Acquired a T60, which path should i take now?

[Redaa]

I was doomscrolling on a local website and came across a listing for a 14.1" T60 for 5€ really close to me, immediately went and picked it up.
Seller said it's not working (allegedly "for a motherboard problem"), but i havent had the chance to test it yet, as the charger adapter i bought is still being shipped.

If it turns out he is indeed correct and the mobo is faulty, what do you think i should do? Get another T60 mobo? Get a T61 one and frankenpad it (even if its a 14.1")? As i'm very new to this world still, and you are definitely all more experienced than me, i'm open to hearing any opinion on the matter.
Thank you!

[TPFanatic]

Beware the Sunk cost fallacy.

If replacing motherboard beware its ATI or intel gfx. Depending on what you choose to do, you may need anew heatsink too.

A t60 motherboard of the correct graphics will be simplest, if necessary.

[RealBlackStuff]

Check the HMM-Manuals link at the top of this page.

[Medessec]

I was doomscrolling on a local website and came across a listing for a 14.1" T60 for 5€ really close to me, immediately went and picked it up.
Seller said it's not working (allegedly "for a motherboard problem"), but i havent had the chance to test it yet, as the charger adapter i bought is still being shipped.

Oof, yeeeeepp.... that can be a bit of a gamble, unless he has any more details than that on what led him to determine it's a motherboard problem. Does it not show the boot screen at all? Does it show a black screen and sound a beep sequence? Does it power on at all? It could be anything from dislodged RAM to an actual problem with the board, to him trying to use some wacky adapter setup to the Lenovo 20V barrel connector, so it's getting the wrong power, to him just seeing the Error 161/163 on boot and thinking that's a motherboard problem, when it's really just a dead CMOS battery (easy to replace).

If it turns out he is indeed correct and the mobo is faulty, what do you think i should do? Get another T60 mobo? Get a T61 one and frankenpad it (even if its a 14.1")? As i'm very new to this world still, and you are definitely all more experienced than me, i'm open to hearing any opinion on the matter.
Thank you!

If it turns out the motherboard is completely cooked, it is possible to get a T61 14" 4:3 motherboard in there but you will need a dremel. The bigger problem though is that T61 14" 4:3 motherboards are quite rare and hard to find nowadays. It would probably be better just to source another T60 dGPU motherboard and swap it in. Although... you'll also want to see if the T60 you're getting is iGPU or dGPU, they have different heatsinks and you'd have to buy the other if you get the other motherboard. Would kinda stink to get a 5€ laptop, only to have to dump 50€ of parts into it... but T60 is a cool retro unit, so it might be worth it if you have a cool use in mind for it!

[Redaa]

Oof, yeeeeepp.... that can be a bit of a gamble, unless he has any more details than that on what led him to determine it's a motherboard problem. Does it not show the boot screen at all? Does it show a black screen and sound a beep sequence? Does it power on at all? It could be anything from dislodged RAM to an actual problem with the board, to him trying to use some wacky adapter setup to the Lenovo 20V barrel connector, so it's getting the wrong power, to him just seeing the Error 161/163 on boot and thinking that's a motherboard problem, when it's really just a dead CMOS battery (easy to replace).

He only said what he used it for, and that it doesnt turn on now and he thought it was a motherboard problem. I did not have the chance to try to turn it on yet, as i had to order an adapter since i dont have a barrel charger, but im trusting him for now and kinda planning ahead with this post ahaha

If it turns out the motherboard is completely cooked, it is possible to get a T61 14" 4:3 motherboard in there but you will need a dremel. The bigger problem though is that T61 14" 4:3 motherboards are quite rare and hard to find nowadays. It would probably be better just to source another T60 dGPU motherboard and swap it in. Although... you'll also want to see if the T60 you're getting is iGPU or dGPU, they have different heatsinks and you'd have to buy the other if you get the other motherboard. Would kinda stink to get a 5€ laptop, only to have to dump 50€ of parts into it... but T60 is a cool retro unit, so it might be worth it if you have a cool use in mind for it!

Mmh i see, well ideally even though the performance gain wouldnt be much, i'd really like the experience of using the laptop being a bit more pleasant with that little more power/memory, but as you said i dont wanna spend a fortune on a 5€ laptop. I did end up finding 2x2gb sticks of ddr2 ram in my house, so if i can get the pc to work i'd only have to order a t7400 and maybe a small ssd, and id have a 20€ working t60. That would be the dream ahaha
If it instead ends up not working at all, i guess ill have to be patient and try to snag a good deal on a mobo, but i looked online a bit and that seems hard

[TPFanatic]

if nothing else you could hang it up on the wall as a museum piece

[Gonzaleitor]

Go full frankenpad.

[Glaurung-quena]

In my experience, *most* of the T60's being sold as "for parts/not working/untested" are in fact perfectly fine and the seller just didn't know. However, in your case it sounds like they do know it's broken.

T60 motherboards used to be dirt cheap, but a few years ago the supply finally dried up and now they're hard to find.
Non-widescreen T61 motherboards are even more rare, although there might be forum members here who still have a stash of them.

