Thinkpad T23 won't boot

[billm]

I have a four-year-old T23 that will not boot up. When I hit the power button, the lights come on and the drives spin up, but the screen stays blank. This happens regardless of whether it's plugged in or on battery. When I do a soft reboot, it aways comes up. It's only a hard reboot that fails.

The problem began when the laptop stopped waking up after I put it to sleep. Then it would occasionally fail to boot when I restarted it. Now it almost never comes up. I've tried fiddling with it (removing and reinserting the hard drive, RAM, etc.) and this seems to increase the likelihood that it will boot by a little, but that might be my imagination.

Does this sound like a loose connection? If so, where? My waranty has expired. What should I do?

Thanks for any help.
-Bill

[skygodtj]

I'd start with the CMOS battery. After that, I'd reload the OS, but thats just me. It sounds like your power mgmt is boogered up. An OS reload would more than likely fix it.

TJ

[dsvochak]

You might want to go here http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... IGR-4YZM3F to download PC Doctor for DOS, follow the instructions to create the disks, boot from the floppys and run the tests.

[billm]

I'd start with the CMOS battery. After that, I'd reload the OS, but thats just me. It sounds like your power mgmt is boogered up. An OS reload would more than likely fix it.

TJ

Thanks for the tip about the CMOS battery. I'll try to test it out.

The machine never makes it to the OS stage, or even the bootloader. The IBM logo never appears. That's why I'm pretty sure it's a hardware issue.

-Bill