Think my T30 bit the dust?

[westsailor]

Yesterday, I booted up, got to the desktop and was about to click on an app when I heard a 'tic' sound and all went dark... No video, HD isn't spinning, no kbd light available... zip, nada. Well, except the power indicator lights up when I turn it on, the batt/charge light is lit the other lil indicators above the kbd flash briefly but when it's time for the HD activity light to start it just sits there. The drive is good since I took it out, hooked it up to a USB interface and verified everything is still there.

It's not the AC adapter. Same result using the battery or 12v car adapter.

Someone mentioned some laptops have a small fuse by the power connector but I don't see any mention of anything like that in my T30 hardware/FRU replacement manual.

Whadya think? Am I suddenly in the market for a new Thinkpad?

[Harryc]

There are fuses, but you'll need a multimeter to check them. I think if I lived on a boat in a tropical climate I'd go with a Panasonic Toughbook.

[westsailor]

There are fuses, but you'll need a multimeter to check them. I think if I lived on a boat in a tropical climate I'd go with a Panasonic Toughbook.

yea, a toughbook would be nice but they're a lil pricey for me. Actually, Thinkpads make a pretty rugged laptop for a boat. My T20 was launched off the nav table, bounced off the stove and hit the cabin sole in some rough weather. I thought "Well, that's that" but nothing happened, worked great till it got stolen. My replacement T30 is at least a couple years old (off lease refurb from eBay) and hung in there just fine till yesterday. I'm lucky in that this is the first and only computer that's died on me in the 25+ years I've been using them (knock on wood!!!).

I've got it broken down about halfway to see if there is anything obvious that's fried but it all looks good so far (but what can you really tell visually about SMT?).

I've got a multimeter (and know how to use it) but I'm not seeing anything that looks like fuses. And of course there is no mention of fuses in the hardware manual.

[Harryc]

In this thread, they are discussing T4X fuses, but in the first post is a picture with fuse locations. The actual locations are different on a T30 board, but at least you'll get an idea of what to look for. They are tiny little buggers .