Powering Barebones Motherboard

[tdlpad]

I am playing around with a quirky T42 barebones motherboard. What is the bare minimum that needs attached to detect functionality? Have tried with power adapter, fan, CMOS, LCD, speakers and with and w/o memory. No response of any sort so am assuming it is dead. Am I missing anything?

[rkawakami]

I would think that the bare minimum would be just the CPU. A fan would be needed only to get by any "fan error" boot message (and to prevent the CPU from cooking itself). The motherboard should power up with no memory and give the usual beep code, so the speakers would be needed to hear that but the power LED should light regardless. In order to provide a power button, you'd have to either connect the keyboard or if the motherboard is mounted into a docking station/port replicator, then you can use the button on the dock/port rep to power up the board.

The LCD does not need to be connected; an external monitor could be used instead. Make sure to pull out all socketed parts: modem, MiniPCI, Ultrabay, hard drive, etc.

[tdlpad]

Thanks for your reply. Forgot to mention that I had the keyboard attached to try to power on but no results so assume it is something fatal.

[rkawakami]

You could try this: plug in the main battery and then plug in the AC adapter. If the battery starts charging then the battery LED will be lit. Your lack of power-on could be due to a bad keyboard so either try another T4x keyboard or mount the motherboard in a dock/port rep.

[tdlpad]

I tried another known good keyboard with no good response. Tried the battery and the power adapter with no results or indicator on the LCD. With just the battery connected I do get one quick flash of the battery indicator when I depress the power button. A second press of the power button gives no results until the battery is re-attached and then the battery indicator will flash again one time as the power button is depressed. I was having loose GPU indications before I decided to strip it down and take a look at things. Not a major problem as I have other T42's to use. Just thought I might find and or learn something in the process. Thanks for the suggestions.

[poshgeordie]

Probably worth fitting 1 RAM module as well though the board will start without one but will not display.

Re your current symptoms, I don't think you've got it fitted but remove the CMOS battery if it is. Then with the main battery and AC adapter both removed, press the keyboard on / off button lots of times and then keep it pressed for 30 secs. Repeat a couple of times. It can sometimes reset the board and get it to work again.

It's not likely to be fuses either but if you can check them go to my sig and download the how to's list and from there grab the fuses doc and use a multimeter to check them.

[tdlpad]

I tried the reset a couple times with no luck. All the fuses I can find check out ok so have no idea where the problems lies. Thanks for your assistance.