If it turns out to be non-working, your best bet, if you want to have a T60 of your own, is to either obtain a beat up/incomplete T60 with a working motherboard (and then swap parts until you have an intact working laptop), or dissect your purchase and sell off the parts (then apply the proceeds to getting another cheap T60, repeat until you find a working one).

Parts of that laptop that are worth selling here in the US: the keyboard ($25-ish), palmrest ($30-40), and the display ($50 plus for the entire lid). The other bits are not in as much demand. Prices in Europe could well be higher, check sales history for Ebay or equivalent in your area to see.

[RealBlackStuff]

I have a bare 4:3 T60 mobo with ATI X1400 GPU
And a 4:3 T60 mobo with Intel GPU, CPU and fan, sitting in a partial 14" base with only palmrest.
Keyboard optional.
Both are working, no password/Computrace, need to check further details.

[Redaa]

UPDATE:
So i just received the adapter i needed, now i can test the laptop.
When i plug it in, the AC power led indicator turns green, meaning its correctly connected to the ac power supply, and the battery indicator blinks orange, meaning its charging and between 0-5%.
Now here's the thing, when i press the power on button, all the leds turn off and nothing happens. The pc doesnt turn on, i get no beeping messages nor anything else, and i have to unplug and replug the connector in order for it to start charging again.

I've taken a brief look at the manual and i'll now try to reseat the ram, but not sure if thats gonna solve anything. Have you ever experienced this? Any idea that could help me? Thank you

[TPFanatic]

that does sound like some kind of board failure.

i had a T43p with similar problem, i complained about it here: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=135209

kfzhu1229 responded:

AC in, it charges battery, press power button and it goes lights off.
Pull cmos battery and reinstall no change.
No battery no change.

Intermittently it will succeed to start.

Just curious if there's a simple (haha as if) fix to make this extinct unit operable. It has a nice 14" SXGA+ and the 2.26 ghz PM. Maybe transplanting the mobo into a nicer 15" chassis will inspire it to behave.

I have yet to have this problem on ThinkPads, but on other branded laptops when this happens I just start swapping out the 3.3 and 5V main filtering capacitors and sometimes that would fix your problem (HP Compaq business laptops can have this problem). Usually tired capacitors have this weird property that they work better on battery power than they do on charger power (doesn't matter if battery is installed or not)
On ThinkPads sometimes this can also be a shorted component. But since yours does start up and assuming that it is fully functional when it does work... But check the motherboard for any overheating components like capacitors etc that might actually still be shorted.

[Glaurung-quena]

UPDATE:
So i just received the adapter i needed, now i can test the laptop.
When i plug it in, the AC power led indicator turns green, meaning its correctly connected to the ac power supply, and the battery indicator blinks orange, meaning its charging and between 0-5%.
Now here's the thing, when i press the power on button, all the leds turn off and nothing happens. The pc doesnt turn on, i get no beeping messages nor anything else, and i have to unplug and replug the connector in order for it to start charging again.

I've taken a brief look at the manual and i'll now try to reseat the ram, but not sure if thats gonna solve anything. Have you ever experienced this? Any idea that could help me? Thank you

I have run into this several times before (refurbishing old T60's is my hobby). Usually, it means the motherboard is toast.
But re-try with a known-good stick of RAM, and possibly try a known good CPU, before giving up.

[Tony.Ri]

UPDATE:
So i just received the adapter i needed, now i can test the laptop.
When i plug it in, the AC power led indicator turns green, meaning its correctly connected to the ac power supply, and the battery indicator blinks orange, meaning its charging and between 0-5%.
Now here's the thing, when i press the power on button, all the leds turn off and nothing happens. The pc doesnt turn on, i get no beeping messages nor anything else, and i have to unplug and replug the connector in order for it to start charging again.

I've taken a brief look at the manual and i'll now try to reseat the ram, but not sure if thats gonna solve anything. Have you ever experienced this? Any idea that could help me? Thank you

I have run into this several times before (refurbishing old T60's is my hobby). Usually, it means the motherboard is toast.
But re-try with a known-good stick of RAM, and possibly try a known good CPU, before giving up.

The same thing has happened to my T60 after several months in storage... My spare is a T61 that still works so far at least but very disheartening to see these machines start to fail. I guess they are hitting over 20 years old now, though. Sucks because I picked up one of the Printer+Serial UltraBay adapters just for these after 3 years of haunting eBay... I guess now to find a new spare.

[dr_st]

The same thing has happened to my T60 after several months in storage... My spare is a T61 that still works so far at least but very disheartening to see these machines start to fail.

It's disheartening indeed. These were nice machines - signifying an end of an era in more ways than one.

My T60 is still working. In the past 10 years or so (since it stopped being a daily driver) it sits on a dock, connected to power, although off/sleeping 95% of the time. Although it is told that this is not ideal for the battery, maybe it is better for the laptop's longevity, who knows.

That is not to say it's completely flawless. I'm getting regular screen blanking over DVI output when the GPU gets hot in 3D games. It's way too specific to blame the screen/cable, so must be either the GPU or the DVI routing in the laptop/dock.

[DiagonalArg]

Guys, check out my post here, maybe. I do have a stash of T6*'s, and it's time to clean up here a little bit.
viewtopic.php?f=29&t=138094&p=886647#p886647

Nice to see people still playing with this hardware.