T43 finally dead?

[taylon11]

Hi, my T43 final days finally came. I don't know if anyone here can give some suggestions to revive it.

It all started in one morning just as usual. it suddenly frozen without any warning, the screen didn't go black, just frozen. Had no choice but reboot... there comes to this endless cycles in the following a few weeks. most of the time after reboot, i can see the power is on and the fan is running but that is all. no hard drive, no temperature from CPU or GPU. sometime it beeps 4 shorts and 3 longs (4 cycles, for system board failure?)
but it comes to sometimes, every time lasted for a few hours or a few minutes, just a matter of chance. but recently it became shorter and shorter. checked online pretty everything similar, tried everything possible. sent to a technician for repair, diagnosed as hard drive failure. I am thinking to get a new IDE drive for it but very suspicious a broken hard drive can still run normally occasionally?
My T43 type: 2668 bju, 15", 1g mem, Hitachi 40 G HHD graphic x300.

Any ideas what is really going on? anyone had similar experience?

thanks a lot!

Taylon

[Harryc]

How did the technician determine it was a HD failure? What tests were run? I'd ask him and repeat the tests myself if I were you, or cut out the middleman and go to the hard drive manufacturers website and download and run their diagnostic.

[RealBlackStuff]

Those are more indications towards a loose Southbridge.
If you are a little handy with a small #1 Phillips screwdriver, remove keyboard and palmrest.
Then remove the wifi-card.
Reconnect the keyboard, but don't screw it down, hold it at an angle.
Under the wifi card is a big Intel chip, that's the Southbridge.
Put pressure on that chip, then try to start the laptop.
Try different corners of the chip and more/less pressure.
If you get it going, see The Board Room in my signature for more info.