Thinkpads Forum

Hi All,

while removing the keyboard from my T61, I managed to catch and break off a TINY component from the motherboard (42w7648). I think it is a capacitor, but I really have no clue. it must be important since now I get absolutely nothing out of the system either on battery or AC power, no lights, nothin! amazingly, I did find it lying on the motherboard so I am tempted to try and fix it but would like to find out for sure what it is and if there is an alternative to trying to solder it back in place. it is so small, I am not sure if I can even solder it.

Any info and tips is greatly appreciated.




Thanks,

Bill

It's a capacitor. Don't be temted to short it. Many capacitors sitting by themselves are in parallel to a resistor and go to ground. If shorted, you connect a voltage to ground past any fuse protection. You need some sort of decent rework station (good hot air or an infrared) to put it back. Actually, you want to re-tin the pads and place the capacitor on the pads and then heat the area to melt the solder. You need to use a good no-clean flux. Some good independent repair places can fix this, but a dealer cannot. If someone brought me a board like this, I would tell him that it would cost $45 and there would be no charge if the repaired board wouldn't start. You should expect to pay a local guy something like that.