Help Required. Blank Screen on IBM T43.

[josh4256]

Hello,

I am hoping that someone can provide me with some advice regarding my recently purchased IBM T43.

I stupidly trusted an Ebay seller to provide me with a working laptop, and despite pictures showing it to be fully working and booted, when I received it today, I found that on turning the machine on, the screen remains blank. I can hear the fans going, and the battery and another light displayed which indicates to me that it is switched on.

I hooked up an external monitor, but this went into standby mode so no display at all.

Please could someone tell me I am being an idiot and doing something wrong, or have I been conned (again) via ebay.

Any help would be most appreciated.

Thanks

Josh.

[ajkula66]

Welcome to the forum!

There's a variety of issues that might manifest themselves in the manner that you're describing, especially on a T4x unit.

Is there a hard drive installed?

Can you get to the IBM logo at all?

[josh4256]

Thanks for the welcome.

There is a Hitachi HDD installed. Unfortunately, the screen is completely blank, there is nothing being displayed at all.

[ajkula66]

Let't try this old trick:

Pull the hard drive out.

Remove the battery and the media drive, unplug the AC adapter.

Press the "power" button 10 times, holding it down for 10 seconds each time and 30 seconds the last time around.

Plug the adapter - but nothing else - back and try to power on.

Good luck.

[josh4256]

Hi,

I did exactly that, and all now appears to be working. Excellent result, many thanks.

I did notice just before that under the removable cover on the laptop, where there is usually a removable board was missing, and thought that may be it, but it is all going now.

Many thanks for your help.

[RealBlackStuff]

Print that instruction out, then frame it and hang it over your workbench!
It's the standard (undocumented) RESET that has brought many supposedly dead laptops back to life.
Basically what it does is 'emptying' the various capacitors in the power/charging circuits.