Unknown T21 Hardware problem -- trying to pinpoint

[Plinko]

Honestly, this problem started several months ago around Christmas, I just haven't had time to deal with it.

At the time I had Windows XP on my T21 800mhz Thinkpad [only upgrade was memory and a 40gig HD]. Rather spontaneously, it wouldn't boot up one day. It'd get to the Windows booting screen and just sit there. Eventually the hard drive would wind down. All I had on it was Firefox, a firewall, a free antivirus, and some EMS training crap--which was why I had it boot Windows in the first place.

Month later, I need it again and try to boot it up, but it still hangs at the Windows screen. Well screw that, I'm impatient, so I try to install the latest Ubuntu. That works for a few seconds during installation and then hangs. I end up trying several distros that I have lying around, including several live-disks like Mepis Live and [censored] Small. Everything hangs and doesn't seem to get past anything involving PCI. Now that's a vague description, so I can't imagine it helps all that much. I'll try to be more specific.

When trying to install BLAG (a Fedora Core 3 port), it makes it to the kernel decompression and heads to the PCI configuration. Here's several lines that I see right up to where it stops.

Code: Select all

Loading keyring
- Added public Key blahblahblah
- User ID: Red Hat, Inc. (kernel Module GPG key)
Limiting direct PCI/PCI transfer.
pci_hotplug: PCI Hot Plug PCI Core version: 0.5
ACPI: CPU0 (power state: C1[C1] C2[C2] C3[C3])
ACPI: Processor [CPU] (supports 8 throttling states)
ACPI: Thermal Zone [THM0] (51C)
isapnp: Scanning for PnP cards
isapnp: No Plug & Play device found
Real Time Clock Driver v1.12
Linux agpgart interface v0.100 (c) Dave Jones
agpart: Detected an Intel 440BX Chipset.
agpart: Maximum main memory to use for agp memory: 321 M
agpart: AGP aperture is 64M @ 0xf8000000
[drm] Initialized drm 1.0.0 20040925
serio: i8042 AUX port at 0x60,0x64 irq 12
serio: i8042 KBD port at 0x60,0x64 irq 1
Serial: 8250/16550 driver $Revision: 1.90 $ 76 ports, IRQ sharing enabled
pnp: Device 00:0b activated.
ttyS0 at I/O 0x3f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKC] enabled at IRQ 11
PCI: setting IRQ 11 as level-triggered
ACPI: PCI interrupt 0000:00:03.1[A] -> GSI 11 (level, low) -> IRQ 11
_  (here it stops, cursor blinking)

For the sake of variation, I tried to install the latest Ubuntu, and it hangs on the exact same message.

I'm obviously not a Linux guru, as the entire purpose of this laptop was to experiment and learn. However, I don't think this problem has anything to do with software, but I can't pinpoint it to fix it. I love my older Thinkpad and would much rather keep it than buy a new one.

If there are any questions you need to ask me that might lead towards an answer, please contact me over AIM: oncogenetic

Thanks in advance.

[Nolonemo]

Just throwing mud against the wall here....

If you try an install of XP, how far do you get?

Try getting hold of a BartPE disk (or make one on another machine) and see how far that will boot.

[schen]

Have tried taking the Mini-PCI card out and see what it does? I had a T22 about a year ago that just randomly stopped making it through the boot. After I tried a bunch of stuff (including reload), I removed the MPCI card and it was fine after that. It turned out the the card had gone belly up and was causing Windows to not get all the way through the boot process.

[Orevin]

There are a lot of similar postings in the T2x conference, try the search function or browse through the threads.

However, I would remove the mini-PCI card first, if present and reboot. It's a well known problem.

[Plinko]

There are a lot of similar postings in the T2x conference, try the search function or browse through the threads.

However, I would remove the mini-PCI card first, if present and reboot. It's a well known problem.

'

Sorry, at the time I posted this, I honestly didn't know enough to search for "PCI". I had no idea what to search for. However, now that it has been suggested, I can go back and search and see these people had similar problems.

Now it's just a matter of removing the mPCI card. Thanks so much for the advice, by the way.


Edit: OK! So I removed the MPCI adapter and now she boots up just fine.

[tfflivemb2]

Congrats, another happy ending!