T42p not booting from HDD or CD

[chansonbleu]

Hi there,

OK, I'll freely admit that my issue here is entirely self inflicted. The problem began when I tripped over the power cord of my T42p (2373-HTU) and yanked the power jack pretty severely. The machine still powered up and charged the battery OK, but the jack was really loose and the cord would frequently slip out.

To correct this problem, I removed the keyboard and keyboard bezel, then tightened the screw on the power connector. Unfortunately, I did not have a really good set of screwdrivers for this work, and probably applied too much force to a delicate area at some point during the process. When I was putting the machine back together, I performed a test boot with the keyboard and keyboard bezel removed. The machine still powered on, but would not boot from either the HDD or the DVDRW in the UltraBay. When I pressed F12 to select a boot device, the "Preparing Boot Device List" menu appeared on the screen, but simply hung at this point and never actually displayed the list of available boot devices. I was able to press F1 to get into the BIOS setup, and strangely enough both the HDD and DVDRW were listed in the BIOS as potential boot devices. I removed all other devices from the boot order sequence, leaving only the HDD and DVDRW as options, but still no joy. I also verified that physically removing the HDD and DVDRW from the machine caused them to disappear from the BIOS boot order sequence screen, so the HDD and DVDRW are still being recognized at some level. Finally, I disabled the "Quick Boot" option and went for the more thorough power on self test, which tested all the memory OK, but still would not boot off either device. Once the POST process concludes, I get the "Press F1 to Setup" screen as if there were no bootable devices connected to the system at all. I also verified that the HDD was functioning by installing it in an UltraBay 2000, loading it into my A31p and creating a Ghost image of the drive.

At this point, I have resigned myself to the fact that I have rendered this machine's system board pretty much unusable, though I still have hope that it might somehow be resurrected. The machine is out of warranty (by two weeks...grr), so I do not expect IBM/Lenovo to help out here. I have already purchased a replacement machine (thanks Kimo!) but would be very interested in hearing everyone's ideas as to the source of the problem and how it might be corrected. All thoughts and comments are most welcome.

Thanks!

Pete

[Brad]

Pete,

Sorry to hear of your T42p trouble.

The problem appears to be motherboard related.

If you have some spare parts it would be helpful to swap parts to find which one could be at fault.

If you are interested I could lend a working board to see if that is your problem.

Brad

[richk]

Is it possible you left the main battery in when you took it apart? Is it possible that the modem isn't properly seated after working in that area? Is it possible the wireless card isn't in all the way? Make sure it is completely reset. Pull out the battery and the power cord. Press the power button 10 times, holding it a full 10 seconds on the last push.

[chansonbleu]

Hi Brad,

Thanks for your generous offer to help! Yeah, I kind of came to the same conclusion - either I flexed the system board or zapped something while I was taking the machine apart, and if I damaged a trace in the board, I'm guessing even a reflow wouldn't necessarily help.

I don't have the machine in front of me right now, but I think the FRU for the system board is 93P4159. It has a 1.8 Ghz CPU with a 128MB FireGL GPU. The new prices that I have seen for these system boards are pretty daunting ($750+), so it may be more cost effective to simply buy a comparable T42p and keep my dead one as a parts repository. If I could obtain a compatible system board for around $500 or less (doesn't have to be the identical board), I would be willing to give it a shot as a learning experience. I ordered a couple of sets of T4x nylon-coated screws and some ESD precision screwdrivers from Wiha, so hopefully I won't murder the next one as well...

Again, thanks for checking in!

Cheers,

Pete

[chansonbleu]

Hi Rich,

These are some great troubleshooting tips! The power button trick is completely new to me and I will definitely check it out. Does this discharge voltage from internal capacitors or something similar?

Right now the machine has been pretty much taken apart down to the base cover, system board and VGA / UltraBay eject cable. When I get home tonight, I wlll reconnect the display, reinstall the memory, modem and wireless cards, then perform the complete reset that you described and see if I can get the machine to boot from a bootable CD in the UltraBay DVDRW. Does this sound like a valid test, or would you suggest something different?

Thanks again,

Pete

[richk]

Yes, but I wouldnt put modem, wireless in. Also, I would test memory cards one at a time. The purpose is to discharge the capacitors. It doesn't usually work, but it does sometimes. It is also free and easy.