to do a full electolytic recap and then replace all 3 of those regulator chips if i want one reliable.
issue is will i do all that and then will the new chips die in a few years?

and then there's the issue with the a22p which probably is affected too... don't want to lose that one!

I suppose there is one way to help with the lifespan of these and you are probably not gonna like it - use slower Pentium III CPU's. A slower 500 or 600Mhz Pentium III Coppermine CPU should generate way less heat and way less power draw and should help with the strain on the unreliable motherboards!

also test fit that extended heatsync and it fits the dgpu t40. i'll bet the fan in the igpu t40's gpu must have died at some point and then they replaced it with that one. must have been for the 9000 varient you spoke of?

Very certain the 9000 variant of T4x also has naked GPU with no cooling. only the 9600 and the FireGL versions have cooling.

and yes the inspiron 8xxx and latitude c8xx series do have it in the palmrest but eventually the corrosion is going to mess up the trackpad in there. wait 5 years and i'll bet ebay will be littered with dead trackpad units that otherwise work
also fun fact: the d610 still has the cmos batt slot that the d600 had, but there's a tiny pcb behind the cover instead. i think it's the bluetooth board.

The compartment door for D610 there is indeed for bluetooth. I know because I added one. D600 has a proprietary bluetooth module only accessed after palmrest removal that is incompatible with the rest of the D series family.
Otherwise these Dells don't have bluetooth whitelists either - pop in a Dell Bluetooth 355/360 module on a Latitude D610 or even my rare Inspiron 9100 and it works just fine. You need the right cable though as if some of your models don't come with the cable, the cable pinout at the motherboard end can be very different between models even though connector is the same (the other end pinout is always identical of course).
Also fun fact for you: Latitude D600 lid is made out of aluminium with a plastic frame inside (and hence dings very easily and has weak wifi signal since wifi antennae are on bottom chassis), D610 has a magnesium lid with much stronger paint and a plastic bar on top for antennae.

[astral]

Yeah you’re right, I don’t much like that idea

what are your thoughts of the 9100? I’ve got one too and mainly use it for music stuff. any bit unreliable? I’ve heard people say that VRMs and such are a bit underpowered on a lot of P4 laptops. Mine isn’t too hi-spec though so the load might not be as heavy.
I want to know who came up with the idea for a subwoofer battery. There’s nothing wrong with putting it there but why thinks of that??

I think I’ll always prefer the D610 over the 600, just more refined from the sound of things. also not a big fan of the goofy black trackpad clickers. they just seem out of place on the d-series design. is there any benefit to them over the D610 at all?

[kfzhu1229]

Yeah you’re right, I don’t much like that idea

Yeah it is like on those ThinkPad A2x/T2x, having the high clocked 900 or 1Ghz coppermine PIII will result in the system running very very hot and most probably wear out the mobo a lot quicker. Similar is true with sticking 2.4 2.5 or 2.6Ghz Pentium 4-M on ThinkPad A31p. I currently have a rare 2.5Ghz P4-M on my Latitude C840 which seems to handle it perfectly fine.

what are your thoughts of the 9100? I’ve got one too and mainly use it for music stuff. any bit unreliable? I’ve heard people say that VRMs and such are a bit underpowered on a lot of P4 laptops. Mine isn’t too hi-spec though so the load might not be as heavy.
I want to know who came up with the idea for a subwoofer battery. There’s nothing wrong with putting it there but why thinks of that??

I think I’ll always prefer the D610 over the 600, just more refined from the sound of things. also not a big fan of the goofy black trackpad clickers. they just seem out of place on the d-series design. is there any benefit to them over the D610 at all?

Off topic again, but I had both an Inspiron 9100 and its XPS counterpart with a Gallatin Pentium 4 extreme edition CPU. They are absolute beasts for sure and cooling is actually very well thought out. None of them had motherboard problems specifically but the Inspiron 9100 of mine did have the graphics card with one faulty memory chip with a stuck bit. Look out for graphics cards on those since their GPU dies are inexplicably cooled by thermal pads! Also, while the hinges themselves will probably never go bad on these, the LCD bezel may start to crack (or the bottom chassis too) if the hinges are way too stiff - lubricate the hinges. Also these don't have varta - these have lithium ion rechargable coin cells.
I agree that D610 is the better laptop vs D600 and indeed has fixed numerous design shortcomings, but that's also with a focus of reliability. If less so on reliability then the ThinkPad T43 and Compaq nc6220/nc6230 are simply much sleeker machines. D610's problem is defective rubber formula used on the LCD bezel rubber feet where it's guaranteed they will go hard and crumble! D600/D800 has no such problem.
Also D600 is a much more suitable laptop for windows 98 than D610.

