T40 arrived - nonstarter

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dwilsonfl · #1 Post by **dwilsonfl** » Thu Sep 13, 2007 12:11 am

Remember the optimism earlier, well now it's gone.

"This laptop does not always start. It will start and run for about 5-10 minutes and then lock up. It appears to be a fan or memory issue."

was what the PO said. He kept the HD but sent the recovery disks, a good COA, so it arrived today.

Won't boot, even to the BIOS screen. Put a known good Hitachi 30gig out of my old T22 in it, freshly formatted. Reset both memory chips - even swapped them for the two sticks in my Toshiba (2700). Nope.

Turned it on while holding down F1 - no beeps, no nothing. Fan runs, battery charger indicates it is charging, power indicator is lit, fan is running, but nothing has hit the screen yet.

Any ideas? Guy made it clear it had issues, but "does not always start" would imply to me that it has or would sometimes start.

Appreciate any help you can offer.

The Spirit of X21 · #2 Post by **The Spirit of X21** » Thu Sep 13, 2007 12:15 am

I'm sorry to hear about your bad luck. The same thing happened to me a month ago with a T40. Unfortunately eBay auctions can be a crap shoot, especially when intermittent startup problems are noted.

What I would probably try doing is taking the RAM, hard drive, and battery out of the system, turn it on, and observe what it does (beeps, etc.) Good luck.

dwilsonfl · #3 Post by **dwilsonfl** » Thu Sep 13, 2007 12:18 am

Thanks, I'll do that in the morning. Just did the full reset and no difference.

mitchellst · #4 Post by **mitchellst** » Thu Sep 13, 2007 8:05 am

You may try removing the keyboard 1/2 way, and pressing down on the GPU with your finger while you power on. I bet it'll run for a minute or two. You're going to need a new motherboard though.

pianowizard · #5 Post by **pianowizard** » Thu Sep 13, 2007 8:06 am

dwilsonfl wrote:Fan runs, battery charger indicates it is charging, power indicator is lit, fan is running, but nothing has hit the screen yet.

I told you about the problem I had with a T41. When I tried to turn it on when the GPU was still fairly warm, I would get the same thing as what you're experiencing. So, let the laptop cool down completely, preferably in front of an air conditioner, and then try again. If you try many times in quick succession, the laptop won't have a chance to cool down enough. I suggest that you wait for an hour.

The buyer might not have lied about the problem, which could have gotten worse during shipment.

frankiepankie · #6 Post by **frankiepankie** » Thu Sep 13, 2007 8:08 am

Maybe this unit has the GPU problems, so open it up, and press with your hand on the GPU (graphics adapter) and try to power it up, while pressing on the GPU.

SHoTTa35 · #7 Post by **SHoTTa35** » Thu Sep 13, 2007 9:39 am

and if that doesn't work you might want to stop by here:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=49464

goood luck

dwilsonfl · #8 Post by **dwilsonfl** » Thu Sep 13, 2007 9:52 am

What I would probably try doing is taking the RAM, hard drive, and battery out of the system, turn it on, and observe what it does (beeps, etc.) Good luck.

what it did was - fan came on, CD went looking for a moment. That's it. Light showing are HD, power and battery (now fully charged)

So now I try...

You may try removing the keyboard 1/2 way, and pressing down on the GPU with your finger while you power on. I bet it'll run for a minute or two. You're going to need a new motherboard though.

Where would I press? On the ATI chip? There's no heat sink on it.

I have seen nothing on the screen since the laptop arrived, regardless of what I have done.

#9 Post by **GomJabbar** » Thu Sep 13, 2007 10:27 am

Try booting up a bootable CD and see what happens. You can burn the following for a test.

PC Doctor for DOS bootable CD - ThinkPad

EDIT: I now see that you have seen nothing on the screen yet, so a bootable CD is not going to help you. Shine a bright light on the screen and see if you see any faint text or images. Try plugging in an external monitor to the VGA port, then turn the T40 on.

