R52 Mobo -- S-Video during BIOS post sequence

[BruceDickinson]

My original post (below) asked too narrow of a question. More broadly, my question is: How much can I tell about the health of an R52 motherboard when all I have to readily plug into it are a cpu, keyboard, ram, speaker, mini-pci wireless card, modem, and monitor via s-video only? (I'm replacing a flaky T42 mobo with an R52 mobo, but I'm not sure the R52 mobo is any good. I don't want to tear the T42 apart needlessly.)

I just learned from reading in the forum that I should expect to hear some beeps if I turn it on w/o RAM, so I'll definitely give that a try. Is there anything you might suggest?

Thanks very much.


Original post below
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In brief, I'd like to know: Will an R52 mobo output through its s-video port during boot (when no lcd nor external vga monitor is attached)?

* * *
At greater length...
I'm replacing the mobo in my T42 with one from an R52. T42 still works, but it's flaky in the T4x ATI GPU kind of way. The R52 board I got for cheap might or might not be working (esp. since I accidently pulled off a doo-dad and had to do a little soldering work).

I'd rather not take apart my T42 only to find that the R52 mobo is no-go. I tried booting with the R52 mobo connected to an S-video port and got no video output. (The fan spins for maybe 15 seconds, then stops.) Should it output to s-video on boot? (I'm trying s-video b/c I don't have an extra screen to test with and the mobo doesn't have the vga dongle.)

Thanks, as always, to this great community for its help.

[RealBlackStuff]

You need a small cable like this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/IBM-Lenovo-Thin ... 0827746219
(sits at the top of the laptop, and goes to the right hand VGA port).
You plug that in the small white connector at top right on the mobo.
Then connect an external monitor.
You can try Fn/F7 to see if you get any S-Video picture, but I have my doubts.
(Never tried it because I have no S-Video cable)

[BruceDickinson]

Thank you, RBS. I'll have to get one of those VGA dongles.

I was happy to get some beeps (1-3-3-1) when I powered up w/o RAM. I'll try Fn-F7 tomorrow w/ an s-video cable.