[astral]

my 9100s hinges are all good and not stiff, so that's no-prob thankfully.
i still really need to tear it down and redo the thermals though. i've gone as far as cleaning the fans but i should really do a full tear-apart just to replace the thermal paste and see if i can mod the gpu cooling to use paste as well, if the pads used were thin enough. i'm not gonna game on it until i've checked that out. fans dont go nuts on it though so it's likely not getting too too hot. i'm just procrastinating the tear down.

as for the d610, the bumpers on mine are indeed shot as expected. seems mighty tough for some companies to come up with good rubber formula in all sorts of parts...
also, i won't lie and say that the t43 isn't a very sleek little system, but i do really like the d610 design. may not be as sleek but it's just as cool looking in my view.
from sticky coatings on thinkpads to melting vaio feet to the d610 bumpers.
my d610's a little rough and in need of some upgrades but it is a runner none the less.
so the d600 is only worth grabbing for win98 support? i think i'd be better off with a c series or just a period system for that them. 8100 should do nicely i'd imagine.
i typically dual-boot my thinkpads too with xp and 98 where applicable.

how's reliability on the t23? i've wanted to get one but am yet to find one. ideally an sxga+ equipped one would be nice but god knows how hard to find that would be.
i do know that there's some issue with those where an inductor can be knocked off, or come off, and cause problems. what about the good old pmu chips though? same atmel garbage that kills the earlier ones? im under the impression though that the t23's motherboard is quite different from the t20/21/22s though. the earlier three seem to be all but interchangeable in most cases while the 23 differs some.

this message sent from the good ol' t30 that refuses to die

[RealBlackStuff]

Over the years I bought and sold nearly 40 T23 machines.
More than half of them I got cheap because the inductor(s) needed to be resoldered.
Many had faulty lid-sliders and/or broken palmrest.
On some I removed the rubber paint from the lid, because it had gotten sticky.
But overall they were quite reliable.
Stick a Samsung HM160HC (5400rpm 160GB IDE) drive in them and they will last forever and a day.
The very last T23 I only sold last year, because I no longer need it to remove passwords.

Also had a few T20 and T22 machines, but I never liked those.
I would suggest to stay away from them.

[ajkula66]

how's reliability on the t23? i've wanted to get one but am yet to find one. ideally an sxga+ equipped one would be nice but god knows how hard to find that would be.

Well, the newest T23 is over two decades old at this point so...I'd look at them as a ticking time bombs, one and all. With that being said, the ones with SXGA+ panels and integrated wireless were a force to be reckoned with back in the day. Ran XP flawlessly with 1GB RAM. Definitely more reliable than the previous T2x and A2x units in my experience, though.

this message sent from the good ol' t30 that refuses to die

Good...I loved those boxy things...ah, to be young again...

[astral]

t30 is a super nice model, love mine. good as well to hear that the t23s are a bit better than the earlier t2x models as well, i'd just like one nice P3 thinkpad that i can rely on not to die

[TPFanatic]

I am fortunate to have received a free T30. It has one bad RAM slot, works great otherwise. Such a great classic machine, like A31 but smaller.

[kfzhu1229]

my 9100s hinges are all good and not stiff, so that's no-prob thankfully.
i still really need to tear it down and redo the thermals though. i've gone as far as cleaning the fans but i should really do a full tear-apart just to replace the thermal paste and see if i can mod the gpu cooling to use paste as well, if the pads used were thin enough. i'm not gonna game on it until i've checked that out. fans dont go nuts on it though so it's likely not getting too too hot. i'm just procrastinating the tear down.

Well if you want to do that, there are service manuals for Inspiron 9100/XPS Gen1 and also I had like a youtube video detailing what I did when I thoroughly overhauled my Inspiron 9100. It will not be an easy task since there are three heatsinks and three fans. I would still regardless recommend you lubricate the hinges, which is done easily after you remove the power button cover and then drip 1-2 drops of oil in the opening of the 2 hinges.
Also, I hope you have the right charger. Inspiron 9100/XPS Gen1 requires minimum 150W charger to function correctly. (and I use mine with 180W chargers and up as the 150W charger will get stressed quite bad too) Fortunately, a modern Dell G7 (and many alienware models) charger will work just fine despite 15 years newer.

as for the d610, the bumpers on mine are indeed shot as expected. seems mighty tough for some companies to come up with good rubber formula in all sorts of parts...
also, i won't lie and say that the t43 isn't a very sleek little system, but i do really like the d610 design. may not be as sleek but it's just as cool looking in my view.
from sticky coatings on thinkpads to melting vaio feet to the d610 bumpers.
my d610's a little rough and in need of some upgrades but it is a runner none the less.
so the d600 is only worth grabbing for win98 support? i think i'd be better off with a c series or just a period system for that them. 8100 should do nicely i'd imagine.
i typically dual-boot my thinkpads too with xp and 98 where applicable.

