R52 motherboard dead?

[leon_81]

Hi,

A friend of mine has a ThinkPad R52 and has been having some problems for a while, such as a message saying the C drive is full, even though no media is stored on it...


Last week he asked me to have a look as it wouldn't boot up. It was showing the IBM start screen then going to a black screen and staying like it. I could hear the fan spinning but nothing else. I suspected a dead Hard Drive, so bought him a tested 2nd hand one


While waiting for it to turn up I turned it off and on and hit the Access IBM key to get into the BIOS - it worked then after turning it back off and on again we don't even get the IBM start screen - I didn't change anything in the BIOS while in it


Am I right in thinking the Motherboard has failed and needs replacing?

Is there anything I can try before delivering the bad news to him?


Thanks for any suggestions

[ajkula66]

Welcome to the forum!

That R52 sounds rather sick given your description, but you can give this old trick one last shot:

Remove the hard and media drives, unplug the battery and the AC adapter. Press the "power" button 10 times in a row holding it down 10 seconds each time, and 30 seconds the last time around.

Plug the AC adapter - but nothing else - back in and try to power on.

Good luck and keep us posted.

[leon_81]

Hi, thanks for the welcome and reply

I've tried what you suggested and not a lot happened... The fan started to spint and the power light lit up, but nothing else. I was expecting it to complain about a lack of hard drive at least - I guess that's it dead then?

[ajkula66]

That doesn't sound good...

The best source for a replacement R52 (or any other ThinkPad motherboard) is this one:

http://www.theboardroom.info/

Good luck.