Thinkpads Forum

hi,
i use an ibm thinkpad 390x laptop, 6 GB harddisk, puppy-precise 5.4 as OS (linux).
All worked fine some years, till out of the blue there was some sort of software crash:
i got not my normal desktop (GUI) with all the icons, but an empty one with only the floppy, cddrive and harddisk as icons.
The data on the disk was not touched, and i could save (backup) the data, the filesystem and make an image (with G4L) connecting the disk to an other computer by an ide -cable and an adapter i have.
I wanted to restore the original situation, but could not find out how.
I tried to install the Precise 5.4 os anew, from that other computer (i cannot install on the laptop itself, as the cddrive will not read cdrom disks (no self-written disks).
It must be possible that way, as i did it this way the first time i installed Precise 5.4.
When i put the harddisk with the installed OS (which boots fine on the helping computer) back into the laptop,
this will not boot, and behave inconsistently:
sometimes the IBM/bios screenn comes up, with the text: press F! fpr setup. When i do that, the screen for modification of date and so on appears, the date is reset to wrong values.
When i try to change the date values, the machine freezes immediately.
sometimes the IBM/bios screen comes up and freezes (no reaction to keys or mouse)
sometimes the sceen stays dark.
At some point before, i was thinking the bios battery to be low (cr1220), with da digital multimeter it showed 1 Volt.
so i changed the battery for a fresh an new one. This makes no difference.
When i put the laptop on (the on-switch) there are some leds burning very short (more to say, they flash once), then two keep on (one is the power on, it stays on; the other is the drive in use: it goes off after some time).
I believe the harddisk to be okay (as it works on the install computer), the cddrive seems okay too (it spins on 'booting' when i put a pressed linux (redhat) install cd in it, but after some few seconds it dies.
the machine does not boot from the redhat disk (which it should).

any help/suggestions on the forum available?
thank you

You wrote:
#1 "sometimes the IBM/bios screen comes up and freezes (no reaction to keys or mouse)"
#2 "When i put the laptop on (the on-switch) there are some leds burning very short (more to say, they flash once), then two keep on (one is the power on, it stays on; the other is the drive in use: it goes off after some time)."

So does that mean the BIOS screen does *not* come up all of the time, but instead a black screen? If the BIOS screen does come up every time but sometimes freezes, that means the integrated memory has a fault; desolder the surface mount onboard memory modules and find equivalent replacements or replace the system board.
If not and it's sometimes black with option #2, that means there's a problem with a cold solder joint somewhere on the FSB or GPU; replace the system board or try heating it up to reflow the whole thing.

I agree that the system board is probably faulty.
You could try removing all the plug in modules that you can (modem, network CD, etc) to eliminate any of those from preventing a boot up.
By the way you have to install an OS on to the hard disk in the machine it is going to be used in to get it to boot up. This is obviously impossible for you at the moment.
Your CD drive may be faulty as well.

Booting from a floppy into dos might be your best option for testing or even just running memtest from a floppy.

If you decide to give up and look for replacements then I have 390xes complete and spare mobos if that would help. I am away from home in Austria for a couple of weeks though.