That defective rubber formula affects the D610 as well as the Inspiron 6000 6400 1420 1520 1521 etc (but not the Vostros with black rubber), at least it's not like Inspiron 1420/1520/1521 where the coloured lid's rubber also go bad and they go bad with 100% rate.
D610 is more like a practical design and hence gives very high reliability and handles the hot Pentium M 760/770/780 chips with ease. But honestly D620/D630 imo are designed better in every single aspect with a full magnesium exterior and a palmrest with super durable paint job that will never be wearing out (my abused D610's palmrest is faded).
I say D600 is some of the most cost effective 14 inch portable laptop that you can just slap Windows 98 onto. Takes some tinkering to get it fully working, but it costs way less than the older C series, comes with Radeon 9000 every time as opposed to the common Radeon 7500 on the T4x, and of course the GPU is rock solid in reliability, while not monster feeling like the D800/D810. D600/D800 is also fairly easy to FSB overclock so I run mine with a Pentium M 725 overclocked to 2.13Ghz which results in very zippy Windows 98 experience.

how's reliability on the t23? i've wanted to get one but am yet to find one. ideally an sxga+ equipped one would be nice but god knows how hard to find that would be.
i do know that there's some issue with those where an inductor can be knocked off, or come off, and cause problems. what about the good old pmu chips though? same atmel garbage that kills the earlier ones? im under the impression though that the t23's motherboard is quite different from the t20/21/22s though. the earlier three seem to be all but interchangeable in most cases while the 23 differs some.

I had saved a ThinkPad T23 in great physical condition from landfill from school, mine's sitting inside a drawer inside an interior room inside the school for years so the rubber is perfectly intact. That thing works perfectly fine and its reliability is pretty good in my experience but I am fairly annoyed at the brittle plastic bezels of these things and also the hinge that likes to randomly loosen/seize itself. I modded it with an antenna from a broken T43 lid to support wifi. Also, don't expect to do 3D games in Windows 98 well with the S3 graphics - that is a job where the Radeon 7000 inside the Latitude C610 or the ThinkPad A30 really shines. Much better than the T22 that came with it - with a Pentium III coppermine 900Mhz that thing runs near 90C! Run dos games on these S3 graphics? either stick without resolution scaling and a small window or have it stretch out without hardware scaler and have fonts look like dogcrap (or hook to an external VGA monitor).
Also, the Samsung LCD panel that came with these XGA versions of T2x (and 14.1" A30/A31) are absolutely dreadful. Viewing angles are significantly narrower than even typical TN matte panels on T4x, and colours are extra washed out, and they are very prone to yellowing and/or lines on screen.
Again, all said though, T23 is perfectly reliable unlike the earlier T2x, and also comes with 2 USB ports as opposed to just one on the T20-T22 which can come in handy.

[astral]

running a 150w ac adapter now on my 9100. it's been fine as long as ive had it, if i run into any issues though it is nice to know the newer ones work ok.

funny as well that you mention the samsung screens in the t2x laptops. the LCD in my t21 looks excellent in my opinion. mine's not yellowed yet so that's probably part of it, and yeah viewing angles aren't great. but head on mine at least looks very nice.
finally got a working one of those too as of today, adp3421 swapped out properly this time and it's a runner. rubber isn't in excellent shape but could be far worse too.
definitely not planning to game on an s3 chip in any of these though.

[kfzhu1229]

running a 150w ac adapter now on my 9100. it's been fine as long as ive had it, if i run into any issues though it is nice to know the newer ones work ok.

funny as well that you mention the samsung screens in the t2x laptops. the LCD in my t21 looks excellent in my opinion. mine's not yellowed yet so that's probably part of it, and yeah viewing angles aren't great. but head on mine at least looks very nice.
finally got a working one of those too as of today, adp3421 swapped out properly this time and it's a runner. rubber isn't in excellent shape but could be far worse too.
definitely not planning to game on an s3 chip in any of these though.

Yeah just wanted to make sure you have the right charger as even if the battery holds charge (which surprisingly it does on my Inspiron XPS Gen1), the battery will NOT even attempt to charge if you use a 130W charger!
Oh and one more thing. If your lid is heavily scratched, one workaround is getting yourself one of those clamp on covers that Dell had officially made for these, cross-compatible with inspiron 8500, 8600, 9100 and XPS Gen1, and they are fairly cheap.
My T23 actually came with said Samsung screen in great working order except like two deep scratches, same goes for one spare T2x lid assembly's LCD that I fitted on the T22 (That T22 originally came with heavily yellowed Samsung panel and totally destroyed rubber lid). Viewing angles are extremely narrow even by TN standards and the blue hue on those unyellowed panels are very strong that it gives me eye strain very quickly.
I swapped that IC before - in the form of a dead ADP3420 chip on a (relatively uncommon) Pentium III 750Mhz MMC-2 CPU card where I diagnosed that the chip is shorted. That was before I even had the expertise in microsoldering that I have today and somehow I was able to fit the replacement on with just a crap dollar store soldering iron with thick tip and the CPU works perfectly and I end up selling the CPU standalone for a good price.