SHoTTa35 · #10 Post by **SHoTTa35** » Thu Sep 13, 2007 10:28 am

didn't see if you also plugged it into an external monitor to test and see if anything shows up there.

dwilsonfl · #11 Post by **dwilsonfl** » Thu Sep 13, 2007 10:31 am

Try booting up a bootable CD and see what happens. You can burn the following for a test.

will do, downloading it now

didn't see if you also plugged it into an external monitor to test and see if anything shows up there.

will try that too

thanks guys

dwilsonfl · #12 Post by **dwilsonfl** » Thu Sep 13, 2007 11:13 am

PROGRESS!!!

Holding down the ATI chip and the fan terminus with my finger gives me an IBM boot screen! yeah!

Got the Recovery disk in, go with the prompts on all the recovery options. Starts whirring the CD and then quits with an "Error 88 Unable to find correct drive"

Does this with the Hitachi 30Gig and the Fujitsu 60gig I have here.

update -
And then it didn't throw anything on the screen several times.

Thanks

#13 Post by **Harryc** » Thu Sep 13, 2007 11:32 am

If it boots when you apply pressure to the ATI chip, you need a new systemboard as others have suggested. There is a way to reflow the solder on the BGA using a heat gun if you're inclined to experiment. See the sticky thread in the T4X section of the forum.

dwilsonfl · #14 Post by **dwilsonfl** » Thu Sep 13, 2007 12:01 pm

not seeing the HDs - either of them. Never comes up in system config.

#15 Post by **Harryc** » Thu Sep 13, 2007 12:06 pm

dwilsonfl wrote:not seeing the HDs - either of them. Never comes up in system config.

The IDE (hard drive) controller is also on the systemboard.

dwilsonfl · #16 Post by **dwilsonfl** » Thu Sep 13, 2007 12:11 pm

The IDE (hard drive) controller is also on the systemboard.

Yep.

So I have a good LCD, 2x512mb of IBM ram, dvd/cd/rw, kyb, case, 2 AC adapters, one dock, and a set of T40 recovery disks with COA for XP pro for an investment of $200.

Should I now invest another $150-$200 to fix this, or throw it in the selling forum and try again?

You win some, you lose some.

pianowizard · #17 Post by **pianowizard** » Thu Sep 13, 2007 12:19 pm

dwilsonfl wrote:You win some, you lose some.

Many of us have experienced that. I just lost some money getting a T21 with a BIOS password from eBay.

You can probably sell this defective T40 for parts and recover 70% of what you paid. The buy another T4* that's known to be in perfect working condition either on eBay or here.

The Spirit of X21 · #18 Post by **The Spirit of X21** » Thu Sep 13, 2007 2:23 pm

pianowizard wrote: You can probably sell this defective T40 for parts and recover 70% of what you paid. The buy another T4* that's known to be in perfect working condition either on eBay or here.

Agreed. Personally, I would keep the RAM, drives, and discs and try to sell the bare unit for $100. You do recover less of your initial investment, but if you had to you could sell the parts individually and make more money than you would selling everything together.

Brad · #19 Post by **Brad** » Thu Sep 13, 2007 5:16 pm

Would a T41 XGA board work?

Brad

SHoTTa35 · #20 Post by **SHoTTa35** » Thu Sep 13, 2007 5:56 pm

Brad wrote:Would a T41 XGA board work?

Brad

cerntainly would and he'd probably like that too even tho he'd need faster RAM. That's one good thing with the T41 and up... plus the fact the GPU issues don't happen that much as well as the USB issues as did with the T40.

dwilsonfl · #21 Post by **dwilsonfl** » Thu Sep 13, 2007 8:34 pm

well, I'll be posting on the marketplace to see what a system board would run me. On vacation next three days in Savannah so I'll have some time to decide to go all in or punt and try again later.

MB vendors, send me your deals.

dwilsonfl · #22 Post by **dwilsonfl** » Tue Sep 18, 2007 9:58 pm

Got back home today, and lo and behold I got it running. Did the recovery disks. Looked on my desk and saw that I never put the keyboard screws back in. Maybe that's why it is currently working, or maybe it is just waiting to strike.

T40 arrived - nonstarter

T40 arrived - nonstarter

Re: T40 arrived - nonstarter

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