Thinkpads.com R51 Project - (Pic Warning)

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#31 Post by **Harryc** » Wed Aug 13, 2008 8:40 pm

I just thought of something else we'll need - M2 × 12 mm, bind-head, nylon-coated screws, quantity 3. For the keyboard. Oh look, wibony has them

R51 screw set at Wibony

#32 Post by **underclocker** » Wed Aug 13, 2008 9:16 pm

Nice project! The FlexView is an awesome touch, I hope all (most) of it works. I have some screws from an R51. After you examine the machine, let me know what you need and I'll send them along.

Let us know what else you need after the initial examination.

#33 Post by **KristianJ** » Wed Aug 13, 2008 9:31 pm

The tale of the keyboard's not that long a story, Harry

(all that really happened is that Harry explained the situation to me a few hours after I'd sent a Paypal payment through and I agreed to a complete refund). After reading of what you have planned, I'm happy to have been involved as I was.

I had a Portege a couple of models up from that 3110CT - the RAM that it takes is a Micro-DIMM and they can be a bit hard to find (here in Australia at least - maybe it's in more ready supply in the US). Neat little lappy that would run Win 2K or a Linux distro very nicely

I'll be certainly keeping tabs on what happens with this and future machines!

#34 Post by **Harryc** » Wed Aug 13, 2008 10:48 pm

KristianJ, the Toshiba is a bit of a mystery to me since I've never seen one of these models. I did find these specs;

System Specifications
Bus Architecture PC Card (PCMCIA)
Hard Drive Bus EIDE & UDMA
Native OS Windows 98
CPU Type 300MHz Intel Mobile Pentium II
Model Comments 66MHz FSB
HDD Comments 6.4GB Ultra DMA, 2.5" EIDE

System Memory Specifications
Standard Memory 64 MB (non-removable)
Maximum Memory 192 MB
Memory Expansion 1 socket
Memory Comments SDRAM

I also found out that it takes a 128MB PC133 Low Density 8 Chip Microdimm. The most interesting thing is it's size, and the fact that it's ultralight and made out of magnesium

Check out the size of this thing.....yes that is a screwdriver in front of it...has a 10" LCD, 800x600.

Wow...I hope this thing has RAM.
It's very expensive!

#35 Post by **Harryc** » Wed Aug 13, 2008 10:55 pm

underclocker, thanks for the offer of the screws. We'll definately list what's missing when it arrives.

virge · #36 Post by **virge** » Thu Aug 14, 2008 12:30 am

PM responded to.

I almost shifted from IBM over to Toshiba when I got my hands on a Toshiba Protege. Even compared to the 570E I was using at the time, the Protege was thin and light. I really liked the docking solution-- similar to the Ultrabase, but much more compact. It even had a trackpoint!

The reasons I didn't switch: hard to find parts and awkward placement of mouse buttons-- that or I just have short thumbs

. It developed a bad motherboard and it was difficult to source one. Also, as you know, memory was/is outrageously priced.

#37 Post by **KristianJ** » Thu Aug 14, 2008 3:16 am

Harryc wrote:
Wow...I hope this thing has RAM.
It's very expensive!

The expensive RAM is the exact reason why I only ended up having the Portege for a couple of weeks. I took it on a holiday and it served me reasonably well, but because it had such limitations on the RAM, I sold it when I came back from my holiday. If it had regular size RAM I may well have kept it.

Below is a link to a pic of it with the T42 that your keyboard was destined to be installed into - the 3480CT has a 11.3" XGA, so yours will be slightly smaller still. It had a PIII 700MHz from memory and found it a bit hard to run well with XP because of the RAM; 2000 or 98SE are far better alternatives or one of the simple Linux distros.

http://img241.imageshack.us/my.php?image=020iw7.jpg

#38 Post by **Harryc** » Thu Aug 14, 2008 6:02 am

Kristian, thanks for the Pics and the information on the Toshiba!

Ship date
Aug 13, 2008
Estimated delivery
Aug 20, 2008

Website · #39 Post by **tfflivemb2** » Thu Aug 14, 2008 8:50 pm

Harryc wrote:Actually it takes Ultrabay slim...it just leaves some spaces open around the drive. Fully functional though.

Nice project and idea Harry...sorry that I am so late to the game.

Is wikipedia incorrect, in that it states that the R51 uses UltraBay enhanced?!?

Wikipedia wrote:ThinkPad R51
This page gives an overview of all ThinkPad R51 related topics.

<snip>

UltraBay Enhanced with the following:
CD-ROM drive
DVD-ROM drive
CD-RW/DVD-ROM Combo drive
DVD-RW drive
DVD±RW drive
<snip>

#40 Post by **Harryc** » Fri Aug 15, 2008 4:45 am

tfflivemb2, yes it is correct. Ultrabay Slim will also work, but it's not as aesthetically pleasing

.

