T23 pulsing fan on startup, wont POST

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vt01 · #31 Post by **vt01** » Thu Oct 25, 2007 3:50 am

My battery would not charge when power was plugged in. In fact it would just drain. Found one of these problem inductors near the battery connector on the front of the system board. Re-soldered and now the battery charging behaves normally.. very happy

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Seems there are a number of these inductors scattered at various places all over the board and are all prone to breaking...

JohnW · #32 Post by **JohnW** » Wed Nov 14, 2007 2:12 am

My T23 developed the pulsating fan with no post. I thought to myself, "no problem," because I remember reading about it on this forum and the only thing stock left on my original T22 is the cpu and the PCMCIA cage with one broken tab. I don't know about other T series, but the T2x series is as close to a regular PC with interchangeable parts as it come. There's even a hardware manual from IBM that shows you how to take it apart.

Anyway, I got my solder ready and took apart the T23. . . . to surprise the inductors are intact? What else could be the problem?

Pulsating Fan and doesn't POST.

Thanks,

John

I

Website · #33 Post by **tfflivemb2** » Wed Nov 14, 2007 7:44 am

I would double check the connections on those two inductors, in that sometimes that appear to the naked eye to be making contact, but there might be a hairline crack in the solder.

It really wouldn't hurt to touch up the solder joints anyway.

JohnW · #34 Post by **JohnW** » Thu Nov 15, 2007 5:26 am

AMAZING!!! It was the loose inductor. I disassembled the T23 again. At first glance the inductors look intact, but as tfflivemb2 suggested, I doubled checked them and indeed, I was able to lift the side of one of the inductors due to cracked solder.

A little soldering with my pathetic soldering skill, reassemble and AMAZING. . . boots off the USB into Debian. I am truly amazed.

WOW!!!! The T2x Thinkpads and the knowledge on this forum is amazing.

Thanks everyone.

Website · #35 Post by **tfflivemb2** » Fri Nov 16, 2007 7:42 am

Glad that it worked!

Robbyrobot · #36 Post by **Robbyrobot** » Sat Nov 17, 2007 8:18 am

I recently purchased a T23 mainboard described as "untested", and while inspecting it found that the lower inductor (not the one opposite the Intel 830, but the one next to the screw hole in the copper square on the board) is completely missing. This is the one marked "5R2 N22" on tfflivemb2's Pic 2.

The inductor next to the Intel 830 chip is marked "2R5 N27" on my board, and appears to be firmly attached.

I assume I could get the board working if I could resolder the missing inductor to it - but first I would have to get the inductor. Any suggestions where I could locate one? Unfortunately, I don't see anything similar on the T20-22 boards (of which I have several I could cannibalize).

Robbyrobot · #37 Post by **Robbyrobot** » Fri Nov 23, 2007 8:28 am

This is just to thank Ray for taking the time and trouble to send me the missing inductor. And to my astonished eyes, after I had soldered it onto the T23 mainboard and hooked the latter up for a provisional test, it POSTed without problems and the BIOS was accessible, i.e. no supervisor password on the board

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I hadn't imagined such a simple job would actually fix the board, and am really grateful for both Ray's help and for the previous comments in this thread.

Perhaps I should add that I used a 48W soldering iron with a 0.8 mm tip on a digital station set at a temperature of 400°C, and after applying a small amount of flux paste to both the pads on the mainboard and the tabs on the inductor, pressed the inductor onto the board with my thumb (insulated with a bit of paper) while heating the tabs one at a time as close to the board as I could apply the iron. Apparently that melted the solder between the tab and the mainboard pad as I had intended, although it's impossible to really see since the tabs are beneath the inductor..

#38 Post by **rkawakami** » Fri Nov 23, 2007 2:11 pm

A technique that I normally use is to first melt a small amount of solder onto the two pads on the inductor prior to mounting it on the motherboard. If I had some solder paste I'd use that instead of regular solder. Press down on the inductor and heat up one lead of the inductor along the side. When the solder melts, the inductor will drop down onto the motherboard. Quickly heat up the opposite lead but don't apply too much downward pressure on the inductor. Your goal is to simply get the solder to melt and attach the second lead to the motherboard. The final result is that the inductor is not mounted perfectly flat on the board but it is making electrical contact. I generally use an ohmmeter and verify that both leads are properly connected.

