G41 Motherboard failure

[SMA]

I haven't seen a ThinkPad motherboard that does NOT have a standing-up type cylindric electrolytic capacitor.

[RealBlackStuff]

Ouch, I thought those were transistors...

[Thinkpadp4]

I haven't seen any electrolytic capacitors (i.e. the standing-up type little cylinders) on Thinkpad motherboards.
But then, I have also never seen a G40/41 mobo. Maybe they use them there?

My Thinkpad motherboard definitely has a couple of those stand up silver cylinder capacitors on both sides.

[winslow]

I bought a new motherboard from thinkpadparts.com. It was more expensive than you were willing to pay ($190 + shipping) for the same exact machine. I have bought from them in the past and hve been satisfied. I bought a motherboard for one of my T23's and one for one of my T30's.
Seems like a waste of time from my standpoint to buy through ebay unless you are guarenteed a new or refurbished product. The bad part is if there is a system wide problem the newer board will be liable to the same shortfalls as the original as they were manufactured during the same period. For instance a new T30 motherboard might eventually have the RAM slot failure.
Put this site into your favorites the info available to you here is phenominal and the people are great and extremely helpful. Let me know if you need recovery disks for that machine if you get it to boot up.

[Thinkpadp4]

I bought a new motherboard from thinkpadparts.com. It was more expensive than you were willing to pay ($190 + shipping) for the same exact machine. I have bought from them in the past and hve been satisfied. I bought a motherboard for one of my T23's and one for one of my T30's.
Seems like a waste of time from my standpoint to buy through ebay unless you are guarenteed a new or refurbished product. The bad part is if there is a system wide problem the newer board will be liable to the same shortfalls as the original as they were manufactured during the same period. For instance a new T30 motherboard might eventually have the RAM slot failure.
Put this site into your favorites the info available to you here is phenominal and the people are great and extremely helpful. Let me know if you need recovery disks for that machine if you get it to boot up.

Some others have suggested it may be my RAM, CPU, or heatsink that is the problem. Not sure if any of those things would cause the laptop to just suddenly shut down and not boot out and give out beeps indicating a motherboard failure. I may try switching out a cheap CPU and apply more thermal grease to the CPU/heatsink and also switch the RAM or try some new RAM. Anybody know if bad RAM, CPU, or heatsink without enough thermal grease would cause the problems I am having?

It is frustrating there is really no way of even knowing exactly what is wrong with my laptop unless of course I pay someone hundreds of dollars to take a look at it or pay IBM over $500 to try and fix it which I don't want to do.

I don't want to pay $190 for a motherboard for a laptop as old as mine especially if I don't even know exactly what is wrong and if a new motherboard will fix it. There was a guy/company selling the 27R2069 mobo on ebay that was listed as new for $88 plus shipping but I don't think it is up anymore and I will try some other things first before I decide to try and put another motherboard in.

I will definitely keep you informed if I fix it and need recovery disks, thanks.

[Thinkpadp4]

I am going to try a cheap CPU to test if it may be my original CPU that is the problem. I have seen some really cheap Celeron CPUs on eBay. What kind of cheap CPU could I use on my G41 just to test if it is in fact a issue with my CPU as to why my computer will not boot?

[RealBlackStuff]

RTFM