#41 Post by **Harryc** » Sat Aug 16, 2008 12:16 pm

Today I received the AC adapter and hard drive caddy screws from sarbin. Also received the keyboard screws and Toshiba AC adapter from Virge. Thanks to you both for sending these!

Still looking for an Ultrabay Enhanced or Ultrabay slim CDROM or DVD drive. The machines are on track to arrive on Wednesday 8/20.

By the way, I have an Ultrabay Enhanced DVD Multiburner drive that George (ajkula66) sent me (for free to play with) a few weeks ago. It has a solid ready light when plugged into the bay, and doesn't read discs. If anyone has any ideas on how to fix that, please chime in here.

sarbin · #42 Post by **sarbin** » Sat Aug 16, 2008 12:29 pm

glad you got the package!

#43 Post by **Harryc** » Mon Aug 18, 2008 1:38 pm

Today I received the battery from spuddog. Thanks for sending it!.
We should have enough parts at this point to at least see if this machine powers up on Wednesday. On a related topic, we'll be needing plenty of (free?) storage for photo's for this project. I have very limited space at my ISP. It has to be perpetual storage. We'll want this photo record to last for a long time. Any ideas?

kajencik · #44 Post by **kajencik** » Tue Aug 19, 2008 9:24 am

What about creating sort of manually synchronized cluster of these? (as a webpage or only a directory of images) on different servers, and posting the list here in the forum? You could upload it somewhere and keep it up to date, and the others could download it to their mirrors as soon as something change. I can provide such a mirror at my domain: http://<something>.vede.net at my home server and provide about 20GB storage capacity for it, it's a core2duo machine running 24/7, with plenty of ram and two discs in RAID1, sitting on 2Mbit internet connection for downloading the images.

I can also provide unlimited web access for everyone (to download the pages and images) and SSH access for uploading he photos for people I know.

The main disadvantage of this could be the actual manual syncing from main mirror, but when everything will be fine, the data could be spread worldwide and almost impossible to lose, with only a few mirrors.

wakka2u · #45 Post by **wakka2u** » Tue Aug 19, 2008 10:51 pm

great idea, do you still need a cd drive, PM if you do... anything else? where you able to power it on yet?

sarbin · #46 Post by **sarbin** » Tue Aug 19, 2008 11:06 pm

^^^
i believe Harry expects the machine in-hand today (8.20).

#47 Post by **Harryc** » Wed Aug 20, 2008 5:16 am

The machine is expected to arrive today, and yes we are still looking for a CDROM drive. PM on the way.

#48 Post by **Harryc** » Wed Aug 20, 2008 9:45 am

OK, the machines arrived today. At a quick glance here's where we are at;

R51 - Is in good condition (8.5 out of 10) with no broken or cracked plastics. The palm rest and LCD are in mint condition. There are some scratches (not too deep) on the top cover. There is some sticker residue and (4) letters in white paint about 1/2 inch high on the top cover as well. No CDROM drive, no hard drive, caddy or cover. It's missing (2) of the smaller rear rubber feet on the bottom, and it's missing half the COA sticker, so no Microsoft numbers are left. Both RAM slots are populated with PC2700. I did not check the size of the internal slot, but the back slot has 256MB of Kingston PC2700, IBM FRU 20R1498. The hinges are tight. I popped the battery and AC adapter in and it powered up (fan too) to a dark screen. The battery charge indicator is on yellow, which means the battery is charging. I could make out the Thinkpad logo (boot screen) on the dark screen (barely). The logo went away after a few seconds.

Edit: The battery charge status light turned green, which means that the charging circuitry is functioning correctly.

Toshiba 3110ct - some scratches on the top cover, 3 or 4 of them about an inch long. The inside of it, keyboard, palm rest, LCD, look new. The AC adapter that I received for it is the wrong one for this model. On the side is a power jack labeled 'DC in 15V', with two tiny male pins on the laptop side. There is no RAM in the expansion slot, but there is 64MB onboard TTBOMK.

Edit: The scratches were not scratches at all, but just marks that came off with Magic Eraser. So, the bottom line is that the Toshiba is a 9 out of 10 easily.

This would be the correct AC adapter for a 3110ct.

Toshiba 3110ct Manual

So, where do we start? I can get pics up by this evening.

#49 Post by **Harryc** » Wed Aug 20, 2008 4:37 pm

#50 Post by **Harryc** » Wed Aug 20, 2008 4:44 pm

kajencik wrote:...I can provide such a mirror at my domain: http://<something>.vede.net at my home server and provide about 20GB storage capacity for it, it's a core2duo machine running 24/7, with plenty of ram and two discs in RAID1, sitting on 2Mbit internet connection for downloading the images.

