t22 help needed

[dkish]

hello to all
long time lurker here. always wanted a t-series thinkpad. just the other day, a buddy gave me a t-22. stripped of hd,ram,optical drive. just a bare machine without battery or adaptor. he told me the unit wont power up at all, and since i have nothing to test with, i thought i would see if one of you could sell me enough to try to sort this machine out. ive learned a fair amount just searching this forum and would like to bring this lappy back to life! i have made minor repairs in the past and i feel i could make some of the motherboard repairs i have read about here. sorry for being so long winded, anyway, need some pc100 ram and an ac adaptor to get started i guess. let me know if you have anything.
thank you in advance
Dave

MOD EDIT: Moved from X series forum to T2x.

[flashstar]

I wouldn't waste any time on it. Just buy a newer T4x if you want a laptop to use.

I did the same thing with a T23 and I ended up buying everything. The total price was $414 even though the original machine cost only $130. I also got some very good deals on many of the things that I bought.

The worst thing is that I spent about 20 hours working on the laptop which were worth at least $200. So, I spent around $600 for a machine that is 6 years old.

Will it work in the end? Yes
Is it worth it? No

[rkawakami]

Welcome to thinkpads.com! (even if you were a long time lurker)

Seeing how you have a shell of a laptop, I'd say the first thing to do is give it some power. So your quest for an AC adapter is right. To keep costs to the absolute minimum, I would NOT yet buy any memory for it unless you can either sell it (at a loss probably) or use it in another system. I say that because if you power it up and get the dreaded "blink of death" (aka BoD), putting memory into it, and any more money, will not help. The BoD is characterized by a very quick flash of the hard drive LED when the power button is pushed and NOTHING else. No beeps, other lights, fan spinning, etc. At the moment, there does not yet appear to be a simple (or conclusive) fix for this problem.

One other thing I know which can cause the system to not power up is a defective modem/ethernet card. You may also want to try removing the combo card from the bottom of the system; just to the left of the large IBM product label. See if that allows the system to power up.

Assuming that the system powers up the first time, that unfortunately does not mean that you don't have a BoD system. One of the other symptoms is that you can power it up a couple of times and then it gives you the "blink". Removing all power from the system for a couple of days may help to restore "normal" operation. If the system powers up properly you should get a 1-3-3-1 beep sequence which indicates you don't have any memory.

Given that the system does not exhibit any power up problems (small chance if your buddy is correct), the next item would be memory. Here you can take a chance: do you get the cheapest stick, probably a 64MB PC100 for $5 to $8, or do you go for the gusto and grab a 256MB (low density - 16 chips) module for $30 or more. The T22 requires this low density version, identified by 16 chips on a 256MB module and 8 chips on a 128MB module.

Once you have a bootable system (no power issue and working memory) and assuming that your LCD is working, then you'd need some way of checking out the major subsystems. That would require either a floppy drive or optical drive. PC Doctor for the T2x is available in either bootable media:

PC Doctor for DOS (diskettes)

PC Doctor for DOS (.ISO image)

Once you get either type of Ultrabay drive, you can boot the system and run all of the diagnostics to make sure the motherboard and whatever other peripherals you connect are working properly.

As flashstar indicates, you could be running up some $$$$ before you get a fully operational system.

[dkish]

thanks for the input. we shall see what hapens when i pick up an adaptor this weekend.