newbie. thinkpad r32, is it totally dead???

[ali2703]

hi there, hope someone can help.

i've a problem with a thinkpad r32. it was given to me dead and i'm
hoping to fix it myself if it's possible.

the problem:
when i power it on, the power lights come on, it beeps, the
fan starts spinning, it seems to check the dvd drive and the hd light
flicks on briefly but then thats it. nothing at all comes up on the
screen.

what i've tried:
i've taken out the hd and linked it to my pc and it seems to
be ok. i've tried linking it to the monitor of my pc but that is then
also totally blank. i've swapped the ram sticks around and tried each
in each slot indivdually but still nothing. if i power it on with no
ram sticks in it beeps at me about 7 times so there does seem to be
some life in there somewhere to be able to reconise this.

if anyone has any ideas i would be glad to hear them. i've read that
other people have had simular problems but there seemed to be no
replies to them.

please help.........


just to add, since writing this i have read some other info on here and i have reseated both the ram and cpu but still nothing.

[daeojkim]

It sounds like the system board is toast. If that is the case you will have to get a new one.

The 7 beeps that you get when you don't have RAM is because when there is some problem with the RAM the BIOS sends message with beeps. Different errors will cause to beep in different pattern.

If your HD, RAM and LCD are OK, I would look for a system board on e-bay.

[ali2703]

hi, thank's for the reply. i'll start looking on ebay. any idea if i have to have specificly a board from a r32 or if any other's would also fit?

[SeanM]

Have you tried booting without the DVD drive in there?

If it's got a miniPCI card, take that out too.