Thinkpads Forum

I dont know if the user had dropped it but a lot of drivers won't install, ie nic, audio, etc, system restore runs but any driver I tried wont install. In XP and w7.

I'm guessing the motherboard is bad.. Any idea where's the cheapest place you can get a x200 mobo ? I saw a few on ebay but they're asking for 290-400 !!! thats like the price of a used x200 unit.

rsutoratosu wrote:I'm guessing the motherboard is bad..

What you describe does not sound like a bad motherboard.

I cannot tell from your note your level of experience with these matters, so I don't know if you are doing things "correctly" or not -- e.g., do you have Administrator priviledges, are you using the correct drivers, is the machine free of viruses/malware, etc., etc.

A clean install of Windows (XP or 7) will, most likely, permit an Administrator account to install all the necessary drivers IF one uses the proper drivers for that hardware. I bet the motherboard is just fine!

What happens when you install the drivers? You do know when you download the file from Lenovo's website and click on it, it only unzips the file to the C:\DRIVERS folder? You have to go in there and run the setup file to install the driver.

A clean install of Windows will fix most any software issue, I'd recommend a fresh start of everything.

And as ZaZ said make sure you're installing the drivers properly, Lenovo is a little odd with their drivers and I was confused when I got my first ThinkPad.

What do you mean for driver won't install ?

Do you have unknown peripherals in device manager, or the devices are just missing ?

In the latter case you should check the connection between the media board and the mainboard.

I did mention I ran system restore, using the windows xp or windows 7 32bit cd. After restore, usb shows yellow !, ethernet shows and audio also.

System restore does a factory restore, I done hundreds of system restore using the factory CD and every one of them comes up without !

This is system restore that erases the drive and restore to factory. Not me sticking a xp or w7 cd and do a clean install.

Anyway I pull the drive and put it in another x200 system, everything comes up, detected drivers and install correctly, I put that drive back into the "broken" system and it comes back with ! Its the same x200 batch

Actually one more thing noticed while tinkering with the system,

It will randomly not post when you hit the power. The green status light is on but it doesn't do anything, holding the power down for over 30 seconds won't turn it off, I have to remove the battery.

It also randomly locks up when you see the Intel ME configuration after you get the thinkpad logo post

Now that sounds like motherboard problem. I had a T400 with similar problem before I finally replaced the motherboard under warranty.