dead t40 1 long & 2 short beeps - FIXED! May work on oth

[willpower101]

Figured I should post this here. My friends t40 died out of NOWHERE a couple days ago.

The system would power up, cd drive sping up, light on, then give the long beep and two short correlating to:

1. System board
2. Video problem
3. DIMM

We took it apart, air dusted all the connections, tried an external monitor, tried different ram, tried taking the battery out and holding the power button for 30 seconds, and pressing around on the corners of the agp chip and the other one near it. (North or southbridge maybe?)

All to no avail. So as a shot in the dark, with the system being out of warranty, we decided to give a hot air solder reflow a shot. Low an behold it worked!

So for all you with dead t4x's that don't necessarily fit the profile of a loose video chip, you may want to give the reflow a try anyway. (it's in the "shuts down when I move it" thread stickied up top) This is the second IBM I've fixed this way.

Also, remember to reinforced the structure a bit after doing this. Once it's confirmed working tack down the corners of those two bga chips with craft resin and use the folded paper trick to further prevent stress.

p.s. I wouldn't recommend the candle trick as it could be one of the other bgas that's come loose and a reflow will hit everything.