This would be ideal for a starting point. Thanks for the offer!. PM me details on how to get to your server please and I'll try it.

virge · #51 Post by **virge** » Wed Aug 20, 2008 5:23 pm

Harryc wrote: The AC adapter that I received for it is the wrong one for this model. On the side is a power jack labeled 'DC in 15V', with two tiny male pins on the laptop side.

Doh! Either my memory is flaky or Toshiba changed it's adapter design when it moved these up to PIII processors... This is quite unfortunate because the Toshiba looks to be in good shape.

I guess the next step with the R51 is to find out whether the problem is with the backlight or inverter?

Andy

#52 Post by **Harryc** » Wed Aug 20, 2008 6:03 pm

Andy, thanks for sending the Toshiba adapter. I can return it to you. Please PM me your address. About the R51, I agree that isolating the inverter/backlight is the next step. First I have some good news about the machine;

I 'borrowed' an ultrabay slim CDRW from my T61 to test with, popped it in and connected the R51 to an external VGA LCD, USB keyboard and mouse. First I booted into BIOS, no problems, then I booted up a copy of PC-Doctor. The external LCD lit right up and the PC-Doctor booted right up. All 'quick' tests passed for the devices present in the machine. The keyboard test passed, all keys. The external USB devices worked fine. So, I am 95% confident at this point that the systemboard is good. Also, PC-Doctor told me that we have 512MB total RAM (which also tested good on the quick test), and we have an 802.11b/g WiFI card installed....Yay!!!!!! Once we get a permanent hard drive and CDROM drive, we'll run the battery of tests that Ray talked about earlier in this thread.

Now, back to the inverter/backlight thing. I am looking for ideas on how to isolate one from the other. Anyone?

#53 Post by **rkawakami** » Wed Aug 20, 2008 6:11 pm

Replace the original inverter with a known good one. They're fairly cheap and should be easy to get to. I could also suggest using my neon bulb trick to see if the inverter starts to fire up and then shuts off. If so, then I would suspect the CCFL. If the neon bulb does not flicker at all, then look at the ribbon cable.

ref: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=48910

#54 Post by **Harryc** » Wed Aug 20, 2008 6:28 pm

Ok Ray, very good. The part we're looking for is 91P7336, which is an inverter for a SXGA+ /UXGA LCD per the R51 LCD parts manual. There are (2) on EBay for $150

. Any other thoughts for a cheap parts source?

pianowizard · #55 Post by **pianowizard** » Wed Aug 20, 2008 6:30 pm

Harryc wrote:Any other thoughts for a cheap parts source?

Of course: the inverter in your T43. Cost: $0!

#56 Post by **Harryc** » Wed Aug 20, 2008 7:18 pm

pianowizard wrote:
Harryc wrote:Any other thoughts for a cheap parts source?
Of course: the inverter in your T43. Cost: $0!

, it's a 14" T43 and the inverter in part # 27K9976.

#57 Post by **rkawakami** » Wed Aug 20, 2008 7:30 pm

Harryc wrote:There are (2) on EBay for $150 .

Ah, good 'ole "IT Equipment 4 Sale. Decimate that price and that's what it should really cost. I'll look around...

edit: Ugh, looks like you have a fairly rare display... I've found some prices @ $55 but nothing around $20 so far.

pianowizard · #58 Post by **pianowizard** » Wed Aug 20, 2008 7:40 pm

Harryc wrote:it's a 14" T43 and the inverter in part # 27K9976.

I've swapped inverters, ribbons and screens among my 14.1" T42, 15.0" R50p and 15.0" T43p and haven't had any issue, even though they are supposed to use different part numbers. Remember that I sold two 15.0" UXGA-IPS panels a while ago? All the photos in those ads were taken by hooking up the panels to my 14.1" T42.

If I were you I would do it, but if you prefer to play it safe, then don't!

#59 Post by **Harryc** » Wed Aug 20, 2008 7:45 pm

Thanks Ray, I appreciate it. I found a 15" R52 SXGA inverter on EBay, P/N 27K9951, but I have no idea if it will work on an R51. The auction says it's compatible with an 1836-BBU.

Ebay auction for an SXGA inverter.

Here's the same part, brand new, even cheaper.

#60 Post by **Harryc** » Wed Aug 20, 2008 7:49 pm

pianowizard wrote:If I were you I would do it, but if you prefer to play it safe, then don't!

PW, I hear you, and I'm sure it would work particularly if say it will, but that T43 is my pride and joy, and I really don't want to take a screwdriver to it unless I absolutely have to

.

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