Repair / refurbish.

[Pavl]

When doing a complete reinstall from motherboard up including new hard drive.
Lenovo have a list of all relavent drivers BUT are there any recommendations from the board as to which are required / useful / not needed and so on ?
My Z61p died after a drink spill so have a functioning replacement body arriving to which I will bolt my WUXGA screen and fit a new hard drive. Have bought new (legal) Win XP pro as well.
Happy to trim the fat from the XP myself but would like advice for the foundation stuff on the Z61.
Thank you to Bill for the FAQ links to drivers and information.

[Pavl]

Z61 body arrived and now have one machine from two. Fires to Win XP pro from old hard drive.

BUT - there is always one - it will only drive an external monitor.
My screen was perfect and continued to show the power and battery leds even when the old body refused to function.
This same screen now connected (doubled checked against the Lenovo HMM) refuses to display any leds even though the body is working.
Any ideas ?

[Harryc]

Check fuses, particularly those around the LCD connecter on the systemboard. They are tiny, but a multimeter will measure continuity across them if they are good.

[Pavl]

Thank you Harryc
I will do that as my plan is to repair the half dead one with a new (samsung) screen and try to have as a second BECAUSE I have repaired my original one.
Part of the problem was a dead keyboard but also issues with the liquid spill getting into the sd card reader (no idea why).
This reply is being typed on the repaired original using a US spec keyboard - slightly strange to us English but IT WORKS.
So I will go hunting for fuse locations next - I recall there being some fantastic photos of t4 series showing every fuse.
Perhaps there is the same for a z61 ?

A happy and relieved thinkpadder once more.

[Harryc]

Perhaps there is the same for a z61 ?

That I have never seen, but at least you can test those that are easily identifiable as a fuse, .e.g. labeled F1, F2, etc.

[Pavl]

Thanks Harryc

I have a temporary French keyboard that allows the thing to start and I am waiting on the new drive to put new xp on.
So will be looking for all those little fuses.
Meanwhile -
Just installed latest bios for this z61 and put a funtioning card reader module in from the donor.
Everything seems to function but I am getting very very slow write read on my second sata drive in the removeable bay.
I think this is just a "soft" issue as the drive is only a few months old and has worked flwlessly before my "spillage".
Will post as I get some results.

[Harryc]

Just thought of something else. When you say you received a Z61 body, what is the exact machine type model number from the sticker on the bottom of the body? Same question for your old machine. It's a (7) digit alpha numeric .e.g. 9451-7JX. Also, did you swap the entire LCD assembly with cables or just the panel?
http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/product ... D=PD011793

[Pavl]

Ah yes HarryC - very good point.
Mine is a 0674-ksg with 1900x1200 UK version.
Body unit is a 9452-jru / screen missing but all cables included with empty "lid" and one hinge broken.

And - no - I did not think to see if that version had the 1900 screen as an option.

Meanwhile I am still waiting for the rest of the bits to make it run as a spare to drive an external monitor.

[Pavl]

And forgot to say - I bolted the complete lid with screen and cables from the 0674 directly to the 9452 body.

[Harryc]

ThinkPad Z61p (9452-JRU)
T7200(2GHz), 1GB RAM, 100GB 7200rpm HD, 15.4in 1920x1200 LCD, 256MB ATI FireGL V5200, CDRW/DVDRW, Intel 802.11abg wireless, Bluetooth/Modem, 1Gb Ethernet, UltraNav, Secure chip, IEEE 1394, Fingerprint reader, 9c Li-Ion batt, WinXP Pro

ThinkPad Z61p (0674-KSG)
T7200(2GHz), 2GB RAM, 100GB 7200rpm HD, 15.4in 1920x1200 LCD, 256MB ATI FireGL V5200, CDRW/DVDRW, Intel 802.11abg wireless, Bluetooth/Modem, 1Gb Ethernet, UltraNav, Secure chip, IEEE 1394, Fingerprint reader, 6c Li-Ion batt, WinXP Pro

They should be compatible ...

[Pavl]

Thanks for specs on the two versions. I am still waiting for the new drive (Amazon cock up) and the drive caddy plate and rubber buffers. When that is all together and I have the thing firing on most cylinders I will have a look at the fuse situation and see if I can face the exploration into uncharted territory - here there be dragons.

Meanwhile this z61 is back to full speed with new bits. Just tried to update the driver to use SDHC cards but the HP version does not seem to recognise the HC cards - no problems with anything else though - so not complaining.

Will post again when other one running.

[Pavl]

This is typed from the part repaired z61. Hard drive plate and rails arrived from Hong Kong and so it has my old drive (upgraded in the main z61). Very strange as the thing is just a body without lid / screen etc. So am cabled to the web and on seperate display.

At the moment it wont hold its bios date but I suspect that may just be the lithium battery dying / dead. And you Americans insist on having the month before the day - that is how you confuse an Englishman ! And an American spec keyboard as well .......

So I about to try poking about in the bios (no password) and see what I find.

[RealBlackStuff]

Not keeping date/time: install/replace the (small round yellow) CMOS battery.

[Pavl]

Some progress to report.
Have Linux Fedora 16 up and running alongside fresh XPpro install with dual boot.
SATA drivers caused some fun - so had to install under compatibility mode for the disk which was promtly changed to AHCI by XP so the next boots kept failing until I remembered and just reset to compat mode - got a boot and went to Lenovo to get the driver.
I am also running Linux openSUSE 11.4 on the other z61p - dont know which I prefer yet - but both are using the KDE desktop so I can find my way round.

Still have not replaced cmos battery - going to order it with some 17mm screws to hold this thing together. The first set that claimed to be for a z61 came with 15mm screws - and dont even start to bitr.

Better get on with some work now and stop playing with these machines.