The frankenpad of all frankenpads?

[DaKKS]

Some of you might know that I volunteer for a charity organization that sends donated corporate computers and other educational equipment to Africa, the Middle East and India. Basically I just clean 'em, throw in a harddrive, install Ubuntu and sent them off. Pretty straightforward, and boring, work. But I get to play with some interesting hardware every now and then.

Anyway, the most recent batch of computers contained what I believe is a T60 or some sort of knockoff. Frankly, nothing surprises me any more.

First thing I noticed was that it had a magnetic lid lock instead of the normal latch. Its neat, but not something Lenovo/IBM would do. Which set off warning lights in my head. The latch holes are covered by plastic. The palmrest is made of really really weak grey-ish, but black painted, plastic and wobbles quite a bit. The entire thing feels like its gonna fall apart if I as much as look at it. Model number is almost completely scratched off, but I believe it says 2007-JPX/JBX or possibly JPK/JBK, but those give no info on Lenovo's site.

It does boot up and BIOS states its a LENOVO (wasn't the T60 still IBM branded?) T60 and uses a 1.8GHZ C2D w/ 2GB ram and my guess is Intel graphics. However, after about a minute the screen starts flickering (GPU issue flickering, not backlight flickering), it gives an ear-piercing beep (ear-piercing, as in it could be used as an air raid siren...) and shuts down. It has confirmed Chinese lettering on the back, which at a a first glance, we've been unable to translate.

I've only had about ten minutes with it, I'll look into it more extensively once I have the time. The motherboard is most certainly gone though, judging from the coffee stains on the keyboard... Have anyone come across something similar?

[robert213]

Model number is almost completely scratched off, but I believe it says 2007-JPX/JBX or possibly JPK/JBK

Using BIOS Setup program,

Are you able to locate the Model No. from System-unit serial number?

[Tasurinchi]

A couple of pictures wouldn't be bad either...

[DaKKS]

I asked a colleague to snap a few shots of it. I'll upload them the moment he sends them to me. Like I said I only had ten minutes with it.

As for the model number/serial, my first though was checking the BIO. But its not running IBM/Lenovo issue energy star BIOS. Its almost identical to the American Megatrends BIOS in my eee pc 1005 and doesn't display anything beside LENOVO T60. You have all the generic stuff (specs, boot settings etc), but nothing that's trademark IBM/Lenovo.

I'm starting to think its not a Lenovo/IBM at all. I've heard of an atom based X200 knockoff (Which for the record, looks pretty nice), and from my experience with Toughbooks, i wouldn't be surprised if this is some sort of clone too.

[DRobinson]

I'm starting to think its not a Lenovo/IBM at all. I've heard of an atom based X200 knockoff (Which for the record, looks pretty nice), and from my experience with Toughbooks, i wouldn't be surprised if this is some sort of clone too.

It may be this one?
http://micgadget.com/10767/thinkpad-x20 ... old-skool/

Someday in the future, I may gut my T20 and try to retrofit an ARM board into the chassis. I think the biggest hangup will be getting the stock keyboard working.

[DaKKS]

It may be this one?
http://micgadget.com/10767/thinkpad-x20 ... old-skool/

Someday in the future, I may gut my T20 and try to retrofit an ARM board into the chassis. I think the biggest hangup will be getting the stock keyboard working.

Yeah, that's the one. Pretty cute, innit? Not bad for 300 bucks either. Maybe I'll ask a mate to buy one next time he's back home....

Also, the LCD will be a pain too. I've tried something similar. I attempted to retrofit an old toughbook with a modern DC Atom netbook mobo. Had an entire team working on it by the end, maybe a dozen people. Never managed to get it working. We managed to macgyver the keyboard, but the LCD was a bust.