Thinkpad R30 Mainboard Problem

[torsten_o]

Hello,

sorry for my very bad english but you are my last hope to solve the following problem:

I've bought a used R30 from Ebay which randomly restarts or crashs. After some tests with linux boot cd's etc., I excluded a software problem. Here my stupidity began. Instead of using IBM's PC-Doctor or something else, I decided to update the BIOS because this was a very old one (I think from 2002). I downloaded the current one and started the file under Win2000 (Exeptionally, the thinkpad didn't crashed here.) and after a restart I was in the BIOS Update Utility Menu. I started the update and first, it seems that all goes right but, in last second the update utility announced an error that something going wrong - no error code or something else - just "an error has occured - the update have not finished". And then, I was in the BIOS Update Menu again. I tried it a second and a third but always the same. There was no other way as power-off the thinkpad. And now the thinkpad will not boot. The leds for the power, the battery (if pluged in) and the suspend led lights, the drives powered on, but nothing else happened. If I hold the Fn-Key a few seconds the system restarts (drives powered on again). All in all no beeps and the screen remains blank. I think this is the worst of all scenarios - an erased (or maybe a defect) bios chip. Because of IBM has all of the chips firmly integrated on the system board, I see no way to change the concerned chip. But I have discovered a kind of diagnostic plug on the system board right under the pcmcia-slots. Is it possible to flash the bios or check the system board with this connector?

Have you some informations about it or any other suggestions which help me to solve the problem?

Thanks in advance,
Torsten

[underclocker]

Ouch! That's bad news. I've yet to hear or read about a way to fix corrupt BIOS. Can you return to seller since it wasn't working well to begin with? Or, sell for parts?

[torsten_o]

I have already bought a new system board and so the thinkpad is still okay but the current system board is a litte bit slower (CPU: Celeron instead of PIII). Selling the broken one wouldn't bring much money, so I thought I can try to fix the board without loosing money (if its totally damaged).
But I find very interesting, that there was a connector on the board and nowhere is it described. Does anyone knows where the BIOS is located on the board? Maybe if the BIOS is rigtht beside the connector, I can test the contacts and if they ends on the BIOS chip...

[vlyne]

What a bummer! It would be good to know what went wrong with the updating. I generally like to do updates from the DOS prompt.

Just to be absolutely sure the bios is corrupted, have you tried booting up while holding down the F1 key?

The only way to resurrect a toasted bios is to reprogram it or replace it but you'll need some exceptional soldering skills or tools for surface mounts. The connector you refer to is probably for the port replicator. I'm not familiar with where the bios chip is on the R series but on some models you can see it after removing the underside covers (network card one from memory). Some Ebay sellers offer a bios reprogramming service - probably your cheapest and least painful option.
Cheers