IBM (Zenith) Thinkpad 300

[solidpro]

Hey - that one is in such nice condition, it almost looks like a good machine! What a good find!

Yeah, I think you'll get away with just the 15.5V on the right pin. It's very possible the screen will need recapping.

[skaegget2]

Thank you for your answer.
Could I do any harm to the circuitry trying it before recapping?

[astral]

Not sure whether or not these will boot without those 5V "signal" lines. PSU P/N is Sanyo 232-423.
The thing that kills all the TP300s is the capacitors. The motherboard is full of them, and they leak. If you recap it and get the right power supply, it will probably work. On the 300C at least (not sure about the 300 grayscale) the LCD also MUST be recapped. They're the Sharp LQ9D01 panels which also have leaky caps. I own the 486 Zenith version of this laptop (Z-Note 425Lnc) and it's working great after a full recap. Very nice machine. Solidpro jokes about having future thinkpads be made by the same team that made the 300, but hey, wouldn't have been so terribly bad. Zenith themselves subcontracted Sanyo for much of this design, and Sanyo did a generally good job with the laptops they made. Solid plastics and build quality. The worst issues common with Sanyo laptops seem to be DC/DC power failures.

I will link below some photos of my Zenith power supply. I've yet to see a photo of the IBM version of this supply.
https://macdat.net/images/laptops/zenith/425lnc/psu.jpg
https://macdat.net/images/laptops/zenit ... c/plug.jpg