Thinkpads Forum

A while back I started building a relatively unorthodox Frankenpad project, with a 15.4" widescreen motherboard and 15" fullscreen frame. Everything went together as expected, but when I started it up, I got no output from the display or speakers and figured I must have damaged something or shorted it against the cut frame.

Today, though, I received a confirmed working 8/08 T61p motherboard, and got the same problem when I turned it on. No POST or beeps, but the fan spins up properly and the Power and Charging indicators are both lit. Nothing shows on the internal display, or on an external display via VGA. This time I left it in the original frame, and I haven't messed with it at all apart from attaching a CPU, memory, and heatsink.

Any ideas?

That sounds vaguely CPU-ey... have you got another you can swap in to try?

What exactly did you receive, just a board in the frame? What exact parts did you use of your own?

I've tested T60 15.0 lids on 15.4 chassis, that's not a problem and it should work fine.

Try removing the battery and see if it will post. If your bios has been cleared (cmos battery removed) it often won't boot with a battery installed until you set the date/time and save.


ps. a bad cpu will give these symptoms, but so will some really silly errors like not using thermal paste, not locking down the cam screw when installing cpu.

I received a board in the frame with a modem, speakers, and BIOS battery attached. I used my processor, HSF, memory, lid, and battery, and tried booting with pretty much every combination of the above attached.

I've misplaced my charger so I'm powering it through the Advanced Dock, and I've tried powering it on from the dock button as well as plugging in the keyboard and using that power button. I've also tried the display toggle function key on the keyboard without luck.

The only Socket P CPU I have on hand is a P9600, but that shouldn't prevent it from posting. I tried first without, then with the pin bridge.

Failure wrote:
The only Socket P CPU I have on hand is a P9600, but that shouldn't prevent it from posting. I tried first without, then with the pin bridge.

I would not be so sure about that...

ajkula66 wrote:
I would not be so sure about that...

If I understand this thread, as well this one and a couple of others that I'll have to hunt down since I've had this on the back burner for a couple of months, using Montevina chips in Santa Rosa boards is possible if you bridge two pins, causing the processor to request the 800 MHz FSB. Either way, shouldn't I get a beep code?

Failure wrote: If I understand this thread, as well this one and a couple of others that I'll have to hunt down since I've had this on the back burner for a couple of months, using Montevina chips in Santa Rosa boards is possible if you bridge two pins, causing the processor to request the 800 MHz FSB. Either way, shouldn't I get a beep code?

If you have no clips, there will be no beeps.

If the pinmod isn't done properly you'll get no beeps either.

Do yourself a favour and spend $5 on a T7100 or something along those lines so at least you have one component out of the equation when it comes to troubleshooting...that's what I would do anyway...

Good luck.

Thanks for the input, guys. I've got a T7250 en route for testing.

Thanks guys, it was the CPU. Got the T7250 in, fixed a problem with the motherboard shorting on the inside of the shell, and got it to boot. When I get some time to mess around with it, I'll try and see if I can find or make an insulated wire that will fit under the CPU to use as a pin bridge for the P9600.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-_fMx ... 182914.jpg

Admin edit: Changed huge 1200x900 250KB+ image to link. Please keep inline images <50KB.

Failure
Could you, please, post the pictures of those parts that have to be modded to fit 15.4" motherboard into 15.1" T60? I am considering to do such a frankenpad because of unavailability of 14.1 4:3 T61 motherboards.