Recently obtained G41 - tips?

[Medessec]

Hello, I recently got a G41 supposedly as-is and not able to boot, but after contacting the seller and finding they didn't even have a power adapter to test, I decided to take it. I have had to get a bunch of parts for it, such as a new screen (the original 14.1" screen had apparently been damaged, so I took the liberty and just got a 15" screen to put on. Also badged G41), power adapter, and a battery. They advertised RAM, but it didn't come with any, or a RAM cover. I notified them and they said they'll send out some RAM asap. Which was nice. But:

I plugged in all that I have now together, the new screen, Hard Drive(actually a 32GB CF card with IDE adapter), and the battery... still no RAM is installed at the moment, but I just wanted to see what would happen if I just plugged it in and tried to power it on. The moment I plug the adapter in, the "powered on" indicator goes green solid, the battery indicator flashes on amber, the fan seems to go to max and absolutely nothing else happens. No beeps, no video. Not even on an external monitor. Which-I can expect with no RAM installed... but no beeps? I expected at least a loud warning beep, or some beep sequence to tell me, "you idiot, RAM's kinda important, you might wanna find some and install it!". The laptop also seems to heat up while in this state.

Pressing the power button briefly while the laptop's in this "state", does nothing. Holding it in for a bit does seem to "power it off", but releasing the power button afterwards makes it "power on" and resume this state. So no matter what, if it's plugged in, and I pressed the power button, it will remain in this state. The only way to completely power it off is to remove the adapter and press the power button briefly to turn it off, or wait for itself to turn off(dunno if it has a set time, or if it's because the battery dies... it's slightly inconsistent each time)

So I need to ask-is this normal for a G40/41 without RAM installed? Or is this unusual, and possibly a symptom for a deeper issue that could mean this computer is a dud? Or with some other unrelated issue?

Also-is there anything I need to watch out for in particular with G41s? any common issues or ordeals that I should be aware of? I plan to install XP on this thing once I get the RAM in, and hopefully see what other hardware it has. This particular G41 is a Type 2881 with the Celeron D.

[ajkula66]

No beeps when the machine is without RAM is pretty bad. You likely have a door stopper.

[Medessec]

Hmm... alright, I suppose I'll look at it some more, but I'm mostly just waiting for the RAM to come in, so I can at least try it with that and see if I get any different results. If none of that works, I'm certain I can find something to do with this thing... but I was kinda hoping to get it working, so is there any further possibility or anything I can do to get it working? Is there some sort of trial & error I can do to see exactly what is causing the problem, and then replace the necessary component? Such as... inverter, motherboard, etc? That is, if there is a serious issue and it won't post or boot, even with RAM installed.

[ajkula66]

Well...in my not-so-modest experience, a ThinkPad board that doesn't beep without RAM installed is most likely as good as dead.

You *might* have a dead CPU, but that's really about it, and far less common than a bad planar. A bad CPU usually results in the machine giving no signs of life whatsoever, which is not what you've observed so...

Good luck.

[Medessec]

Alright... thanks for the info. I'll just have to see how it turns out... I am prepared to take it apart if needed, I have taken apart older Thinkpads before in attempts to get them working again, and I have been successful, more recently very successful with a 770, but a G41... I dunno. I'm not familiar with the things, and from my understanding parts and whole laptops themselves are very hard to come across... which is kinda why I was hoping to get it working, but I'll just have to hope.

[schen]

Alright... thanks for the info. I'll just have to see how it turns out... I am prepared to take it apart if needed, I have taken apart older Thinkpads before in attempts to get them working again, and I have been successful, more recently very successful with a 770, but a G41... I dunno. I'm not familiar with the things, and from my understanding parts and whole laptops themselves are very hard to come across... which is kinda why I was hoping to get it working, but I'll just have to hope.

I'd tend to agree in that the G Series machines are very uncommon and worth "playing with", as long as you don't have too much invested in it. Based on my experience and the fact that for most folks around here takes wherever George has to say about the "big-bodied" ThinkPads as pretty much gospel, you probably have a dead MB. If the rest of it is good though, you could always wait around for one with bad everything else, but a good board and swap it out. IBM sourced those things from Quanta (infamous Dell OEM from their disintegrating plastics days), so you can probably find one eventually. Personally, I've always kind of had an affection for the bigger TPs as well, so have harbored covetous thoughts of the G4x in the past, but have moved on to the Z Series. The use of some desktop parts in the Gs is definitely interesting though.

I wish you luck with this project!

[Medessec]

After looking on the inside i'm not suprised something has happened-the second smaller fan is missing, and there's loads of dust in the fan system. I'm surprised the fan was still spinning... obviously this thing wasn't kept very well, but then again, I can easily see these things accumulating dust ridiculously fast, and being more susceptible to overheating, after all, they do have beefy, high-clock P4s and Celeron Ms.

Everything else looks okay, but to still have some G-series to mess around with, I managed to find a G40 to transfer all the parts I got for the G41 to. The G40 booted up and took Windows like a charm. I also managed to try out my CF card adapter thing on it, and it failed miserably. I'll post a separate topic on it.

