Stuck at IBM Screen

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ErikD · #1 Post by **ErikD** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 8:07 pm

Brief history, I bought a 15" T42 with a bad motherboard and a 14" T40 with a bad screen. Took the good parts and made a laptop out of it. More for the learning experience than anything else.

Now for the problem. I am trying to boot it and it just stops at the IBM screen, and won't go any further. All I have is a single 512MB stick of RAM installed. RAM is good as I borrowed it from a working T40. Any idea what the problem could be?

Thanks

#2 Post by **jdhurst** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 8:32 pm

I do not mean to sound trite, but there are many interconnecting parts in what you tried to do, therefore, any number of reasons with the same result (i.e., not working) .... JDH

#3 Post by **Harryc** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 8:38 pm

Does it boot from CD?

ErikD · #4 Post by **ErikD** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 8:55 pm

Got it to boot from a Knoppix CD, but the display is all distorted (stretched taller and not filling horizontal). Is there anything a special I need to do to get the display properly setup when moving from a 14" display to 15"?

#5 Post by **Harryc** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 8:56 pm

Did you also swap the inverter and LCD ribbon cable? The idea being to keep the original parts with the LCD they belong to. The other issue not booting sounds like a hard drive or IDE controller/interface issue. Try reseating the hard drive.

#6 Post by **GomJabbar** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 9:35 pm

By any chance do you have a lock icon on the screen? If so, your motherboard may have a power on password or supervisor password set, or else your hard drive may have a password set.

Make sure you installed the hard drive properly in the main hard drive slot. Especially if you do not have the caddy around the hard drive, it is easy to not have the connector line up properly. When you go to plug in the hard drive, have your laptop bottom side up. This aids in lining up the connector.

ErikD · #7 Post by **ErikD** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 8:16 pm

Harryc wrote:Did you also swap the inverter and LCD ribbon cable? The idea being to keep the original parts with the LCD they belong to. The other issue not booting sounds like a hard drive or IDE controller/interface issue. Try reseating the hard drive.

No HD installed right now. Just want to test the basics. Basically I just pulled a motherboard out of a 14" T40 and put it into the base of the 15" one. Used all of the cables attached to the 15" screen.

#8 Post by **Harryc** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 9:14 pm

The XGA and SXGA+ LCD cables are different part numbers. What are the LCD's?

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... 46502.html

ErikD · #9 Post by **ErikD** » Fri Sep 28, 2007 5:49 pm

Both are XGA. Could it be a need to update the BIOS and EC? They are much older versions currently.

Stuck at IBM Screen

Stuck at IBM Screen

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