Need help with T20

[Msmax]

Hello,

First, very happy to have found this forum. Lot of exeperienced people her with quite some good tips.

I have aT20 with no signs of life. Bought this like it is.
If battery is removed and the powerbutton is pressed then the battery and harddisk led blinks. That's all...
It does charge the battery.
Tried the powerbutton trick already.


The person I bought it from said the CPU is defect.
What is your opinion?

Can I swap the CPU from a T21 to a T20 for testing?

Thanks for your help, Msmax

[tfflivemb2]

You can certainly switch them to test it, but generally it would be the systemboard, before the CPU. I have only run across one laptop CPU that was the cause of a nonboot. Everything else was the systemboard.

Although, sometimes the CPU needs to be reseated, so try that first.

[Msmax]

Thanks for your tips.

I had bought a T21 which did not start on AC, nor did it charge the battery, for a very good price.
The case was also very much damaged and the backlight of the LCD did also not come up.

I removed and repaired the systemboard of that one and fixed it in the T20 which had a nice case and good LCD screen. Also swapped the key bezel to show T21...
This notebook runs again for 100%. Installing XP now.

Now I will try to repair the T20 systemboard in my spare time.
Are there any schematics available?

Msmax.

BTW. The CPU was OK.

[tfflivemb2]

Unfortunately, there are no known schematics floating around for Thinkpads.

[vlyne]

Thanks for your tips.

I had bought a T21 which did not start on AC, nor did it charge the battery....I removed and repaired the systemboard of that one

Since the Senior members haven't said it, Welcome to the Forum!
Out of interest, what was wrong with the T21 and what did you do to repair it.
Cheers

[tfflivemb2]

Yes, welcome to the forum. I didn't realize it was your first post...normally, I catch that. Thanks vlyne

[Msmax]

Thanks for the welcome.

The DC/DC converters on board seemed visually to be ok. If these get damaged then very often this is visible on the chips, burnt or spots on them.

So I started to check the fuses and found fuse F2 to be defective on the board.

After replacing this SMD fuse the unit was operational again.
I installed XP home on the harddisk without any problem.
Just have 1 question mark in hardware overview. Something with ACPI or so, will try to download the chipset drivers later today and see if this solves the problem.

If any one has some more detailed info on systemboards: please share. The maintenance manuals are very handy but really not sufficient to do onboard repair works.

Thanks, Msmax