Thinkpads Forum

I have found an old IBM Thinkpad 760E. The thing won't boot up properly. Whenever turned on, the laptop displays a flashing speaker icon in its mini-HUD display, with nothing audible through the speaker or external speaker. The display is black except for a brief moment where a corrupt looking image is displayed before fading. I cannot identify said image and it does nothing to the computer. Any ideas?

I don't have a solution, but it sounds like what can happen when a BIOS flash goes wrong, it could also easily be hardware related.

fultontech wrote:I don't have a solution, but it sounds like what can happen when a BIOS flash goes wrong, it could also easily be hardware related.

Any way to see if it was a BIOS flash? If so, any recovery methods?

Don't know if this helps, but I have a complete lid from a 760 E/X for cheap ($25 shipped within CONUS).
It has a 12.1" XGA screen.

Please note that this laptop was previously functioning recently.

Did the CMOS battery happen to leak? (the 3 button cell NiCd underneath the keyboard) Sometimes that can leak and cause issues with startup; also check the keyboard switch (the one that suspends the machine if keyboard is opened)

Had a 760XD which would automatically suspend, turns out it was an issue with the keyboard card (the one where the CMOS battery, keyboard and speakers plug into)

danikayser84 wrote:Did the CMOS battery happen to leak? (the 3 button cell NiCd underneath the keyboard) Sometimes that can leak and cause issues with startup; also check the keyboard switch (the one that suspends the machine if keyboard is opened)

Had a 760XD which would automatically suspend, turns out it was an issue with the keyboard card (the one where the CMOS battery, keyboard and speakers plug into)

To me, it looks like it leaked, it has that white powder. Anyway, how should I go about repairing this?

You could try cleaning the board with 90+ isopropyl alcohol, around the battery contacts, etc. (remove the battery, you don't need it to run the machine; I usually leave CMOS batteries out in old laptops because I want to avoid leakage and I can live with putting the date and time in on startup)

If that fails, you can either buy a complete replacement keyboard or just the sub-card and that should help... also keep in mind that these machines are 20+ years old and are starting to have issues with capacitors failing and you might want to consider a recap when you have the machine fully disassembled

I tried removing the battery and the machine wouldn't start, does that just mean I need to clean it? There is minuscule powder on the board anyway. Also, there is another single battery on the other side intact, should I care about that?

It might help to post a couple of pictures so we can assess the damage more clearly (get a picture of the keyboard subcard, the connectors, and the cable leading to the motherboard)

If the damage is too great you might need to replace that subcard unfortunately

So, after messing with the internals of the computer for a while, the thing finally boots up But there still is a problem, whenever I turn on (into DOS) half of the keyboard doesn't work, up to the j key about. I can't use Enter, Backspace, Semicolon, etc. Is there any reason for this, I was planning on using an external keyboard but then I released I need to buy a splitter. If there is any fix, please tell me. If there is any external keyboard adapter/splitter I can buy that works with this model or similar models, please tell me as well.