(T21) Screen goes blank, HDD starts to spin and then stops, and laptop stays on.

[CrazyTPFan]

Hi all, it's been a little while since I've posted here. I recently acquired a T21 for cheap off ebay. It's a P3 750 w/ 128MB Ram and a 40GB HDD. It's been working fine until today. The screen would shut off, the HDD would continuously spin up and stop, and during this the laptop would stay on. I would then have to unplug it and plug it back in to get it to come back to life. This issue happens sometimes when the laptop turns on, and sometimes when the laptop is already in the OS. If anyone could help, it would be appreciated. Thanks.

[kfzhu1229]

Is the screen itself still on? (I.e. backlight off but screen still displaying some image) If so, does it respond to your mouse and keyboard input?

[RealBlackStuff]

Sounds to me like a badly soldered inductor.
viewtopic.php?t=75693

[CrazyTPFan]

The back light will stay on but the machine won't respond to anything. It stopped doing it for now so maybe it fixed itself.

[CrazyTPFan]

So I took everything out of the machine to make sure that I would only get an error code for the ram and nothing else. Then, I put it back together and it gave me error 0175 and wont let me boot into anything. Any recommendations on what to do now?

[BillP]

There have been several threads about this on the forum over the years. This one is quite good: viewtopic.php?p=218045#p218045

Without the hassle of trying to rewrite the EEPROM, replacing the system board is the only option.

[CrazyTPFan]

I was hoping it wasn't a board issue, but it is what it is. I'm lucky I only spent $20 on the laptop and not anymore. How much are people selling boards on this forum?