T40 REBUILD

[ennma]

Hi All,
I recently got a "gift" , a non-operational , T40. so I want to make a project out of this ( might not be much of a project to some of you , this is my first rebuild).
Obviously missing parts.

-battery
-harddrive
-opticaldrive

here are the pictures of the hardware. if you don't mind pointing out what else i need.
here is a gallery of the hardware.

http://yfrog.com/5at40001jx

one quick question on the harddrive, I think i could be missing the harddrive dock, bay, I am not sure what the term is, am I right on this one?

thanks in advance

ennma

[rkawakami]

From the pictures, it appears to me that you are missing:

- hard drive
- hard drive cover
- hard drive caddy
- Ultrabay Slim optical drive

It seems you have the one memory module installed underneath the keyboard, located just "above" and to the right of the copper fan/heatsink assembly. There's also another slot accessible from the bottom of the system. You also have the MiniPCI wireless card (just to the left of the yellow CMOS battery) and also the modem (left of the memory module).

The hard drive gets mounted to a "caddy"; basically a metal frame that fits around the bottom side of the hard drive. There's a plastic cover that's held in place by two of the screws that holds the caddy to the drive. You then slide in the hard drive "upside down" (i.e., the label side of the drive faces downward) and the cover fills in the area at the right side of the base.

Any Ultrabay Slim optical drive can be mounted in the laptop. You should download a copy of the Hardware Maintenance Manual for details about the procedures to remove/replace components in the laptop and their part numbers:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-46464

[BillMorrow]

one of our sponsors can supply the HD caddy and even the hard drive at a reasonable cost..
if the hard drive is not available from them (newmodeUS, see above in the banner) newegg and zipzoomfly have appropriate hard drives..
you need a PATA drive not a SATA drive..

then you will need a recovery CD for the T40 series..
so as to reinstall the original OS with all the drivers and utilities and bloatware..

[ennma]

Thanks Ray and Bill, for the info will definitely look into the sponsors.
thanks
ennma

[radiator]

I guess the given link is broken. I'd like to see you machine but the link failes to open.

[poshgeordie]

Try again here!

[virge]

Since its a T40 and given to you as non-operational, the first thing I would recommend buying is a keyboard or dock so you you can power it on to test the motherboard. If it has the GPU problem (see sticky in the T4x forum), then a rebuild may cost more than buying a working machine.

[ennma]

Hi Virge,
I don't follow your suggestion, I would need to install a harddrive + os , is this correct?
do you mind elaborating more on your comment.

Thank you
Ennma

[Robbyrobot]

I don't follow your suggestion, I would need to install a harddrive + os , is this correct?

No, Virge referred to the possibility that your T40 has a "flexed" mainboard, with the BGA (ball grid array) graphics chip no longer properly attached to the contacts on the board.

You can check for this just by attaching a power supply and trying to start the laptop, no need for a HDD or anything except a stick of RAM (without it the computer won't start) and the attached keyboard. If you get a normal screen (IBM Thinkpad logo, then an error message that there is no boot device) and can get into the BIOS (press F1 during startup), you're probably OK. If you get no image on the screen, or if the image is corrupted (streaks or possibly blinking), you might well have a defective mainboard and should first investigate that before you invest any more money in this particular laptop.

[poshgeordie]

One test that MIGHT check out the 'flexing' motherboard graphics issue:

Power down the Thinkpad (TP).

Press down hard on the graphics chip (located at the bottom right hand corner of the CPU and labelled ATI 7500) whilst powering up the laptop.
If you get a display picture then it's a graphics chip problem.
Releasing the pressure, you'll probably get a picture for a few minutes but it will then disappear again.