Thinkpads Forum

EDIT: Thanks to everybody in the posts below, I am certain that the issue I was having was caused by the bad battery. I was able to browse the internet for about an hour without the battery and having both RAM sticks in using an Ubuntu live CD (I don't have a hard drive yet). Laptop ran cool, everything was fine. After that hour I put the battery back in and about a minute later it froze up. So I figure I'd update this whole post with what the problem was so when others search it they will find this thread and maybe a solution to their problem. I had never heard of a bad battery causing a whole computer to become crippled and I doubt many others have either. Thanks again everybody!



I bought a T60 today for pretty cheap without a hard drive, it is a 2007-4du with ATI graphics and 1.5GB of ram. BIOS works fine for any amount of time and I can go through the menus for as long as I want, but when I boot with a live CD of Ubuntu it freezes after using the cursor for about 20 seconds and wont do anything until I shut it off with the power button. So how much trouble is it in? It is such a clean machine, has a finger print reader and the keyboard has absolutely no shine so this problem is really bugging me. Is it because I don't have a hard drive in it yet? That's the only part that is missing from it currently.

I would boot up a PC-Doctor CD and run all diagnostics. Concentrate on memory and Video/GPU tests.
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... 56222.html
... as an alternative memory test -
http://www.memtest86.com/

Thanks Harry! Doing that completely slipped my mind, I'll post the results once it's finished.

You're welcome.

different: iBook G4/1.33Ghz

I just worked on an iBook G4 yesterday. Amazing machine. it was 7 years old and worked and looked like new. A DC-In power module had gone bad. It even had the original battery that still charged and held a charge. $35 later and a part from iFixit and it was out the door.

Yeah! Those are pretty nice machines, I actually sold that one in my signature for $250, $150 more than I paid for it! I buy one every time I see one for cheap because they can sell for a lot more than it's worth. I put it on craigslist with no price just to see what people would offer, and after getting that high of one I had to let it go. I'm currently working on an iBook G3 500mhz with the infamous graphics issue, but I think it's going to have to end up as parts.

I'm currently running that hardware test, so far everything has passed, but during a few tests the screen completely freaked out showing all sorts of colors flickering and at one point showed what looked like a inner-tube I'd pull behind a boat!

rossmosis wrote:... but during a few tests the screen completely freaked out showing all sorts of colors flickering and at one point showed what looked like a inner-tube I'd pull behind a boat!

LOL...yeah that is normal. Let us know if it finds anything.

Phew! It looked pretty gnarly, at first I thought the whole program was screwing up but then I figured it was testing the graphics or something.

The memory test finished fine, but it still freezes during one of the graphics tests. I noticed that it gets extremely hot when it's on too, could that be the problem?

edit-
I took the 1GB stick out, leaving it with only 512mb, and it seems a lot cooler and is actually getting through the complete test. Bad memory stick or socket?

Likely a bad stick.

Try running the same 512MB DIMM in the other slot and see what happens.

How's the battery, BTW? These machines are known to randomly freeze when the battery is bad...

That battery thing might be true! I'm pretty sure the battery is shot. I tried booting a live disc of Ubuntu and it still didn't work after the tests working and coming back okay. I'll try it without the battery now

edit - I'm pretty sure the battery was the problem, as Ubuntu is working fine without any freezes yet! I guess I'm on the hunt now for a T60 battery as well as a SATA hard drive for it.

Just out of curiosity, I believe one of the PC-Doctor tests is for the battery. Does it pass that test?

Ah yes, it did fail the test, but I didn't think anything of it at the time as I just thought a dead battery didn't do anything--I had never heard of a dead battery in a laptop causing overheating and freezing! I bought it from the University of Wisconsin surplus that always has complete IBMs that are way overpriced, and then "for parts or repair" thinkpads/thinkcentres that are usually just missing their hard drives. I'm pretty sure the people testing it didn't know about the battery thing and just assumed that it was broken and just marked it down dirt cheap.

I'm thinking of buying this battery and hope it can actually hold a charge for a few hours--
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... K:MEWAX:IT