Thinkpads Forum

Hello,

There is an ebay auction (http://tinyurl.com/mbxeuo) that offers a faulty/parts missing T61 -- more precisely, the item neither has RAM nor HD. I am less concerned about these missing items than whether the display still works -- the seller claims he cannot guarantee it since the laptop wouldn't boot up without memory and HD. I am wondering if this is true -- in other words, will a laptop without RAM still boot and display eg the BIOS?

Thanks,
P

PhilipGabler wrote:... will a laptop without RAM still boot and display eg the BIOS?

No -- no PC will do that.

Thanks, EOMtp -- much appreciated. I'm not a complete PC layman (as my post may have suggested), but never touched these kinds of internals...

If the motherboard is still working without the memory or hard drive it should still beep. If it doesn't the board is probably dead.

Oldest trick in the book on e-Bay and Craigslist: "Sorry, I don't know". Unless you can get it dirt cheap, I'd steer well clear of it - it's undoubtedly been cannibalized for a reason!

@sktn77a: yes, I had the same suspicion (why else would anyone go through all the trouble and remove even the RAM?)
I'll probably avoid it.

Thanks to all of you for your input, by the way -- this is a very valuable forum here.

I've had good and very bad experience with these "I don't know" parts - the worst was a display that was missing both the inverter and the flat-band cable, although the display was otherwise complete (hiding the deficiencies). You never can tell, and I would agree that if you buy such stuff, you should buy it cheap.

However, it's not strange that "even" the RAM is removed - that's one of the high-value items in a laptop and is easy to sell separately. That alone would not worry me.

could have a bios password... I've been stuck with a few units like that one that have an unknown supervisor password.