[astral]

my battery did work at one point but eventually it died, can always get it rebuilt in the future if need be.

thats a crazy repair you did there! can’t imagine managing to swap that chip out with a regular iron, I used hot air and a good amount of flux. would that count as micro soldering though? it is pretty small, but when I think micro soldering, I usually think of replacing the battery connector on an iPhone main board or something like that.

[kfzhu1229]

my battery did work at one point but eventually it died, can always get it rebuilt in the future if need be.

thats a crazy repair you did there! can’t imagine managing to swap that chip out with a regular iron, I used hot air and a good amount of flux. would that count as micro soldering though? it is pretty small, but when I think micro soldering, I usually think of replacing the battery connector on an iPhone main board or something like that.

Well sadly you are most probably never going to be able to rebuild something like that battery - I tried and the shell is just so strongly glued together that you will never get it apart in decent enough condition to not ruin the subwoofer's sound chamber.
Of course to get the chip out I needed hot air to do that, but since my hot air gun is a crappy one I couldn't rely on just that to get the chip in. I end up reflowing the legs like 3 times each before the CPU finally decided to work. If I were to do that now though my soldering iron is much better I could've done that in just one time.
I consider micro soldering as soldering components that typically require hot air to do the job in its intended way

[astral]

shame on the 9100 battery cases in that case. not going to risk that subwoofer for battery life.

t43 came in today. works fine, for now, but man does that southbridge area get scalding. no wonder they fail.
gonna have to look into that cooling mod stat.
new thermal paste is already over the cpu. may replace the gpu thermal pad as well with paste but it didn't seem to be getting too hot so i may just leave that be.

[axur-delmeria]

IIRC the southbridge heat issue is exacerbated by the WiFi card sitting right on top of it.

[kfzhu1229]

t43 came in today. works fine, for now, but man does that southbridge area get scalding. no wonder they fail.
gonna have to look into that cooling mod stat.
new thermal paste is already over the cpu. may replace the gpu thermal pad as well with paste but it didn't seem to be getting too hot so i may just leave that be.

Yeah I used to daily drive a ThinkPad T43/p for the longest time. Yeah both the bottom side under the southbridge chip and the palmrest get very hot, too hot for my liking. The T41/T42 clearly didn't have this problem (but they have the other problem of course). It seems like the southbridge is almost like taking the existing southbridge from the Intel 855 chipset and then overclock it by 33% to reach the new FSB.
Again, it is very possible for the GPU to desolder too. Yes, desolder, not underfill failure in the case of these things, as with my dead T43p mobo if I push on the heatsink on top of the ATI chip the video would come back and then cut out when I bend the motherboard. Bad underfill can't temporarily come back alive by mechanical means. I think the reason why my video chip failed instead is because I live in Canada and all the thermal shock and rough handling of me carrying it to university means while I saved the southbridge from failure with the heatsink, the crappy epoxied on IHS on the ati chip simply didn't transfer enough heat for the hot FireGL GPU to run at an acceptable temperature and failed instead.

When the motherboard failed, I moved onto a Dell Latitude D830/Precision M4300, which is like much thicker and heavier but also far more rigid than any of the 2000's ThinkPad Txx series. While the T43/p front side bends into a smiley shape eventually when you lug it around even without any intention to bend it, there is no bending that on the D830 with its nice thick solid block of magnesium chassis, and also the palmrest is always cool to the touch no matter how much stress you give the laptop (even with a Core 2 extreme X9000).

[astral]

if i heatsink mod mine hopefully i can delay problems. probably should replace the gpu thermal pad with arctic paste instead too, the pad is thin enough that i should be able to.

hopefully by the time it dies i can get to the point where i can just reball the gpu, southbridge, and me done with it.
that would be the real fix, using better quality solder.

[kfzhu1229]

if i heatsink mod mine hopefully i can delay problems. probably should replace the gpu thermal pad with arctic paste instead too, the pad is thin enough that i should be able to.

I did that on my T43p long ago but the GPU temps were still very high. Turns out after I replaced the mobo with another T43p mobo (which I got for cheap because it turned out to have a broken pin on the outside RAM slot, which I end up wiring it somehow good enough to work with 2 1GB sticks) the temps somehow went down by 5 degrees. So my suspicion is that the epoxy inside the IHS has aged and isn't transferring heat well, but I have not dared to delid the IHS and repaste it. Maybe I could do it for science on my broken mobo anyway.