Wingnut · #39 Post by **Wingnut** » Fri May 30, 2008 9:54 am

I bought a cheap T23 on E-bay. After testing it, the exact same symptoms as others have described....pulsing fan and a white line accross the top of the LCD. I thought, wow, this should be easy

Well, I got the MB out and indeed did find one side of an inductor loose. Soldered it up and put it all back together. It did power on without the pulsing fan. Yeah. But now there is no LCD activity. I double checked all my connections, I swapped LCD screens and the inverter. Still no LCD activity. I also checked the lid closed switch. Finaly, I pulled my old CRT monitor out of the closet and even tried that. Nothing.

So, could I have damaged something while removing the MB perhaps? Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for looking.

EDIT #1: In my rush to get it back together to test, I forgot to install the speakers. DOH. Now I get the 1-3-3-1 beep sequence. I'm going to look that up in thge HMM now.

EDIT #2: According to the HMM, the beep sequence says its a DIMM or System board problem. I tried 3 sticks of RAM in each slot, no luck. Did I kill the MB

I don't have any more time today, but I will pull out the MB again and see if there is another bad solder joint somewhere. Any ideas where to look?

SMA · #40 Post by **SMA** » Fri May 30, 2008 1:39 pm

Hopefully you did check all the power inductors, instead of thinking that the problem was
solved, just because you found one inductor being loose. If not, then you might have to take the board out again.

About the white line across the top of the LCD, I do not think that it is caused by a loose inductor, but you will know
once you have made the machine capable of booting again. My guess is that you have a defect LCD panel.

I believe that the reason why the machine will not currently boot is because it has a loose memory socket.
That would be the first thing I would check.
The easy approach is to just re-solder all pins.
If you do want to see it, you will need a 10x magnifying glass.
Try to move each pin in a horizontal direction and find the pin(s) that can move.

Website · #41 Post by **tfflivemb2** » Sat May 31, 2008 7:09 am

What are the details of the ram sticks that you are using? Were they PC133 sticks?

Also, at what point did you first see the white line across the top of the LCD? It sounds like you saw it right away with the pulsing fan, which doesn't make sense, because with the pulsing fan issue it prevents the board from booting at all.

#42 Post by **RealBlackStuff** » Sat May 31, 2008 12:56 pm

Mods, there is a more current 'Sticky' version of this thread.
Can the new posts be merged into that, and this thread locked?

Wingnut · #43 Post by **Wingnut** » Mon Jun 02, 2008 9:12 pm

tfflivemb2 wrote:What are the details of the ram sticks that you are using? Were they PC133 sticks?

Also, at what point did you first see the white line across the top of the LCD? It sounds like you saw it right away with the pulsing fan, which doesn't make sense, because with the pulsing fan issue it prevents the board from booting at all.

Just as others had reported, it had a pulsing fan AND a white line accross the top 1" of the LCD. Once i soldered the component on the bottom of thr MB, the fan spun up no problem and I was able to get a 1-3-3-1 beep sequence, but that is it. No more LCD activity.

Oh, and yes, all 3 sticks were PC133. I even tried a 256 stick of low density PC100 just for kicks

.

#44 Post by **rkawakami** » Mon Jun 02, 2008 9:18 pm

RealBlackStuff wrote:Mods, there is a more current 'Sticky' version of this thread.
Can the new posts be merged into that, and this thread locked?

With the current version of board software we can't merge threads together (only split them apart). I'll let Wingnut's problem run its course then lock this thread.

#45 Post by **RealBlackStuff** » Tue Jun 03, 2008 5:56 am

Hey wingnut,
don't give up hope yet. I had the same problem (but without ANY display at all). Turns out I had to replace the I/O card assembly to get the TP going, and when it did, perfect screen!

T23 pulsing fan on startup, wont POST

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