But the G40 works beautifully, only thing I'm dismal about is the Intel "Extreme" Graphics, not really extreme at all right now. It's pretty much the only thing between me testing Windows 7 on the thing. But considering when it was built, it's a boss machine, and I'm glad I got it. If I ever do catch a G41 board for a good price, I might just pick it up, but until then, the G40 will do. I'm selling it though.

[schen]

Watching this stuff you are doing brings back memories of the pre-wife, pre-kids days! Now, mostly the main issue is finding places to store everything. Being one of the few TP Series I've never owned, I'm not certain what exactly is the difference between the G40 and G41, but at the very least, the CPUs will be cheap and easy to play around with. Attached to a dock, it might make a decent semi-portable file server if you put a relatively cool running Celeron in it. Maybe you can "underclock" it even.

[Medessec]

Lol, yeah... I figured after getting away from my parents, I can actually begin picking up Thinkpads to have and actually work on... before coming to college all I was able to pick up were 380s and 770s. And it is loads of fun-however, I'm wearing out all my screw drivers and tools I got for my birthday last year. And I don't have anymore spare SATA Hard Drives.

On topic tho-after some googling it seems the G40/41 differ in that the G41 has the Pentium 4 M, higher clocked, where the G40 has just a Pentium 4. The G41 can also have the Celeron D line(which is what my dud G41 has), where the G40 has just the Celeron. And of course as I mentioned, the G40 and G41 usually has Intel gfx, but the G41 has a GeForce Go 5200 option.

Other than that, they're basically the same. It's a bit annoying, as the G40 I got had a broken screen(wasn't advertised like that, sorting that with the seller) so I wanted to trade out the G41 dud's screen, as it was the same size and it worked just fine. However-I had the option of simply switching the whole screen units, which would be totally fine... except that the G40 would have a "G41" marque, as they put it on the front screen bezel. Or-go through the hassle of removing the front bezel as well, then switching that. I did that, to preserve originality.

I'm selling the G40 right now to see if I can gain some monehs back on the parts I got for the G41-however, I think the G41 may just stay a parts computer... since people always want too much for good system boards of the thing. I have failed to find one for cheaper than I got the whole actual computer for

[ajkula66]

On topic tho-after some googling it seems the G40/41 differ in that the G41 has the Pentium 4 M, higher clocked, where the G40 has just a Pentium 4. The G41 can also have the Celeron D line(which is what my dud G41 has), where the G40 has just the Celeron. And of course as I mentioned, the G40 and G41 usually has Intel gfx, but the G41 has a GeForce Go 5200 option.

None of this is completely true. It's a little more complicated...

a) Along with various Celerons, both of these sported P4 CPUs, not P4M. Big difference.

b) G41 was available with higher-end P4 HT CPUs, I believe that the fastest one was 3.8 or thereabouts. All of these are *desktop* processors.

c) Ge Force was available as a swappable option in 64MB and 128MB guises. Most of G41 units with these GPUs also sported a SXGA+ LCD.

Now, find me a G50 for sale locally and then we'll talk...

[Medessec]

A G50? Dang man... that would be something. Those have to be that much more rare over here than these... that would be interesting to see though. And alright, the processor laydown makes more sense. But yeah-the pieced out G41 dud has a Celeron, and the running G40 has the 2.6 GHz P4. The G40 I cleaned out and put new thermal paste on... I read somewhere that these things are more open to overheating than other laptops(no duh.)

A friend of mine was looking at these things, and when I told him they have desktop-grade processors, he asked if it's possible to overclock them. Do you think it's possible? I imagine there'd be some hassle with doing that through the Thinkpad mainboard or something complicated... and I'm certain it's not advisable, with Thinkpads having PSUs made for a specific clock and all that. But... curious. :

[aPanzerIV]

A G50? Dang man... that would be something. Those have to be that much more rare over here than these... that would be interesting to see though. And alright, the processor laydown makes more sense. But yeah-the pieced out G41 dud has a Celeron, and the running G40 has the 2.6 GHz P4. The G40 I cleaned out and put new thermal paste on... I read somewhere that these things are more open to overheating than other laptops(no duh.)

A friend of mine was looking at these things, and when I told him they have desktop-grade processors, he asked if it's possible to overclock them. Do you think it's possible? I imagine there'd be some hassle with doing that through the Thinkpad mainboard or something complicated... and I'm certain it's not advisable, with Thinkpads having PSUs made for a specific clock and all that. But... curious. :

G50 was only made in Japan I think. I think these used the mobile-desktop replacements, topping out at 3.467ghz, but if it has a celeron D, then it most certainly has a desktop cpu, they didn't make that series for laptops. I'd imagine its possible with software, if you have a desktop cpu then you probably have a desktop chipset.

[ajkula66]

G50 was only made in Japan I think. I think these used the mobile-desktop replacements, topping out at 3.467ghz, but if it has a celeron D, then it most certainly has a desktop cpu, they didn't make that series for laptops. I'd imagine its possible with software, if you have a desktop cpu then you probably have a desktop chipset.

G50 was a close cousin of the R60/T60/Z61 with Intel graphics...and yes, it was a Japan-only unit.