IBM splash screen after motherboard exchange

[Aristos]

Hi all,

I'm new to this forum but have been reading its posts for quite a while . Obviously, what has forced me to start this post is the problem I encountered after my motherboard replacement in one of my T40s (the other one is T41 and is patiently waiting for a similar motherboard upgrade).

I've bought a second-hand motherboard (FRU: 93P4159) off US eBay as I have wanted FireGL 128MB video card and 1Gbps ethernet. Anyway, when I installed the motherboard and fired up the TP, the IBM splash screen showed up and after a while it let me into the BIOS to correct the time and date. Which was a good sign...

Unfortunately, when I rebooted the TP, the splash screen showed up again and didn't bother to go further to my GRUB to choose the OS. When I hit ESC, it showed doing some testing:

Phoenix FirstBIOS(tm) Notebook Pro Version 2.0 for IBM ThinkPad

CPU = Intel (R) Pentium (R) M processor 2.00GHz
638K System RAM Passed
2046M Extended RAM Passed
2048K Cache SRAM Passed
System BIOS shadowed
Video BIOS shadowed
UMB upper limit segment address: DC00

and nothing else happened for half an hour!

- If I hit 'Access IBM', the 'To interrupt normal startup, press the blue Access IBM button' disappears and nothing happens.

- If I hit F1, there is a message 'Entering IBM BIOS Setup Utility' and nothing happens (no access to the BIOS).

- If I hit F12, it says 'Preparing Boot Device List' and nothing happens again.

To console myself I need to add that last night my GRUB managed to fire up on this TP with this motherboard and I managed to fire up WinXP (as well as Debian on a second occasion) but when I rebooted, the problem with IBM splash screen came again and became more persistent, indeed.

I detached the battery and the EPROM battery for the night to prevent anything unexpected, then started again today and apart from the one-off initial time and date correction the IBM splash screen does not let me into the BIOS or indeed do anything else on the TP. I have also tried to disconnect and reconnect the HDD (also to be sure the connections are clean), try to use the bootable Debian CD-ROM but nothing happens as the system won't let to boot from anything.

Oh, and I have also tried pressing 10 times the switch-off button and then hold it for 45 seconds while both battery and external power cord are disconnected--although, I really doubt it could in fact get anything working

Has anybody got any ideas on how to start using the TP? I would really appreciate your professional help. Please bear in mind the other TP is waiting for the mobo replacement but I think it could be a bit scared and intimidated at the outcome the first one produced

Regards,

Peter

[jayeye]

Always assuming, of course, you didn't forget to plug in something or you didn't fry it yourself!

Try something else: take out the HD and see if you can boot of the CD.

[Aristos]

I've actually tried that too--that was not the culprit. But, honestly, I don't know where the problem was yet it's no longer a problem, at least I think so. I solved it this way: I used the Hardware Maintenance Diskette to set everything up properly in BIOS (including unit-system number), when I finally managed to get to the BIOS.

And you can almost always get to the BIOS when you take the batteries off (including the EEPROM) battery for a night. Then, when you turn off, you are prompted to correct the time and date and that is the moment you can correct everything with the Hardware Maintenance Diskette.

Initially, I have had a few times when after rebooting I had to hit F1 (sometimes twice for the required effect) to get to the BIOS and then ESC to get the bootloader start. But now it works flawlessly.

To sum up, I don't know where the problem was but it's solved now.
---------------------

Yet, I've got a problem with my other motherboard (very similar one) I have exchanged. After the IBM splash screen, correction of time and date, finally getting into WinXP, upgrading the BIOS and managing to reboot a few times (sometimes with IBM splash screen hang-up, sometimes without a problem), when I shut the system down that night, I tried to start up the other night and there was no IBM splash screen at all, no anything on the display.

Basically, what it could mean is that something wrong had happened with the GPU, hadn't it? What could that be, if the TP was shut down for 24 hours? What could have caused the damage if the TP was shut down? I have absolutely no idea but I've tested the motherboard with my wife's TP with no success, as well.

Any ideas will be greatly appreciated as I'm going to send it back to the States now. Hopefully they can fix it but I'm going to face up to the customs (and Parcelforce) hassle once again, unfortunately. But that's inevitable, isn't it?