Thinkpad X23--Very Loose Hinge/upgrade to 100G 7200 HD

[SFGuyx23]

Hello Everyone!

I'm newbie here so pardon me if I do something that I'm not supposed to.

I have my trusty Thinkpad X23 for 3 years now and it's still working pretty well...however, I'm encountering the following problem:

1) Hinge is very loose that screen is either fully extended 180 deg/or fully shut.

2)I'm also thinking of upgrading my 30Gig HD to a 100Gig 7200rpm drive.

What's the easiest way to go about fixing the hinge problem and doing the HD upgrade?

I'm in San Francisco....do you guys know of a reputable computer repair/upgrade place to have this done?

I'd be open to doing it myself....but searching through this forum...the hinge seems complicated....along with the HD upgrade which requires a BIOS update? Memory increase? Reinstall OS? (I have Win 2000 pro....no disk either...just the MS "Sticker" on the bottom of my laptop)

(I have a 256MB Ram additional on my laptop...guess I can upgrade that to 512....that I can do that's easy enough)


Let me know what you think!

Thanks in advance for the info!

[underclocker]

Hello and welcome.

1) You need new hinges, the operation is not hard, just do one at a time and use the IBM Hardware Maintenance Manual for exact removal sequence. I was able to swap my hinges w/o removing the LCD from the frame.

I happen to be selling two fine X23 hinges on this forum for $25 delivered. Here's the link http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=35952

2) HD isn't an issue. You can either Ghost your existing image to a new drive or install everything from scratch. You should ensure that you've run the Lenovo Software Installer to make sure the BIOS is up to date.

PM me if you want the hinges.

Good luck!