Thinkpads Forum

My T60 started locking up and it seemed like the HD was failing. So I bought another (Hitachi 100gb) and started to install XP. But the drive didn't want to format - took several tries. It would go a few percent and quit. Finally got that done and now XP's setup is bombing out too.

Hard drive or motherboard? I need the laptop for school so I'm trying to get this done before MOnday. If I have to go to Best Buy and buy another drive I will, but I wondered if the T60 has something else wrong.

Ideas?

Running the drive in a different system I would test the hard drives with the Hitachi DFT found here.

The problem does sound more likely to be the motherboard.

brad

Retry the install with main battery removed.

Good luck.

Tried that George and it bombs out even quicker, some times not even getting the Thinkpad splash screen. Tried to get to the boot device screen and it froze every time.Put the battery back in and it got to the "restarting windows setup" screen and it froze with no hard drive activity shown after that.

I'm running the Seagate tools on the 500gb drive I had in it that was failing and I guess once that finishes I'll run the Hitachi hard drive tools on the new ailing drive. Then try again.

Looking at eBay it would be just as cheap (and much easier) to buy a whole machine than do a motherboard swap. I hate this happened as the T60 and I were just settling in.

Swapped batteries after the Hitachi bootable CD locked up too half way through the test. Now it gave beeps which I thought were one, then 3 short, then I thought 4 short, then three short again.

I guess I could pull the ram and try that, but it looks to me like the MB is bad.

First one ever in ten years of Thinkpads from my first T23 through many machines.

Still stinks.

any ideas?

Well, I pulled the RAM and moved it to the other slot - still getting the one - three-one beep sequence. Don't have another stick of that type RAM to check. When the widescreen shows up I'll check. Guess I'm in the market for another motherboard unless it turns out to be the RAM.

Check the contacts on the ram. If slightly dirty, use some alcohol to clean them then perhaps a little WD40 in the slots on the mainboard.

Pull the wireless card, dvd drive and anything else out and try booting up barebones with a USB stick or something.

Hopefully you can find out what's wrong and really narrow it down.

Good luck man!

Brian10161 wrote:Check the contacts on the ram. If slightly dirty, use some alcohol to clean them then perhaps a little WD40 in the slots on the mainboard.

NO WAY!
The WD40 oil would insulate the contacts from each other!
Just use an eraser to rub the contacts on both sides until they are bright and shiny again.
Blow off the debris, then try again.

Tried it. Still getting the 1-3-3-1 beeps.

RealBlackStuff wrote:NO WAY!
The WD40 oil would insulate the contacts from each other!
Just use an eraser to rub the contacts on both sides until they are bright and shiny again.
Blow off the debris, then try again.

News to me. Has worked wonders on soiled electrical contacts for me. Better than contact cleaner, which merely just spreads the dirt around.

Brian10161 wrote

Has worked wonders on soiled electrical contacts for me.

Maybe on cars.

I'd *never* use WD-40 on a ThinkPad. Not even on a lesser laptop. For a variety of reasons.

Bad RAM stick. Micron 2gig. Hopefully I can find the invoice and get a replacement. Once I swapped it into the other machine and got the same result... now I have 2 T60s