a31 and a31p lcd screens

[andmat]

hi
will a 1024*768 TFT lcd from a a31 work on a31p

thanks andrew

[ajkula66]

Yes, as long as it's from the 15" version of A31, and you have the original cable and inverter from it to replace the ones that were in A31p.

Why on Earth would you want to do that, though

[andmat]

hi
yes it is the 15" type and because i have a dead a31 and can buy for the right price a a31p without a screen.

cheers
andrew

[ajkula66]

Well you'll get a FrankenPad with all the issues that potentially come with A31p but without its biggest benefit which is an IPS screen...

Good luck.

[andmat]

hi

thanks for your replies but what are all the issues that potentially come with A31p

thanks
andrew

[ajkula66]

As much as I love these machines, they have a fairly high potential of motherboard failure, a lot has been written about it on this forum...

[gb_ibmguy]

I have to agree with George. I too love these boxes (see my sig). I've got at least 2 dead ones laying around here. At least one of them died for no apparent reason. The good news is that as cheap as they are, you can afford to keep several around for parts or backup

Good luck!

[schoene]

As much as I love these machines, they have a fairly high potential of motherboard failure, a lot has been written about it on this forum...

Which one, the a31 or a31p (or both)?

[ajkula66]

A31p was the cream of the crop at its time, but a well-appointed A31 is nothing to sneeze at either...my preference being A31p, but that's just me...

Troubles are, unfortunately, shared across all of the A3x range, with GPU failures, VRAM corruption and machines never waking up from sleep out of the blue being the most common "big" issues...

[Paul Pennington]

As much as I love these machines, they have a fairly high potential of motherboard failure, a lot has been written about it on this forum...

I don't know where you guys are getting your A31's from, but I have found our two A31's to be the most reliable computers we've ever owned. I bought two for myself and my wife when they were over 3 years old, and we used them for 5 years without a hiccup. We gave them to our grandchildren last year and they are STILL using them without a problem. I've been following this forum for years, and I haven't noticed a large number of failure reports. Look at the number of stickies at the top of the T series forums for comparison. I always considered the A31 IBM's most boring computer: they just work, and never need fixing

[ajkula66]

Paul Pennington wrote:

I always considered the A31 IBM's most boring computer: they just work, and never need fixing

While A3x is by far my favourite ThinkPad ever, there could be quite a few stickies regarding issues on these machines. The un-soldering of ATi GPUs that plagues T4x/R5x units was actually first seen on A31, and even more so on A31p. My first A31p (bought new from IBM in 2002) went through three motherboards in two and half years that we've owned it, and two more in the next three. It's still running, and is currently on its third-maybe fourth LCD. Since then I've buried and parted out more A3x machines than most people get to see in a couple of lifetimes.

Generally, early A31p machines (HxU) seem to give less grief than later ones (RxU), at least when it comes to GPU problems.

Standard A31s suffer, very often, from a failing sound chip, as well as from motherboards that tend to re-boot and shut on their own with no rhyme or reason...

A30 and A30p suffer from VRAM corruption more than their later siblings, and this - unlike GPU detachment - always equals motherboard replacement or scrapping the machine altogether...

With all of this said, I still intend to be buried with one of them by my side, along with a pack of Gauloises...