Dead T60p: reasons?

[BigCatAndy]

Hello,

I recently bought T60p (2007-8JG), which has no display and does not start. I opened it - the inner parts look untouched, CPU is present, RAM (3 GB) inside, HDD inside. The power supply is OK (checked with another Thinkpad). So, I just wanted to ask community here: what might be a reason for the "dead" state? It is possible to fix it?

Regards from Hamburg/Germany
Andrey

[atagunov]

Hi, I doubt forum members will be able to give much advice remotely.. To begin with not many of us are even soldering on new fuses let alone doing any more complex repairs..

Just out of interest: is it completely stone dead? No reaction at all when you press the power button? No lights change, fan does not attempt to start, there are no beeps? Are the speakers attached btw, e.g. does it have anything to beep with?

Have you tried to start it up with battery removed? To speak of which you may want to disconnect as much stuff as possible: remove HDD, remove WiFi card if any, remove the battery.

You may go as far a removing the RAM - obviously machine will not run but on a healthy motherboard with healthy CPU and speakers you should hear some beeps if you try to power on without RAM.

You don't have a docking station for it do you? With a docking station you could even remove the keyboard and try to power on via the button on docking station. That R61i Frankie from your signature does it have a docking connector on the bottom? If so you might have some use for a docking station anyway and they should be pretty cheap these days. If I had a docking station and was desperate I would consider even unplugging the monitor cable to leave the motherboard as bare as possible - and just see if the fan spins, if the lights show up if the beeps are heard.

All that said I have very little hope for revival of this motherboard. Replacing a motherboard is probably the most common repair advice Dead CPU is another theoretical possibility. I might have a T60 motherboard here with some CPU in it which I wasn't really planning to use, but I'm in the UK.. And I'm not sure how healthy my motherboard is - I purchased that 15" 4:3 T60 (your T60p is 4:3 isn't it?) just for its body with a vague intention to build a Frankenpad out of it - which I may never get around to, sadly.

[axur-delmeria]

If none of the LEDs light up when you plug in the AC adapter, then it's usually a very serious issue, usually with the system board itself.

[BigCatAndy]

Hello again,
just decided to reply to my own post to keep the story short: I suppose, the MB is really dead. The laptop has no sign of life at all (I cannot see LEDs, because there is no display at all), but when I did all the tests - RAM, docking station - nothing happened. Fan did not start, DVD-drive did not start/click, no beeps for removed RAM.

I could test CPU separately (because I have another one T60 with T56, so T7600 would fit), but to be honest I never saw broken CPU. The only reason I could imagine might be an overheating - ATI cards were known for it.

Regards,
Andrey

Hello,

I recently bought T60p (2007-8JG), which has no display and does not start. I opened it - the inner parts look untouched, CPU is present, RAM (3 GB) inside, HDD inside. The power supply is OK (checked with another Thinkpad). So, I just wanted to ask community here: what might be a reason for the "dead" state? It is possible to fix it?

Regards from Hamburg/Germany
Andrey

[axur-delmeria]

No LEDs lighting up usually means that there's a fault in the power circuitry. Caused by overheating GPU? Possible, but no way to tell.

[dr_st]

If the power circuitry is blown, then it has to be repaired before anything else can be done, and until then it doesn't really matter what caused it to blow in the first place.

[BigCatAndy]

Hello,

If the power circuitry is blown, then it has to be repaired before anything else can be done, and until then it doesn't really matter what caused it to blow in the first place.

I tried to start laptop from docking station, means - with other power source (than standard connector of laptop). Does it mean I checked the power circuit in this way?

Regards,
Andrey

[dr_st]

I believe so, yes.

[atagunov]

...so we now know that the your problem is not a dead keyboard. It's something on the motherboard.

It's sad but replacement motherboard from ebay shouldn't be that expensive.

Depending on what you want you may get yourself another T60/T60p motherboard or if this is a 4:3 machine you can look for a 14" 4:3 T61 motherboard, with integrated graphics if you're concerned about reliability. It's possible even R60 or R61 motherboard would fit it comes from a machine of the same dimensions as yours.