T23 - two white-line crashes, now deadness

[jana_kazakh]

My beloved thinkpad has just started acting strangely on me.

Overview of specs are:
2647-2GG
with 512MB RAM, secondary battery installed
Dual-booting Slackware Linux 10.1 on kernel 2.6.11.2 and Windows 2000

An hour ago, it was running linux on battery power, and I popped it in my bag to relocate. On getting it out again, I saw a black screen, other than a white line perhaps 18mm down the screen, with a gradient upwards thruogh grey to black. it wasa complete crash, a case of removing all batteries etc.

I restarted the thing under Windows, powered through the mains. After a few minutes the same thing happened again. I fiddled a bit this time, and found that certain purely hardware implemented features were still running (I could adjust screen brightness, and the system beeped on removing the mains power. Didn't think to check the volume control.)

On powering it up again, the LEDs light up in the usual manner (including changing colour on charging batteries), but the screen remains blank. The fan comes on and can be heard to alternate between a low and high speed constantly, and this is all the life I can get out of it.

[edit]
in the silly-fan mode, the system *will* turn off on pressing the power button
[/edit]


I'm fairly screwed with it at the moment, but when I get home I'll have access to a screwdriver and will try removing/replacing the BIOS battery, RAM, and similar tactics.

Any suggestive input would be greatly appreciated.


Geraint Rowlands

[tfflivemb2]

Is the little switch that lets the TP know that the display is closed, stuck? I have seen similar problems a few times.

You can also try the FN F7 keys to see if the screen comes back on.

[jana_kazakh]

Success!!!

The tpad lives once more.

My solution was to open 'er up all the way and reseat the CPU. Reseating RAM/BIOS battery didn't work for me, so I went all the way.

Many thanks to tfflivemb2 for the suggestion, and the board as a whole!